Other Papabile. Tony Hendra, author of Father Joe, has this article (in .pdf format) on his website listing some of the other possible candidates to fill JP2's shoes. For example, this one should make Father Richard McBrien happy:

Belgian Jean-Paul Georges Ringaud, Cardinal Archbishop of the sprawling industrial diocese of Sprout to the east of Brussels is widely considered to be the standard bearer for the left-liberal wing of the church. Cardinal Ringaud wants to reach out to other denominations by canonizing Martin Luther and naming the first Jewish cardinal. He would make the use of birth-control a sacrament and declare a Feast of the Contraception. He sees no reason why the faithful should not be allowed to attend Mass via cell-phone or Blackberry. A Biblical scholar by training, Ringaud shares with reformist Dutch and German theologians progressive views on the interpretation of the Gospels. The most dramatic is the possibility - according to the latest biblical research - that Jesus of Nazareth was actually a woman. Cardinal Ringaud welcomes the hypothesis: as he has said: the world is ready for a ‘Ms.-iah’ He is well known in his native Belgium for leading congregations in a prayer he penned himself: The Maternostra (Our Mother). This gibes with another of his convictions: the Church has not apologized to nearly enough injured groups – for instance to all women for the existence of the penis. His first act as Pope would be to abolish the papacy.

Luring Home Schoolers? Article here.

"He was my Pope, too..." So says Lutheran Uwe Siemon-Netto here. I am in total accord with Siemon-Netto's essay -- please read it all.

Pope John Paul has given the entire Christian Church so much to reflect on -- in his actions, his example, his faith, his theology. I'm sure I wasn't the only Protestant who pulled out some of his encyclicals in the past week. My particular favorites: The Gospel of Life, The Splendor of Truth, and Faith and Reason. They are available on-line for easy reading or may be purchased for a nominal price at most Catholic bookstores.

There is truly no way to express how much this great soul meant to so many of us.

We thank God for him.

Sweet Sistine. Here are the papabile brackets. I'm not sure, but I think it's a venial sin just to view this...

I Coulda Been A Contender... As Christopher S. Johnson writes: "Since the Pope died, nobody's going to be paying any attention to ECUSA for a while." Let's face it, ECUSA is class D ball even within the Protestant community, so let's look at the interesting stuff; the big leagues.

Naturally, there's a blog out there keeping an eye on the papabile: "Dedicated to the discussion of the possible successors of our Holy Father, John Paul II. Papabile: (pay-pah-bee-lay), n., one who is considered a possible candidate to be Pope."

If you want to bet on the next pope, you can look here the current odds are:

• Francis Arinze (Nigeria) 11-4
• Dionigi Tettamanzi (Italy) 11-4
• Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga (Honduras) 9-2
• Joseph Ratzinger (Germany) 7 - 1
• Claudio Hummes (Brazil) 7-1

All odds, when posted, may be found here, at oddchecker...

If you really want to bet (I sure wouldn't), keep in mind the The Pignedoli Principle when reading the newspapers.

And, since you can't tell a player without a scorecard, here's a good place to look for the current information on who's who.

Last, don't forget about the prophecy of St. Malachy.

More...

Thumbnail bios from the National Catholic Reporter...

John Paul the Great. According to tradition, there are only two Roman Catholic popes who have been accorded the title "The Great." John Paul the Second (or Ioannes Paulus PP. II) should be known as John Paul the Great.

Now he belongs to the ages...

Update:

Father Richard John Neuhaus makes the case here.

Also, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, in the Requiem Mass for Karol Wojtyla, refers to him as "the Great."

I'm Caspian.

As Prince Caspian you are a noble, goodhearted but mischievous scallywag! Fun loving, you are admired for your easy going nature.

(via my wife, who is Tirian [I'm jealous])

A few things on Terri:

• I have read the 11th Circuit court's opinion and dissent and find the dissent much more persuasive, but then I'm biased, right? (opinion also here) Anyway, one of the most disingenuous points made by the two person majority can be found in footnote 1:
  

  Our dissenting colleague says that “the denial of Plaintiffs’ request for an injunction frustrates Congress’s intent, which is to maintain the status quo.” Dissenting Op. at __. The status quo is that Mrs. Schiavo is not receiving nutrition and hydration....

• While the Federal District Court Judge James D. Whittemore was a Clinton appointee, Ed Carnes one of the two judges on the Court of Appeals was a Bush I appointee (and blocked by the Democrats, initially, see here). The dissent was authored by Charles Wilson, a Notre Dame grad and Clinton appointee. The other Circuit Court Judge, (Ms.) Frank M. Hall, was a Clinton appointee.
  
• I recommend reading the special guardian ad litem's ("GAL") report, which can be found here. For those of us who support Terri's life, it is not favorable, but it does provide good solid background.
• Read "My Last Visit with Terri Schiavo" by Barbara Weller, an attorney who represents Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler.
• Other worthy reading NRO interview with Prof. George; Peter Sean Bradley (follow the links)
• Fast for Terri, if you can -- here are some options. Or choose water only.
  

Finally, doesn't death by starvation seem really, really cruel? And, umm, unusual? I mean why not just give her a lethal injection and be done with it? Mr. Bradley addresses the active/inactive fiction that the cult(ure) of death advocates are using to wash their hands and keep their conscience clean.

You wouldn't treat a dog like this...

Heh. (via Captain Yip).

I dissent. Think of me as the nine and three-quarters justice:

BROWN V. PAYTON (03-1039)
346 F.3d 1204, reversed.

At the beginning of this month, the court in a clear case of judicial overreach, struck down all death sentences imposed on minors. Roper v. Simmons. Apparently wanting to show that he was not a cheese-eating surrender monkey (audio), Justice Kennedy, of Rubicon fame, upheld a sentence of death after the prosecutor repeatedly lied to the jurors about what could and could not be considered as mitigation in the penalty phase of the case.

Specifically, as Kennedy himself notes,

In his closing, the prosecutor offered jurors his opinion that factor (k) did not allow them to consider anything that happened “after the [crime] or later.” Id., at 68. The parties do not now dispute that this was a misstatement of law.

One must see the dissenting opinion by Justice Souter to see how persistent and egregious this "misstatement of law" was. See § II.

It could be that the jury could have come back with the exact same sentence, even if the prosecutor hadn't lied to the jury, but we will never know. For the Court today has held that a prosecutor, the agent of the state, can mislead a jury in a capital case and allow him to trick that jury into thinking it must disregard all mitigating behavior following the crime.

What is surprising is that he didn't cite to well-settled law in places such as Cuba, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam.

Ahh, the sweet mysteries of life.

"They fought me at every turn." This has to be the weirdest thing yet: according to Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold the axis of evil runs squarely through my church:

Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold identified by name six Episcopalians for having detrimentally influenced the course of the primates’ meeting in remarks to the House of Bishops at their March 11-17 spring retreat at Camp Allen in Navasota, Texas.

The devil is a liar and the father of lies and the devil was certainly moving about Dromantine, the site of the primates’ meeting in Northern Ireland, the presiding Bishop said, according to accounts from several bishops who spoke to THE LIVING CHURCH on the condition that their names not be revealed. The primates were “out for blood,” Bishop Griswold told them.

The Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh; the Rev. Canon Bill Atwood, general secretary of the Ekklesia Society; the Rev. Canon Martyn Minns, rector of Truro Parish, Fairfax, Va.; the Rev. Canon David Anderson, president of the American Anglican Council; the Rev. Canon Kendall Harmon, canon theologian of the Diocese of South Carolina; and Diane Knippers, president of the Institute for Religion and Democracy, were singled out for opprobrium by the Presiding Bishop for their behind-the-scenes roles at Dromantine.

Of this gang of six, two, Minns and Knippers are at Truro Church.

I told my daughter last night after picking her up from dance at Truro -- we didn't see those shady characters around -- and she and I just laughed, incredulously.

This is just so weird -- is Frank having a breakdown? Is this his strawberries moment?

("I know exactly what he'll tell you, lies. He was no different from any other officer in the ward room, they were all disloyal. I tried to run the ship properly, by the book, but they fought me at every turn. . . . But they encouraged the crew to go around scoffing at me, and spreading wild rumors about steaming in circles, and then old yellow-strain. I was to blame for Lt. Maryk's incompetence and poor seamanship. Lt. Maryk was the perfect officer, but not Captain Queeg. Ah, but the strawberries, that's where I had them, they laughed at me and made jokes, but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, with geometric logic, that a duplicate key to the ward room icebox did exist, and I've had produced that key if they hadn't pulled the Caine out of action. I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officer . . . Naturally, I can only cover these things from memory. If I've left anything out, why, just ask me specific questions and I'll be glad to answer them one by one.")

(information thanks, as always, to Kendall Harmon and Christopher Johnson.)

I've lost my blither... Ever since I got the news from my sister about her husband leaving her, I've been in a massive funk. Yeah, work's been tough and we've all been sick, which hasn't helped things, but really, every time I write something, it rings hollow or not true somehow...

... so, I'm taking a break from posting until my writing looks better.

Until then I'll be lurking...

(...and praying...)

Hotchpot. Some things of interest...

• The WSJ had an interesting note about the remodeling of two church buildings. Surprisingly, the Episcopal stucture appears to be more faithful.
• The Boston Globe on left-wing evangelical Jim Wallis.
• Dorm Brothels by Vigen Guroian and Frederica's reaction.
• William Bennett on Bush's Mandate.
  

HOF Finalists. This years Hall of Fame finalists were announced Tuesday. Dan Marino is a sure thing. Steve Young will probably be, but I wouldn't vote for him this year. You can't have two QBs go in in one year -- there should be a rule that says that.

So who else? Art Monk (940 receptions / 12,721 receiving yards) should be there, but probably won't. Yet if Monk doesn't make it, how can Michael Irvin (750 rec./ 11,900 yds) get in? (Of course, both lapped Lynn Swann [336/5,462], but that's another story.) [stats here] .

Yeah, but what about the real players, the offensive linemen? Guards Bob Kuechenberg and Russ Grimm. I'd put 'em both in. They'd both get my vote -- the one-at-a-time rule only applies to QBs, not linemen. If I had to pick Kuech this year, Grimm next.

On defense, I'd give the nod to first year nominee Derrick Thomas who was awesome at linebacker. The other linebacker nominated, Harry Carson, was very, very good, but not great enough to tip the scale. He had the advantage of playing for a great defense, a winning team.

This is something that Cardinal DB Roger Wehrli (although he did play beside the great number 8 for a few of those years) didn't have. I would pass over Wehrli in favor of Lester Hayes, but Lester didn't make the list this year.

Then there are three defensive ends: Richard Dent, Claude Humphrey, and L.C. Greenwood. All very, very good, however, none gets my vote this year. Dent should probably make it some year; he has the same advantage Carson had, playing for a great defense, yet it could be argued that he was the one who really made it great. L.C. Greenwood played on what was probably the greatest defense of all time -- trade places with Humphrey on Atlanta and see how he would do.

My votes:
1. Marino
2. Monk
3. Derrick Thomas
4. Kuechenberg

if you give me more, it would be:
5. Grimm
6. Lester Hayes (again, not on list)
7. Dent

Modern History Lesson. Mark Byron labels himself a "Bapticostal." What would a holy-roller Episcopalian call himself? Fr. Dennis Bennett, a major tool in the hands of the Holy Spirit (regarding the Episcopal Church) called them "Charismatics." Yesterday, the Washington Times had a good introduction to one of the truly influential books on the charismatic renewal: John Sherrill's They Speak With Other Tongues, still in print after 40 years. Fr. Bennett's book Nine O'Clock in the Morning is also still in print.

Sherrill's book (along with the Cross and the Switchblade) had a huge impact on the Catholic Church beginning in the 1960's at the famous "Duquesne weekend." This led, among other things to the founding of the Word of God community in Ann Arbor, MI. Pope John Paul II has embraced the Charismatic renewal saying,

The emergence of the Renewal following the Second Vatican Council was a
particular gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church. It was a sign of a desire on
the part of many Catholics to live more fully their Baptismal dignity and
vocation as adopted sons and daughters of the Father, to know the redeeming
power of Christ our Saviour in a more intense experience of individual and group
prayer, and to follow the teaching of the Scriptures by reading them in the
light of the same Spirit who inspired their writing. Certainly one of the most
important results of this spiritual reawakening has been that increased thirst
for holiness which is seen in the lives of individuals and in the whole Church

If you're interested in more on the subject, I recommend Richard Quebedeaux's The New Charismatics (1976).

R.I.P. My daughter came to me late this afternoon and wanted to know if radio stations ever just went off the air permanently. I asked why and she said she'd turned in 99.1 and it now seemed to be playing Spanish music. For the past few weeks we've have a running battle going over 99.1 because every time she'd want to listen to it in the car, it was playing rap or hip-hop -- and not good rap or hip hop. So I said good riddance. She wanted to call the station but couldn't find the listing in the phone book. I asked what were the call letters and she said "WHFS." It was then that it hit me.

WHFS used to be a great station, but in the past few years it seemed to go downhill and I hadn't realized it was the same one as 99.1 (I know it doesn't make sense but the station and I must've drifted apart without realizing it). Anyway, she looked it up, called and didn't get an answer -- but we soon figured out that it was indeed gone -- without warning. Now it's "El Zol."

The WaPo had a nice time of rememberance on-line today -- here's the transcript.

Like I said, 'HFS had already disappeared years ago, today just confirms the reality. Still, it will be missed.

More here.

Tireblogging. Since tireblogging seems to be all the rage, I should relate my tire story. Last night, I got a call from my wife who hit a pothole and blew out the tire. I grabbed my gloves and drove out to meet her and change the tire. It's a Toyota Sienna, so the spare and tools were difficult to find (it turns out you lift one of the seats and loosen a nut to lower the spare from underneath the van). Plus it was dark and wet. But we took care of things and she took the girls home in my car, while I took her van to the shop for repair. On the way, I realized that I had taken a lot longer than I had planned and there was no way to get Joe to wrestling practice last night, so I told him that we were going to miss it.

"We had wrestling tonight?" he asked.

"Well, yeah, it's Thursday night."

"But it's Epiphany -- they have wrestling on Epiphany?"

Yeah, wrestlers don't seem to take many breaks, do they?

After leaving the van at the shop (which means this isn't really tireblogging), my wife came and picked us up. At home, she and the kids all had the rosca, which our neighbor had dropped off. In our house, we never take down the tree until after El Dia de los Reyes.

I'm hoping the influx of Mexican culture will help to give the Epiphany and the twelve feast days of Christmas greater prominence.

Best Movies - 2004. Realizing I haven't seen all the movies released in 2004 -- indeed, who has?* -- here is my list of favorite movies from the past year:

1. The Incredibles. I'm almost ashamed to admit that this beat out a fabulous movie which would've been number one in almost any other year, but it is everything a movie should be.
2. The Passion of the Christ. I know, I know, I'm a heretic to not rank this as number one, but it is so emotionally draining, that it is not a movie I want to see again and again. If this were Oscar voting or something I would rank this as number one, but I've got to give the prime spot here to the Incredibles. However, after these two, there is a steep drop off.
   
3. Peter Pan. Okay, this was released in 2003, but at the end of the year and I didn't see it until this year.
4. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Still a big drop off from Peter Pan. I might rank this as higher than Pan, but I've read the book and I know how much better the book was than the movie.
5. The Notebook. Sweet movie -- James Garner was terrific.
6. Miracle. Well, really a great story.
   
7. Umm... that's it. I did see other movies, Butterfly Effect, Spiderman II, I Robot, Troy, etc. but none of them qualifies, IMHO, for a best of 2004 list.

* Apparently, no one has. Here's an article about a flick that only showed in Grand Rapids, MI last year, despite having heavy-weight actors Joe Mantegna and Anne Archer. The film is called Uncle Nino. The good news is that its being picked up for national distribution.

Oh, and when reading the article overlook the mistake calling Spidy 2, Superman II.

Theodicy - Tsunami Edition. The problem of evil which presents a question so difficult it gets it's own word - theodicy - has come to the fore with the terrible tragedy in the Indian Ocean region. Arts and Letters poses the issue (borrowing from MacLeish): "If God is God, he's not good. If God is good, he's not God. You can't have it both ways, especially not after the Indian Ocean catastrophe." Is this right?

Interestingly, one of the best responses is in a very short essay published in the Journal of Mammon by David B. Hart who observes: "When confronted by the sheer savage immensity of worldly suffering--when we see the entire littoral rim of the Indian Ocean strewn with tens of thousands of corpses, a third of them children's--no Christian is licensed to utter odious banalities about God's inscrutable counsels or blasphemous suggestions that all this mysteriously serves God's good ends."

On the other hand, Jeff Jacoby disagrees, while arguing for God's sovereignty, says we can be angry with Him: "To wrestle with God is not to abandon Him. To protest against the unearned suffering He inflicts or permits is not to reject His message -- quite the opposite."

That little phrase "or permits" is where I think Hart, Jacoby and I agree. And I appreciate Jacoby's message because this is one of many messages of the Scriptures: God is a loving God who does allow his creation to wrestle with Him.

Some of the other essays responding to the Tsunami and the problem of God: Michael Novak, Rowan Williams, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, Ron Rosenbaum, Edward Spence, and others. As always, GetReligion has a great summary of the writings on the religion pages (with links).

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, notes, in the opening of his essay: "...but what most painfully reaches our feelings is the individual face of loss and terror." Alex Beam reflects on this issue, as memorably summed up by Josef Stalin: "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." While that may be a reflection of our human limitation on grasping a million tragedies, I believe that the Lord does feel each and every tragedy. And he weeps.


Theodicy on the Web:

• Catholic Encyclopaedia
• Wikipedia
• Gottfried W. Leibnitz

More

I debated putting in a link to Simon Winchester's article on the pagan response, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Gaia" but didn't because my link took me to the archives (and a 50 word abstract). However, I found another link that takes you to the entire article.

In addition, since I started writing this note, GetReligion now has additional entries on the theodicy question.

Welcome to Canada, eh?

Top 10 -- College Football. Without a doubt, it's SoCal -- I went to bed at halftime (like most of the eastern seaboard, I'm sure) with USC ahead 38-10. I see the final score was 55-19. Sorry Auburn, but the Trojans made their case, you're number 2. By bearly beating Va.Tech, you're lucky to be there and not number 3, which I'll give to Utah.

The rest of the top 10, in my opinion, is
4. Oklahoma
5. Iowa
6. Texas
7. Virginia Tech
8. Georgia
9. Louisville
10. Cal.

Here's the AP rankings and here are the ESPN/USAT polls.

Triple Whammy. Sorry for not being around for the past few weeks -- I got hit by a triple whammy: sick (with a lingering bad cold/sore throat -- into my third week with it), work, and a personal thing that has me not wanting to chat. Basically, my sister's husband has decided he's not happy (or in love), so he's pulling an Amy Grant and moving out. I guess he thinks by devastating my sister and their three kids, he will find happiness.

Pray for her, for the kids, and for her husband. Abandonment of one's responsibilities does not lead to happiness.

USAToday is making a mistake. Walter Shapiro's nine year run ends today -- he will be missed, but I know a smart editor will pick him up. As I noted back in 2002, he wrote one of the best columns explaining the partisan divisions in the USA in this May 1, 1998 column.

In today's final column Mr. Shapiro notes

I also cherish the dialogue, which admittedly sometimes became fractious, that I had with readers. From the moment that I published my e-mail address at the bottom of this column, my goal had been to respond to every reader comment with a personal message. As is often the case with such high-minded intentions, I sometimes became overwhelmed by the volume of e-mail that I received.

I can affirm, from personal experience, that this was the case -- I was (pleasantly) surprised to see his reply to a message I sent once.

He will be missed, but hopefully for not long.

Sgt. Rafael Peralta, USMC. This is from the Marine Corps website, in it's entirety:

FALLUJAH, Iraq (Dec. 02, 2004) -- "You’re still here, don’t forget that. Tell your kids, your grandkids, what Sgt. Peralta did for you and the other Marines today."

As a combat correspondent, I was attached to Company A, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment for Operation Al Fajr, to make sure the stories of heroic actions and the daily realities of battle were told.

On this day, I found myself without my camera. With the batteries dead, I decided to leave the camera behind and live up to the ethos "every Marine a rifleman," by volunteering to help clear the fateful buildings that lined streets.

After seven days of intense fighting in Fallujah, the Marines of 1/3 embraced a new day with a faceless enemy.

We awoke November 15, 2004, around day-break in the abandoned, battle-worn house we had made our home for the night. We shaved, ate breakfast from a Meal, Ready-to-Eat pouch and waited for the word to move.

The word came, and we started what we had done since the operation began – clear the city of insurgents, building by building.

As an attachment to the unit, I had been placed as the third man in a six-man group, or what Marines call a 'stack.' Two stacks of Marines were used to clear a house. Moving quickly from the third house to the fourth, our order in the stack changed. I found Sgt. Rafael Peralta in my spot, so I fell in behind him as we moved toward the house.

A Mexican-American who lived in San Diego, Peralta earned his citizenship after he joined the Marine Corps. He was a platoon scout, which meant he could have stayed back in safety while the squads of 1st Platoon went into the danger filled streets, but he was constantly asking to help out by giving them an extra Marine. I learned by speaking with him and other Marines the night before that he frequently put his safety, reputation and career on the line for the needs and morale of the junior Marines around him.

When we reached the fourth house, we breached the gate and swiftly approached the building. The first Marine in the stack kicked in the front door, revealing a locked door to their front and another at the right.

Kicking in the doors simultaneously, one stack filed swiftly into the room to the front as the other group of Marines darted off to the right.

"Clear!" screamed the Marines in one of the rooms followed only seconds later by another shout of "clear!" from the second room. One word told us all we wanted to know about the rooms: there was no one in there to shoot at us.

We found that the two rooms were adjoined and we had another closed door in front of us. We spread ourselves throughout the rooms to avoid a cluster going through the next door.

Two Marines stacked to the left of the door as Peralta, rifle in hand, tested the handle. I watched from the middle, slightly off to the right of the room as the handle turned with ease.

Ready to rush into the rear part of the house, Peralta threw open the door.

‘POP! POP! POP!’ Multiple bursts of cap-gun-like sounding AK-47 fire rang throughout the house.

Three insurgents with AK-47s were waiting for us behind the door.

Peralta was hit several times in his upper torso and face at point-blank range by the fully-automatic 7.62mm weapons employed by three terrorists.

Mortally wounded, he jumped into the already cleared, adjoining room, giving the rest of us a clear line of fire through the doorway to the rear of the house.

We opened fire, adding the bangs of M-16A2 service rifles, and the deafening, rolling cracks of a Squad Automatic Weapon, or “SAW,” to the already nerve-racking sound of the AKs. One Marine was shot through the forearm and continued to fire at the enemy.

I fired until Marines closer to the door began to maneuver into better firing positions, blocking my line of fire. Not being an infantryman, I watched to see what those with more extensive training were doing.

I saw four Marines firing from the adjoining room when a yellow, foreign-made, oval-shaped grenade bounced into the room, rolling to a stop close to Peralta’s nearly lifeless body.

In an act living up to the heroes of the Marine Corps’ past, such as Medal of Honor recipients Pfc. James LaBelle and Lance Cpl. Richard Anderson, Peralta – in his last fleeting moments of consciousness- reached out and pulled the grenade into his body. LaBelle fought on Iwo Jima and Anderson in Vietnam, both died saving their fellow Marines by smothering the blast of enemy grenades.

Peralta did the same for all of us in those rooms.

I watched in fear and horror as the other four Marines scrambled to the corners of the room and the majority of the blast was absorbed by Peralta’s now lifeless body. His selflessness left four other Marines with only minor injuries from smaller fragments of the grenade.

During the fight, a fire was sparked in the rear of the house. The flames were becoming visible through the door.

The decision was made by the Marine in charge of the squad to evacuate the injured Marines from the house, regroup and return to finish the fight and retrieve Peralta’s body.

We quickly ran for shelter, three or four houses up the street, in a house that had already been cleared and was occupied by the squad’s platoon.

As Staff Sgt. Jacob M. Murdock took a count of the Marines coming back, he found it to be one man short, and demanded to know the whereabouts of the missing Marine.

"Sergeant Peralta! He’s dead! He’s f------ dead," screamed Lance Cpl. Adam Morrison, a machine gunner with the squad, as he came around a corner. "He’s still in there. We have to go back."

The ingrained code Marines have of never leaving a man behind drove the next few moments. Within seconds, we headed back to the house unknown what we may encounter yet ready for another round.

I don't remember walking back down the street or through the gate in front of the house, but walking through the door the second time, I prayed that we wouldn't lose another brother.

We entered the house and met no resistance. We couldn't clear the rest of the house because the fire had grown immensely and the danger of the enemy’s weapons cache exploding in the house was increasing by the second.

Most of us provided security while Peralta's body was removed from the house.

We carried him back to our rally point and upon returning were told that the other Marines who went to support us encountered and killed the three insurgents from inside the house.

Later that night, while I was thinking about the day’s somber events, Cpl. Richard A. Mason, an infantryman with Headquarters Platoon, who, in the short time I was with the company became a good friend, told me, "You’re still here, don’t forget that. Tell your kids, your grandkids, what Sgt. Peralta did for you and the other Marines today."

As a combat correspondent, this is not only my job, but an honor.

Throughout Operation Al Fajr, we were constantly being told that we were making history, but if the books never mention this battle in the future, I’m sure that the day and the sacrifice that was made, will never be forgotten by the Marines who were there.

Come as a Child. We went down to my parent's place in NC for Thanksgiving and had a wonderful time. My mother is really into sewing and embroidery -- she has these powerful machines that can embroider practically anything on cloth (even toilet paper, but that's another story). In the months prior to Christmas, she really gears up and sews all kinds of fabulous gifts for the family. She (and my Dad) also buy us gifts (as you see, they go all out); so she's always looking for an indication of what we'd like.

This year she sent out a request for wish lists from the family and added, if we didn't respond, we'd get embroidered underwear. She followed this up with several e-mails asking for our lists and then sent this e-mail out before Thanksgiving:

I have received Christmas wish lists from Ann, William and Debbie, the Gallahans, and Brian. For the rest of you this Tuesday I will be purchasing the underwear--maybe socks too! :-)

My wife told the kids about these messages, seeking to compile their wish lists for Grandma.

When we arrived at my Mom and Dad's, the two little kids went scurrying off with their bags, while Debbie and I were greeting my parents and sister (who arrived before us). Pretty soon, Emilie (age 3) and Joe (age 6) were tugging at my Mom. She leaned over to see what they wanted. They each handed her a stack of clean underwear.

Mark 10:13-16

He's Back. Chris Muir's Day by Day is back.

Alexander the Bomb. Ollie Stone's new movie is getting terrible reviews -- "puerile" "uninspired, repetitious, tedious" "a 178-minute-long wall hanging" and "a bad movie of truly epic proportion." I like Stephen Hunter's review best:

[Stone's] Alexander, as expressed through the weepy histrionics of Colin Farrell, is more like a desperate housewife than a soldier. He's always crying, his voice trembles, his eyes fill with tears. He's much less interesting, except as a basket case, than Richard Burton's Alexander of far less enlightened times -- 1956 -- in Robert Rossen's "Alexander the Great." Burton got Alexander's dissipation, but also his martial spirit; this was, after all, one of the great light-cavalry commanders of all time and a general who fought by leading his troops, sword in hand, not directing them from some safe hill. But in this one you think: Teri Hatcher could kick this twerp's butt.

* * *

Then there's Angelina Jolie as Mom. Really, words fail me here. But let's try: Give this young woman the hands-down award for best impression of Bela Lugosi while hampered by a 38-inch bust line. Though everyone else in the picture speaks in some variation of a British accent, poor Jolie has been given the Transylvanian throat-sucker's throaty, sibilant vowels, as well as a wardrobe of snakes.

The whole review is witty and a work of art which should be read. [More: Read Mr. Bradley's take as well.]

Nevertheless, Alexander, the subject, should not be written off, even if Stone's flick is.

Stephen Pressfield has just released a novel of Alexander, The Virtues of War. Based on my read of one his prior novels, Gates of Fire, a novel about the stand at Thermopylae, I have moved this to the top of my reading list. In Gates of Fire, Pressfield not only tells the story of the stand, but he conveys a sense of the philosophy, the religion, and the social structure of the men and women of that period of time. It also makes the USMC's reading list.

Here's an excerpt from an interview with Pressfield on Alexander:

But for me, Alexander's defining preoccupation wasn't sex or power or subjecting other peoples to his will (as I've read in other books, and which are all legitimate approaches.)

I believe his life was about heroic ambition, and I use the word "heroic" in the Homeric sense, that is, derived from an era of legend and from characters like Achilles and Heracles, who were semi-divine and who lived their lives according to a code that transcends what we would call justice or morality. Alexander did that too, but not in an era of legend, in a real historical era. He's accessible to us. He's "modern." But he lived, I believe, according to that ancient heroic code. In the loftiest terms, I think, he sought to achieve undying glory, to set a mark for the ages. But justice, or at least the concept of conventional justice, took a back seat to glory.

And this comport with my study of the ancient Greeks. Don't waste time with bad movies, read a good book instead.

Congratulations! According to this article, more women over 40 are having babies. Amy Welborn certainly backs this up. I'm excited for her (and she kind of hits home for me -- I'm the same age as her husband, she's the same age as my wife).

...and another "best album list" This one, best discs for 2004, from the publishers of Chritianity Today. My daughter disses it -- "too pop," but I think it's not a bad sample -- it's got Buddy Miller, for example. Pay attention to the one's that missed the cut. The blithering daughter likes Todd Hertz's pick.

Make it Sing. I love the new U2 disc. Great review here.* See also CT's review, here. The song that's currently on my repeat button, Yahweh:

Take these shoes
Click clacking down some dead end street
Take these shoes
And make them fit
Take this shirt
Polyester white trash made in nowhere
Take this shirt
And make it clean, clean
Take this soul
Stranded in some skin and bones
Take this soul
And make it sing

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh
Still I'm waiting for the dawn

Take these hands
Teach them what to carry
Take these hands
Don't make a fist
Take this mouth
So quick to criticise
Take this mouth
Give it a kiss

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh
Still I'm waiting for the dawn

Still waiting for the dawn, the sun is coming up
The sun is coming up on the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, tell me now
Why the dark before the dawn?

Take this city
A city should be shining on a hill
Take this city
If it be your will
What no man can own, no man can take
Take this heart
Take this heart
Take this heart
And make it break

______________
* This link take's you to Kenneth Tanner's review as republished by the National Review Online (I figure they've got bandwidth). In the alternative, you can read the original here.

Some Great Harry Potter Links. In honor of today's release of the Prisoner of Azkaban:

• The Official J.K. Rowling Website. (text only version).
• The Leaky Cauldron. (a HP-News blog).
• The Hogwarts Professor.
• Everything there is to know about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

If you haven't seen Azkaban and haven't read the book, I strongly recommend reading the book. While director Alfonso Cuarón did a fine job, he did leave out a number of key points and scenes -- my daughter and I figure it would've only taken another 2 to 5 minutes of movie time to have added these.

Cool (Adult) Toy: All I want for Christmas is the Oakley Thump.

Cabinet Seats? I'm very happy about Condi Rice -- that's a lock.

Has Agriculture or Commerce been filled? I like Zell Miller for Ag and Herman Cain for Commerce.

Fresno. I've been out of town all week in Fresno, CA. The highlight of the week was being wined and dined by blogger extraordinaire, Peter Sean Bradley, more about below. I stayed at the downtown Radisson which promised Wi-Fi in every room. It must've been on a rotating basis, because I was able to get it for somewhere between 30 seconds and 5 minutes each night. Not good for blogging.

More bad news: I learned when I upgraded my OS, I'd wiped out my Earthlink software -- I stopped by Best Buy and CompUSA, hoping to get a promo disc, but nada.

Fresno was cold -- but I'd been warned of this by Mr. Bradley, so I was steeled and ready to go.

Peter was a very gracious host, driving out to the hotel to pick me up, giving me a tour of Fresno, taking me out for tapas and beer, wonderful conversation, and not letting me pay for a thing. (I owe you big time, Peter.)

And, as usual, he has asked several probing questions and given me much to think about.

Oh, and work went well too.

I got back Friday night and spent Saturday morning catching up on mail and things. Then Joe and I went out back and split wood for a few hours. I remember when President Reagan used to split wood, I thought it was kind of a photo-op thing, but the more I do it, the more I love doing it. Whether it's the well seasoned log that I can split with one whack or the very green (and too long) piece in which I bury my wood grenade before hearing that satisfying cracking noise (like think ice breaking on a pond), it's all good.

Read This. Read this now. An excerpt:

For my wife and her family, being a Catholic meant being a Democrat, and being a Democrat meant fighting for the little guy - literally. That included the poor, the homeless, racial and ethnic minorities, and the unemployed. It also meant defending the unborn child.

For my wife, arguing whether an unborn child was a "full human person" or a "developing human being" was irrelevant - or worse, a kind of lying. The dignity of the unborn life involved was exactly the same, whatever one called it.

In the years since the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion on demand, my wife and I have struggled many times with the choice of voting Democratic. Our youngest son has Down syndrome, and Democratic policies often benefit the disabled in ways Republican policies don't.

But it's also true that children like our son are becoming extinct in part because the abortion lobby has a stranglehold on the Democratic Party platform, with all that it implies for legislation and judicial appointments. The easiest response to handicapped children is to kill them before they arrive. That's not a solution. That's homicide.

Like I said, read it all.

There is a group calling for a return to sanity for the Democratic party.

Currently reading. The afternoon of the Bin Laden tape release, my library hold of Shadow War by Richard Miniter came in. Had I picked it up a day earlier, I would not have been surprised to find bin Laden still alive -- Miniter presented solid evidence for this in the first 5 pages. Nevertheless, I had been reluctant to read this one, assuming that since it was on the Regnery label, it was right-wing screed and/or rah-rah Bush. Not so. While Miniter does make the case that the War on Terror is largely being won, he does not pull his punches, critizing Bush where warranted.

I'm also reading Wormwood by G. P. Taylor, and am frankly finding it quite boring. Maybe it's the British narration, but I'm finding it like Dickens, without plot or characterization. Rev. Taylor seems to be spending all his time showing you a very dark menagerie, but there doesn't appear to be any redeeming point to this tale. I'm not going to go so far as to label this "spiritual pornography," but I'm almost half-way through and I keep waiting for a glimmer of light. Right now, I'd recommend reading any of the Harry Potter books and stay away from this one.

Recently, I finished reading the final two books in the Jasper Fforde "Thursday Next" series, Well of Lost Plots and Something Rotten. The series is great fun and the conclusion of "Something Rotten" is very satisfying. (BTW, I read half of Rotten, then had to return it to the library and ended up listening to the whole book on audiobook -- a good reading. I'm not sure if the other three books in the series could've made the jump to audio book, but this one does. Nevertheless, there are a lot of gimmicks that only work on paper. Think e.e.cummings.)

Up next: Jim Webb's Born Fighting and Owen West's Four Days to Veracruz. BTW, I strongly recommend West's first novel, Sharkman Six about the Marine "invasion" of Somalia (now in paperback!).

On the horizon: Philip Yancey's Reaching for the Invisible God and Michael Crichton's State of Fear.

Get Religion. Since the GetReligion crew is traveling, here is a link to a recommendation from Morton Kondracke to "Get" religion.

Hawai'i Football. Good article on the front of the USAToday: High School football in Hawai'i rivals that of Texas and Florida. I especially like the focus on Kahuku Red Raiders.

Unconstitutional. As has been extensively noted, since activist courts* have taken to redefining "marriage," persons in a number of states have adopted constitutional amendments seeking to fix the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. See, for example, this Jeff Jacoby column.

This should fix the problem, right? At least as far as the individual states are concerned, right? I mean what's higher than the constitution?

No, this doesn't fix the problem.

Matt Foreman, the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, is quoted as saying "We'll win some states and we'll lose some states, but eventually the Supreme Court is going to look at the Bill of Rights and isn't going to give a damn what's in any of these state constitutions."

And he is quite right.

In Romer v. Evans, (1996) the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Colorado's Amendment 2 to that state's Constitution. According to the majority opinion, "Amendment 2, in explicit terms . . . prohibits all legislative, executive or judicial action at any level of state or local government designed to protect the named class, a class we shall refer to as homosexual persons or gays and lesbians." Or, as Justice Scalia observed in his dissent, the amendment was adopted "to prohibit[] special protection for homosexuals." The court held that in adopting this amendment to the constitution, the state was discriminating agains gays: "Amendment 2, however, in making a general announcement that gays and lesbians shall not have any particular protections from the law, inflicts on them immediate, continuing, and real injuries that outrun and belie any legitimate justifications that may be claimed for it."

In Romer, the Supremes declared themselves to be above the law and seized the authority to strike down state constitutional provisions that the judges simply didn't like.**

You can bet that if they've done it once, they will do it again. The Supreme Court doesn't give a damn what's constitutional.


*In another, not-to-remote era, courts affirmed the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman. For example, in Singer v. Hara, 11 Wn. App. 247 (1974) the Washington Supreme Court noted in passing, "The operative distinction lies in the relationship which is described by the term 'marriage' itself, and that relationship is the legal union of one man and one woman." (declining to apply the state's Equal Rights Amendment to homosexual marriage). However, in Hawai'i, Vermont, and most recently in Massachusetts, judges have begun re-writing the law.

** For more reading, see this issue of First Things which led to open warfare between the neo-cons and the theo-cons.

More on the Incredibles. Don't miss this essay by Frederica Mathewes-Green on this superb movie (her observations about Pixar ring true as well).

Raising Cain. So Ashcroft and Evans are the first to depart the Cabinet (post-election). Ashcroft's departure will bring sadness to those who use him to raise money for the left and far left. I was expecting he would be followed by Larry Thompson, but the WaPo says it ain't so.

There's no speculation on Evans replacement at Commerce. I like Herman Cain for that position.

From Tun to Fallujah. Happy Birthday, United States Marine Corps. 229 and counting.

Some people spend their entire lifetime wondering if they have made a difference,
the Marines don't have that problem.

-- Attributed to President Ronald Reagan

A letter to K. I took Tuesday and Wednesday off to chop wood -- we took down a lot of trees over the past year and I'm cutting everything by hand. Back at work on Thursday, the despair was tangible. Bush was re-elected and Kerry lot. The attorney in the office next to mine -- K., a lesbian very active with the HRC -- K. said "I might as well start wearing my badge now."

No.

As the attorney on the other side of me, D., -- a gay man, also active with HRC -- as he would say, "Too much drama."

George Bush -- despite all the Bush=Hitler rhetoric -- is not a step on the way to Nazism and death camps. Neither is the different votes on the state ballots against changing the definition of marriage.

I'd love to discuss this with you, K., but I can't -- maybe I have my own parallel paranoia -- but I'm afraid that any attempt to try to present another side of this issue would be seen as discrimination and harassment.

So let me break it down here.

First, apart from a very small minority -- the Fred Phelps crowd -- religious conservatives don't want to stone gays. In fact, true Christian teaching affirms the dignity and worth of each and every person. You, K. are made in the image of God. He knows you and loves you.

Were you my enemy, His command to me would be to love you -- but you are not my enemy, you are my co-worker and, I hope, a friend. I admire you. You are a very skilled attorney -- a bright engaging person. Therefore, how can I treat you as less than I would an enemy?

So why were all those states voting on gay marriage? Let's be honest -- it's because some people are trying to change the definition of marriage. Marriage has always meant the union between a man and a woman. (Yes, in some cultures, there have been polygamous relationships which have been classified as a "marriage," but this is an aberration.) Moreover, this attempt to change the definition -- to change the law -- is not being waged in the legislature, the branch of government vested with the power to make and change law. This attempt is being waged in front of judges; taking the power of lawmaking away from the people and their representatives and giving it to arbitrary men and women -- a very small group at that. It's not just about changing the very definition of marriage, it's also about taking the right to vote away from the people and having it seized by judges.

We have seen this happen before with abortion -- now millions of children are being killed every year and there's nothing that can be done to stop it. Once the judges found a "right to abortion" clause in the disappearing ink of the constitution, there was nothing that could be done to change it.

Now, we're seeing it happen again. Four judges in Massachusetts said there was a constitutional right for gay men to marry one another; for lesbian women to marry one another.

The only way to head this off is by taking the action that the voters in those states took last week.

What I would say to you, K., is that if you believe in the rightness of your cause, you seek to achieve it by amending the laws through the legislature. Persuade people. Compromise. Get what you want one step at a time. Legitimately, not through judicial fiat. The way of the judges tyranny, not liberty.

In fact, George Bush, instead of forcing a badge on you, has extended an olive branch to you. The NYTimes reports:

In an interview on Sunday with Charles Gibson, an anchor of "Good Morning
America" on ABC, Mr. Bush said, "I don't think we should deny people rights to a
civil union, a legal arrangement, if that's what a state chooses to do so." . . .

According to an ABC transcript, Mr. Gibson then noted to Mr. Bush that the Republican Party platform opposed civil unions. "Well, I don't," Mr. Bush replied.
He added: "I view the definition of marriage different from legal arrangements that enable people to have rights. And I strongly believe that marriage ought to be defined as between a union between a man and a woman. Now, having said that, states ought to be able to have the right to pass laws that enable people to be able to have rights like others."

In short, there's nothing out there to justify your reaction.

Apt Title. We all went to see The Incredibles last night -- this is, without a doubt the coolest movie of the year.

One thing I noticed (very mild spoiler coming), one of the "bad guys" was the whole class of trial lawyers. It reminded me of when the EPA shifted from being good guys to [jerks] in Ghostbusters or the media went from being heroes (in All the President's Men) to [jerks] in Die Hard (interestingly, the same actor).

I Voted. My daughter's friends told her that if Kerry was elected, the kids would have to wear uniforms to school and have school on Saturday's. We told her it wasn't true. The 55-year old guy in line behind me said if Bush was elected, all the kids in high school would be drafted. Different versions -- same lie.

The wait was about 35 minutes and, since I took the day off, I voted at an "off" time.

So who will win -- I hope Bush, but if it's Kerry, he will have my support. We are Americans and we are at war. We need to hold our leaders accountable, but not be like the Michael Moore's of the world in doing so.

Scorecard. Here is the scorecard. Hopefully this link will work. The other link was for yahoo's briefcase, which is no longer open to public. Sorry about that.

Election 2004. A quicky -- I'm for Bush. Here are my three favorite election websites: RealClear, the Electoral Vote Predictor, and RedState.Org

Here is my Election Night Score card -- it's a color-coded MSWord document, with states sorted by poll closing times (Eastern Standard). Based on polls done last week, when I prepared the document, I've coded states by strong Bush, leaning Bush, undetermined, leaning Kerry, strong Kerry. I've also got a slot for the relevant Senate races.

New Blog. For "young Anglicans" (which now leaves me out), it's called Balaam’s Ass. I heard about this from my daughter's youth group leader.

Idol Worship. You may have noticed I've been a little speechless lately.* The truth is, I'm stunned by the Episcopal Church's commitment to moving away from Jesus Christ as swiftly as possible. In brief, and without any sensationalizing, the ECUSA is proudly celebrating idol worship and pagan rites. Yes, I know this is a sensational charge but it is all quite well documented and laid out. You can read about it on Christopher S. Johnson's blog, or Kendall Harmon's or the CT Weblog has an excellent summary here and an update here.

I could not believe this when I first read about it, but when I saw the evidence, I felt like vomiting. This American denomination is so utterly beyond the pale -- it is truly an abomination.

----------
*Part of the problem, as well, is with blogger and/or blogspot which has taken to deleting posts in a random fashion.

Curse of the Sox? Congrats to the Sox and their fans. My daughter's softball coach, a lifelong Red Sox fan, had SRO tickets to the game tonight -- I'm happy for him and for all the long suffering fans.

Nevertheless, when the announcers talked about 1918, all I could think about was the Great Influenza Pandemic that started that same year.

New Bear? Awhile back, Mark Byron invited folks to update the Reagan "Bear-in-the-Woods" ad. I seem to recall I did it with a snake (but can't find the link). Now it appears that the Bush campaign has done it's own version. With wolves.

Yankees Win ACLS. The Red Sox pulled off one of the most amazing series comebacks ever last night -- my whole family was rooting for them (exception, my Dad). Nevertheless, using the logic of those still walking around maintaining that Al Gore was the winner of the last election ("he won the popular vote"), the Yankees were the true winners. See for yourself:

Score for each game:

Game 1 -- Yankees 10 - Red Sox 07
Game 2 -- Yankees 03 - Red Sox 01
Game 3 -- Yankees 19 - Red Sox 08
Game 4 -- Yankees 04 - Red Sox 06
Game 5 -- Yankees 04 - Red Sox 05
Game 6 -- Yankees 02 - Red Sox 04
Game 7 -- Yankees 03 - Red Sox 10

Totals: -- Yankees: 45 - Red Sox 41

Ironies. George Neumayr of the American Spectator has an interesting essay today, which begins:

The presidential race is full of religious ironies, pitting a Protestant
who quotes the Pope against a Catholic who rejects the Pope. The Protestant --
campaigning on opposition to abortion and homosexual marriage -- will likely get
the Catholic vote. The Catholic -- campaigning on embryo-destruction,
partial-birth abortion, and the alternative lifestyles of pagan antiquity --
will get the mainline Protestant vote.

In one more irony and historical marker of clerical decadence, the Catholic candidate will receive a higher percentage of support from the Catholic episcopate than the Catholic laity -- the very episcopate Kerry has made a point of saying that he will ignore on matters of morality.

The remainder of the essay is dedicated to showing the divide between the RC episcopacy and the laity and should be read and considered. Nevertheless, this is an interesting and succint distillation of the ironies present in the current contest for the White House.

Windsor Report. The Windsor Report is scheduled to be released tomorrow and may be found here. Intelligent commentary on this report may be found at TitusOneNine, Andrew Carey, CANN, Chris Johnson, and the AAC blog. Comments by the revisionists may be found here, here, and here.

No matter what the report actually says, there will be no winners or losers; we are all losers, all sinners. The report should be measured, not merely short term, but long term, by the fruit it produces. This is a time of brokeness; we in the Episcopal Church have been incredibly arrogant and are greatly in need of repentance.

Preference v. Orientation. In response to the question in the debate regarding whether homosexuality is a choice or is biologically pre-determined, President Bush admitted he didn't know whereas Senator Kerry said "I think if you talk to anybody, [homosexuality is] not choice." In the ensuing controversy regarding the Democrats efforts to drag the sexuality of one of the candidate's children into the spotlight, Liz Edwards made the following statement: ''It indicates a certain degree of shame with respect to her daughter's sexual preferences. . ." (emphasis added)

Note that last statement -- this is a term of art in the "sexuality wars." It indicates that Liz Edwards disagees with Kerry -- she sees homosexuality as a "choice" a "preference" whereas he sees it as an "orientation" -- something predetermined.

In truth, as I noted below, there isn't a clear answer, therefore Bush's answer seems to be the most honest. Some research seems to indicate a "gay gene" whereas other research with respect to identical twins indicates no biological predispostion.

I do think it interesting that there has been no attention to the disparity between Kerry and Liz -- I wonder where John Edwards come out?

Also, I think Kerry's much ballyhooed commitment to valueless science is undermined by his prejudice on this issue. Does this mean that research on whether homosexuality is a choice or preference will continue to be suppressed?

Thomas articles. As I noted below, the WaPo ran a series of articles on Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States: The main article was titled "Clarence Thomas: The Style of a Justice; Enigmatic on the Bench, Influential in the Halls -- Image as an Uncompromising Jurist Belies His Engaging Demeanor as a Mentor." These are the additional articles from the paper: "Thomas's Across-the-Aisle Aid Puzzles Even the Beneficiaries; Clinton Judicial Nominee Surprised by Support;" "Yale Law Lacks Portrait -- And Thomas's Goodwill; Jurist Won't Permit Picture in Protest, Some Say;" and "Thomas v. Blackmun: Late Jurist's Papers Puncture Colleague's Portrait of a Genteel Court." They also posted a photo gallery via this link.

The Monday article was titled "Clarence Thomas: The Record of a Justice; Jurist Embraces Image as a Hard-Line Holdout." The following additional articles also appeared: "Culling the Reputable, Reliable, Right-Leaning; For 'Family' of Clerks, Thomas Weighs Politics, Loyalty and, Sometimes, Hard-Luck History;" "In Sharp Divide on Judicial Partisanship, Thomas Is Exhibit A;" and "Jurist Mum Come Oral Arguments; Reticence on Bench Perplexes Observers" with three related graphics : "Patterns of Jurisprudence;" "A Justice's Private File;" and "Clarence Thomas Weighs In." (More about the graphics later).

Plus there was this article in the CSM.

Debate 2004.3 I saw this as a clear Bush win. Who was it on Kerry's team who pushed for more debates than one? -- this person should be looking for a job. Dubya clearly got better with each debate, while Kerry slowly unwinds (or maybe becomes extremely tiring, I can't be sure). (transcript) Some notes:

• Bob Schieffer comes in a close second to Jim Lehrer as the worst debate anchor.
• I thought the Pres handled the flu vaccine question well -- I think he should've made a more obvious link to the problems with importation of pharmaceuticals regarding one of Kerry's contentions, but not a big deal. Kerry, however, failed to answer the question; but it did lead to the best line of the night...
• ...which was " a plan is not a litany of complaints, and a plan is not to lay out programs that you can't pay for."
• On the other hand, Bush ducked the jobs question and turned it into an education standards question.
• Which lead Kerry to one of his many errors, claiming Pell grants were cut. As even the pro-Kerry AP noted, Kerry "later altered the accusation when the president pointed out accurately that about 1 million more students are getting the aid than when he took office. Kerry then said Bush has not raised the maximum Pell grant as much as promised."
• On the nature v. nurture v. "choice" issue of homosexuality, Bush acknowledged he didn't know, whereas Kerry came down firmly on the "nature" side -- it's the way "God had made them." More on this later, I'm sure.
• But first, what's with the repeated emphasis on Cheney's gay daughter -- is this something their polling tells them will keep people from voting for Bush? And the way Kerry paused and uttered "lesbian" -- I thought that was pretty contemptuous (and weird -- I don't doubt that he's the more gay-friendly candidate)
• This was an important statement from the President: "I do know that we have a choice to make in America and that is to treat people with tolerance and respect and dignity. It's important that we do that."
• Kerry once again equates abortion with a sacrament -- that's a longer subject.
• Kerry correctly pointed out that Bush did not answer the question as to whether he would like to see Roe v. Wade overturned; Kerry is firmly behind it and will only appoint judges who agree with it. This, however, led to something akin to Kerry's "global test" revelation in the first debate, which is the claim that...
• Full quote: "I'm not going to appoint a judge to the Court who's going to undo a constitutional right, whether it's the First Amendment, or the Fifth Amendment, or some other right that's given under our courts today — under the Constitution. And I believe that the right of choice is a constitutional right."
• The above is a true revelation and is worthy of much more ink (or pixels)
• Kerry got off the third best line of the debate: "You don't measure it by a percentage increase. Mr. President, you measure it by whether you're getting the job done." This probably would be the second best line, if he had defined "it." (But little words like "it" and "is" are problems for Democratic lawyers).
• So the second best line goes to Bush: "The best way to take the pressure off our troops is to succeed in Iraq."
• Speaking of best lines, if you could distill this, it would be in the running: "In 1990, there was a vast coalition put together to run Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. The international community, the international world said this is the right thing to do, but when it came time to authorize the use of force on the Senate floor, my opponent voted against the use of force. Apparently you can't pass any test under his vision of the world."
• When Kerry said: "I served on the Small Business Committee for a long time..." I couldn't help but think "Yeah, but did you attend any meetings? Did you actually do anything?" I bet many others, not all Bush partisans, had that reaction.
• Nevertheless, I think Bush missed a big opportunity by failing to note the disparity of education between poor urban minority children and other non-minority children and that Kerry and his Klan stand in the way of vouchers and related assistance for minority children.
• I loved Bush's answer to the "strong women" question. Heck, I even like Kerry's answer -- it was the first time I actually saw any humanity in the guy with respect to his opening notes about having " married up." Nevertheless, when he got to the warning his mother gave him from her hospital bed, I had to wonder if he should be admitting on national television that his mother was warning him that he needed to have integrity.

In any event, it was the last debate for us this election year, and the last debate for Dubya forever.

The NFL really sucks. Yeah, I know, not an intelligent comment, but it does.

Kerry's Abortion (con't'd). Here's a good essay in Human Events. Excerpt:

Grant Kerry, too, his false premise (presumably based on the atrocious
Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade) that abortion really is a "constitutional
right." Would Kerry consistently apply the same logic to taxpayer funding of
other constitutional rights--including those, which unlike the "right" to
abortion, are expressly guaranteed in the Bill of Rights?

Fat chance.

The Second Amendment guarantees "the right of the people to keep and bear
arms." Thus strict application of the Kerry Doctrine--taxpayers must subsidize
poor people in doing "whatever the constitution affords them if they can't
afford it otherwise"--would mean the government must buy poor people guns.

Kerry's Abortion. In response to this question from Sarah Degenhart in the second debate, Senator Kerry came out in favor of taxpayer support of abortions:

Senator Kerry, suppose you are speaking with a voter who believed abortion is murder and the voter asked for reassurance that his or her tax dollars would not go to support abortion, what would you say to that person?

Kerry first gives his twisted response about abortion being a sacrament:

But I can't take what is an article of faith for me and legislate it for
someone who doesn't share that article of faith, whether they be agnostic, atheist, Jew, Protestant, whatever. I can't do that.

He then posts abortion as a "constitution right" (I think it must be Amendment nine and three-quarters, the ones muggles like me can't see, but some Justices, Senators, and professors can see). From there he gives his unqualified support to forcing those "who believed abortion is murder" to support murder:

And that means . . . making certain that you don't deny a poor person
the right to be able to have whatever the constitution affords them if they
can't afford it otherwise.

This is very frightening. Even if you favor abortion, do you really think we should create a vast entitlement program to fund this?

BTW, it appears that Degenhart is a teacher at a Catholic school. I imagine she, like many Catholics and others who have grave moral concerns about America's extreme abortion practice and is looking for Kerry to show a little moderation on this issue. Being a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Abortion, he want's to throw tax monies at them.

Post-Modern? The WaPo runs a 'fake but accurate' headline, as noted by Rod M. in the comments to this post below.

The WaPo has two part article on Clarence Thomas running today and tomorrow. I haven't read them yet -- I can't imagine they would be at all favorable. I can't think of a single person, even including GWB, who has been so demonized by the MSM. Nevertheless, I find his opinions to be very thoughtful and thought-provoking.

Rather Back in Afghanistan? The Professor (Instapundit) had a picture posted the other day of people voting in Afghanistan -- looking at it, I could swear the guy on the left end looked like Dan Rather. What do you think?



It wouldn't surprise me -- he's been there before -- I wonder how he got voter registration papers? Oh, right.

Another Babe for Bush:

New Book. I should have a new book coming out: How to Lose Weight like a Porn Star by Leonardo DaVinci as told to Michael Moore (who refused to listen).

Speaking of books, I loved Danny Dunn, mentioned by the Professor today.

Last, in the weighty book category, read this review of the Nobel's Lit Prize by Charlotte Allen

Knight for a Rook? The release of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) report looks to the WaPo to be substantially undermining Bush: "U.S. 'Almost All Wrong' on Weapons" subhead: "Report on Iraq Contradicts Bush Administration Claims." Also reported on the front page, albeit minimized is Hussein Used Oil to Dilute Sanctions, subhead: Report Says He Gave Valuable Vouchers to Those Who Helped Iraq.

Does this hurt Bush? Yes, without question.

However, the better question is Whether this hurts Kerry more than it does Bush? The answer to that is also yes.

Both Bush and Kerry have admitted to relying on intelligence related to the weapons in question in authorizing war. Was this intel wrong? Possibly -- we do know that he had had those weapons and had used them against his own people. There was not a full scale review after the first Gulf War -- if you want to blame anyone, you can blame Bush41, Powell, and Cheney.

Nevertheless, don't forget that what the UN resolutions did was to put the burden on Hussein to account for his WMD, and the equipment used to make them, and to destroy them in a verifiable manner. Hussein refused to do so.

What separates Kerry from Bush is the issue of appeasing Old Europe. Bush tried diplomacy and tried to build a coalition involving France and Germany. We now know for certain that this was impossible because France and Germany were part of the Battalion of the Bribed. Bribed by Hussein.

By continuing to embrace the Battalion of the Bribed, Kerry loses more than Bush does.

Bush is hurt -- in the chess game, he loses a knight; however, Kerry loses a rook.

Ex-Raiders in the news:

• Todd Marinovich is serving 90 days in the pokey for possession of a controlled substance (meth), resisting arrest and the unauthorized possession of hypodermic needles. It is not known whether he will be serving time in the Warren Wells wing of the jail.
• Former Oakland Raiders kicker Cole Ford is being sought in a drive-by shooting last month at the home of entertainers Siegfried & Roy, police said Wednesday. For the record, he missed -- sounds like Ford alright.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Following up on my note yesterday regarding John Edwards' claim: "Under the law of this country for the last 200 years, no state has been required to recognize another state's marriage." John Edwards is so wrong on this it would be laughable, if not so serious.

Let's lay aside all the "little" cases such as Franzen v E. I. Du Pont De Nemours & Co., 146 F.2d 837 (3d Cir. 1944) (a non-commonlaw marriage state recognizing a common-law marriage), In re May's Estate, 114 N.E.2d 4 (N.Y.1953) (validating uncle-niece marriage), and McDonald v. McDonald, 58 P.2d 163 (Cal. 1936) (recognizing an "underage" marriage performed outside the state), and go straight to the biggie. In Loving v. Virginia, the United States Supreme Court dealt with a Virginia couple who were married in D.C., in violation of a Virginia state statute forbidding inter-racial marriages, and then returned to Virginia. The Lovings were convicted of violating Virginia's antimiscegenation statutes and received a suspended sentence (see the case for details -- in esscence they were exiled from Virginia for 25 years).

One of the provisions of the antimiscegenation statutes was section 20-57, which automatically voided all marriages between "a white person and a colored person" without any judicial proceeding.

The unanimous court overturned the conviction holding that these antimiscegenation statutes violated the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In short, the Commonwealth of Virginia, which had by law declared the Lovings marriage void was forced to recognize their marriage. (Quite properly, I might add -- the Commonwealth was wrong, wrong, wrong.)

I believe John Edwards, who "earned a law degree with honors in 1977 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill" knows better.

Must Reading. For me, a daily stop at GetReligion is required -- I strongly recommend it. Especially noteworthy is this piece by Douglas LeBlanc on the torn friendship of Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria and ECUSA Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold.

More here. (from Titusonenine, which is also must reading.)

Unfinished business. I forgot -- Truro's rector is a candidate for the bishopric of the Rio Grande Diocese in Texas/NM.

Most Overrated. Andrew Sullivan continues to be the most overrated blogger around.