Ex Mea Sententia

2011-10-07T19:25:00.000-05:00

What if the NFL Played by Teachers' Rules? 

Imagine a league where players who make it through three seasons could never be cut from the roster.

By FRAN TARKENTON

Imagine the National Football League in an alternate reality. Each player's salary is based on how long he's been in the league. It's about tenure, not talent. The same scale is used for every player, no matter whether he's an All-Pro quarterback or the last man on the roster. For every year a player's been in this NFL, he gets a bump in pay. The only difference between Tom Brady and the worst player in the league is a few years of step increases. And if a player makes it through his third season, he can never be cut from the roster until he chooses to retire, except in the most extreme cases of misconduct.

Let's face the truth about this alternate reality: The on-field product would steadily decline. Why bother playing harder or better and risk getting hurt?

No matter how much money was poured into the league, it wouldn't get better. In fact, in many ways the disincentive to play harder or to try to stand out would be even stronger with more money.

Of course, a few wild-eyed reformers might suggest the whole system was broken and needed revamping to reward better results, but the players union would refuse to budge and then demonize the reform advocates: "They hate football. They hate the players. They hate the fans." The only thing that might get done would be building bigger, more expensive stadiums and installing more state-of-the-art technology. But that just wouldn't help.

If you haven't figured it out yet, the NFL in this alternate reality is the real -life American public education system. Teachers' salaries have no relation to whether teachers are actually good at their job—excellence isn't rewarded, and neither is extra effort. Pay is almost solely determined by how many years they've been teaching. That's it. After a teacher earns tenure, which is often essentially automatic, firing him or her becomes almost impossible, no matter how bad the performance might be. And if you criticize the system, you're demonized for hating teachers and not believing in our nation's children.

Inflation-adjusted spending per student in the United States has nearly tripled since 1970. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, we spend more per student than any nation except Switzerland, with only middling results to show for it.

Over the past 20 years, we've been told that a big part of the problem is crumbling schools—that with new buildings and computers in every classroom, everything would improve. But even though spending on facilities and equipment has more than doubled since 1989 (again adjusted for inflation), we're still not seeing results, and officials assume the answer is that we haven't spent enough.

These same misguided beliefs are front and center in President Obama's jobs plan, which includes billions for "public school modernization." The popular definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. We've been spending billions of dollars on school modernization for decades, and I suspect we could keep on doing it until the end of the world, without much in the way of academic results. The only beneficiaries are the teachers unions.

Some reformers, including Bill Gates, are finally catching on that our federally centralized, union-created system provides no incentive for better performance. If anything, it penalizes those who work hard because they spend time, energy and their own money to help students, only to get the same check each month as the worst teacher in the district (or an even smaller one, if that teacher has been there longer). Is it any surprise, then, that so many good teachers burn out or become disenchanted?

Perhaps no other sector of American society so demonstrates the failure of government spending and interference. We've destroyed individual initiative, individual innovation and personal achievement, and marginalized anyone willing to point it out. As one of my coaches used to say, "You don't get vast results with half-vast efforts!"

The results we're looking for are students learning, so we need to reward great teachers who show they can make that happen—and get rid of bad teachers who don't get the job done. It's what we do in every other profession: If you're good, you get rewarded, and if you're not, then you look for other work. It's fine to look for ways to improve the measuring tools, but don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Our rigid, top-down, union-dictated system isn't working. If results are the objective, then we need to loosen the reins, giving teachers the ability to fulfill their responsibilities to students to the best of their abilities, not to the letter of the union contract and federal standards.

Mr. Tarkenton, an NFL Hall of Fame quarterback with the Minnesota Vikings and the New York Giants from 1961 to 1978, is an entrepreneur who runs two websites devoted to small business education.

2011-08-26T10:20:00.000-05:00

"An incontrovertible truth: One program for recovery worked, and the other hasn't"

Obamanonics vs. Reaganomics
One program for recovery worked, and the other hasn't.
By STEPHEN MOORE

If you really want to light the fuse of a liberal Democrat, compare Barack Obama's economic performance after 30 months in office with that of Ronald Reagan. It's not at all flattering for Mr. Obama.

The two presidents have a lot in common. Both inherited an American economy in collapse. And both applied daring, expensive remedies. Mr. Reagan passed the biggest tax cut ever, combined with an agenda of deregulation, monetary restraint and spending controls. Mr. Obama, of course, has given us a $1 trillion spending stimulus.

By the end of the summer of Reagan's third year in office, the economy was soaring. The GDP growth rate was 5% and racing toward 7%, even 8% growth. In 1983 and '84 output was growing so fast the biggest worry was that the economy would "overheat." In the summer of 2011 we have an economy limping along at barely 1% growth and by some indications headed toward a "double-dip" recession. By the end of Reagan's first term, it was Morning in America. Today there is gloomy talk of America in its twilight.

My purpose here is not more Reagan idolatry, but to point out an incontrovertible truth: One program for recovery worked, and the other hasn't.

The Reagan philosophy was to incentivize production—i.e., the "supply side" of the economy—by lowering restraints on business expansion and investment. This was done by slashing marginal income tax rates, eliminating regulatory high hurdles, and reining in inflation with a tighter monetary policy.

The Keynesians in the early 1980s assured us that the Reagan expansion would not and could not happen. Rapid growth with new jobs and falling rates of inflation (to 4% in 1983 from 13% in 1980) is an impossibility in Keynesian textbooks. If you increase demand, prices go up. If you increase supply—as Reagan did—prices go down.

The Godfather of the neo-Keynesians, Paul Samuelson, was the lead critic of the supposed follies of Reaganomics. He wrote in a 1980 Newsweek column that to slay the inflation monster would take "five to ten years of austerity," with unemployment of 8% or 9% and real output of "barely 1 or 2 percent." Reaganomics was routinely ridiculed in the media, especially in the 1982 recession. That was the year MIT economist Lester Thurow famously said, "The engines of economic growth have shut down here and across the globe, and they are likely to stay that way for years to come."

The economy would soon take flight for more than 80 consecutive months. Then the Reagan critics declared what they once thought couldn't work was actually a textbook Keynesian expansion fueled by budget deficits of $200 billion a year, or about 4%-5% of GDP.

Robert Reich, now at the University of California, Berkeley, explained that "The recession of 1981-82 was so severe that the bounce back has been vigorous." Paul Krugman wrote in 2004 that the Reagan boom was really nothing special because: "You see, rapid growth is normal when an economy is bouncing back from a deep slump."

Mr. Krugman was, for once, at least partly right. How could Reagan not look good after four years of Jimmy Carter's economic malpractice?

Fast-forward to today. Mr. Obama is running deficits of $1.3 trillion, or 8%-9% of GDP. If the Reagan deficits powered the '80s expansion, the Obama deficits—twice as large—should have the U.S. sprinting at Olympic speed.

The left has now embraced a new theory to explain why the Obama spending hasn't worked. The answer is contained in the book "This Time Is Different," by economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff. Published in 2009, the book examines centuries of recessions and depressions world-wide. The authors conclude that it takes nations much longer—six years or more—to recover from financial crises and the popping of asset bubbles than from typical recessions.

In any case, what Reagan inherited was arguably a more severe financial crisis than what was dropped in Mr. Obama's lap. You don't believe it? From 1967 to 1982 stocks lost two-thirds of their value relative to inflation, according to a new report from Laffer Associates. That mass liquidation of wealth was a first-rate financial calamity. And tell me that 20% mortgage interest rates, as we saw in the 1970s, aren't indicative of a monetary-policy meltdown.

There is something that is genuinely different this time. It isn't the nature of the crisis Mr. Obama inherited, but the nature of his policy prescriptions. Reagan applied tax cuts and other policies that, yes, took the deficit to unchartered peacetime highs.

But that borrowing financed a remarkable and prolonged economic expansion and a victory against the Evil Empire in the Cold War. What exactly have Mr. Obama's deficits gotten us?

Mr. Moore is a member of the Journal's editorial board.

2011-08-24T13:28:00.000-05:00

Meet the Legal Wonks Who Brought Down the Flotilla � Commentary Magazine

2011-08-22T12:20:00.000-05:00

Harvey Golub: My Response To Buffett And Obama - WSJ.com

2011-08-15T06:56:00.000-05:00

What Happened to Obama? Absolutely Nothing.

He is still the same anti-American leftist he was before becoming our president.

By NORMAN PODHORETZ

It's open season on President Obama. Which is to say that the usual suspects on the right (among whom I include myself) are increasingly being joined in attacking him by erstwhile worshipers on the left. Even before the S&P downgrade, there were reports of Democrats lamenting that Hillary Clinton had lost to him in 2008. Some were comparing him not, as most of them originally had, to Lincoln and Roosevelt but to the hapless Jimmy Carter. There was even talk of finding a candidate to stage a primary run against him. But since the downgrade, more and more liberal pundits have been deserting what they clearly fear is a sinking ship.

Here, for example, from the Washington Post, is Richard Cohen: "He is the very personification of cognitive dissonance—the gap between what we (especially liberals) expected of the first serious African American presidential candidate and the man he in fact is." More amazingly yet Mr. Cohen goes on to say of Mr. Obama, who not long ago was almost universally hailed as the greatest orator since Pericles, that he lacks even "the rhetorical qualities of the old-time black politicians." And to compound the amazement, Mr. Cohen tells us that he cannot even "recall a soaring passage from a speech."

Overseas it is the same refrain. Everywhere in the world, we read in Germany's Der Spiegel, not only are the hopes ignited by Mr. Obama being dashed, but his "weakness is a problem for the entire global economy."

In short, the spell that Mr. Obama once cast—a spell so powerful that instead of ridiculing him when he boasted that he would cause "the oceans to stop rising and the planet to heal," all of liberaldom fell into a delirious swoon—has now been broken by its traumatic realization that he is neither the "god" Newsweek in all seriousness declared him to be nor even a messianic deliverer.

Hence the question on every lip is—as the title of a much quoted article in the New York Times by Drew Westen of Emory University puts it— "What Happened to Obama?" Attacking from the left, Mr. Westin charges that President Obama has been conciliatory when he should have been aggressively pounding away at all the evildoers on the right.

Of course, unlike Mr. Westen, we villainous conservatives do not see Mr. Obama as conciliatory or as "a president who either does not know what he believes or is willing to take whatever position he thinks will lead to his re-election." On the contrary, we see him as a president who knows all too well what he believes. Furthermore, what Mr. Westen regards as an opportunistic appeal to the center we interpret as a tactic calculated to obfuscate his unshakable strategic objective, which is to turn this country into a European-style social democracy while diminishing the leading role it has played in the world since the end of World War II. The Democrats have persistently denied that these are Mr. Obama's goals, but they have only been able to do so by ignoring or dismissing what Mr. Obama himself, in a rare moment of candor, promised at the tail end of his run for the presidency: "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

This statement, coming on top of his association with radicals like Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and Rashid Khalidi, definitively revealed to all who were not wilfully blinding themselves that Mr. Obama was a genuine product of the political culture that had its birth among a marginal group of leftists in the early 1960s and that by the end of the decade had spread metastatically to the universities, the mainstream media, the mainline churches, and the entertainment industry. Like their communist ancestors of the 1930s, the leftist radicals of the '60s were convinced that the United States was so rotten that only a revolution could save it.

But whereas the communists had in their delusional vision of the Soviet Union a model of the kind of society that would replace the one they were bent on destroying, the new leftists only knew what they were against: America, or Amerika as they spelled it to suggest its kinship to Nazi Germany. Thanks, however, to the unmasking of the Soviet Union as a totalitarian nightmare, they did not know what they were for. Yet once they had pulled off the incredible feat of taking over the Democratic Party behind the presidential candidacy of George McGovern in 1972, they dropped the vain hope of a revolution, and in the social-democratic system most fully developed in Sweden they found an alternative to American capitalism that had a realistic possibility of being achieved through gradual political reform.

Despite Mr. McGovern's defeat by Richard Nixon in a landslide, the leftists remained a powerful force within the Democratic Party, but for the next three decades the electoral exigencies within which they had chosen to operate prevented them from getting their own man nominated. Thus, not one of the six Democratic presidential candidates who followed Mr. McGovern came out of the party's left wing, and when Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (the only two of the six who won) tried each in his own way to govern in its spirit, their policies were rejected by the American immune system. It was only with the advent of Barack Obama that the leftists at long last succeeded in nominating one of their own.

To be sure, no white candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers would have lasted a single day. But because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of liberaldom to have hung out with protesters against various American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass. And in any case, what did such ancient history matter when he was also articulate and elegant and (as he himself had said) "non-threatening," all of which gave him a fighting chance to become the first black president and thereby to lay the curse of racism to rest?

And so it came about that a faithful scion of the political culture of the '60s left is now sitting in the White House and doing everything in his power to effect the fundamental transformation of America to which that culture was dedicated and to which he has pledged his own personal allegiance.

I disagree with those of my fellow conservatives who maintain that Mr. Obama is indifferent to "the best interests of the United States" (Thomas Sowell) and is "purposely" out to harm America (Rush Limbaugh). In my opinion, he imagines that he is helping America to repent of its many sins and to become a different and better country.

But I emphatically agree with Messrs. Limbaugh and Sowell about this president's attitude toward America as it exists and as the Founding Fathers intended it. That is why my own answer to the question, "What Happened to Obama?" is that nothing happened to him. He is still the same anti-American leftist he was before becoming our president, and it is this rather than inexperience or incompetence or weakness or stupidity that accounts for the richly deserved failure both at home and abroad of the policies stemming from that reprehensible cast of mind.

Mr. Podhoretz was the editor of Commentary from 1960 to 1995. His most recent book is "Why Are Jews Liberals?" (Doubleday, 2009).

2011-08-14T13:02:00.000-05:00

Man Being Attacked by a Bear

(WARNING -- Graphic Video!!)

2011-08-09T12:25:00.000-05:00

The Good Stuff

2011-08-08T20:41:00.000-05:00

"Leftism has failed utterly. It has failed everywhere and it has never done anything else but fail."

Insults, Stupid Arguments, and Lies

August 8, 2011 - 7:00 am - by Andrew Klavan

In fact, leftism has failed utterly. It has failed everywhere and it has never done anything else but fail. From the murderous, leftist tyrannies of the Soviet Union and China to the soft but nonetheless oppressive and stagnant socialism of a moribund Europe, the relativist, wealth-crushing, overweening state has revealed itself to be an engine of misery and collapse.

This is a disappointment to many. To those who feel they are entitled to the fruits of other people’s labor, to those who feel their good intentions can be brought to fruition by the government, and to those, most of all, who fancy themselves elite, who fancy themselves better able to make moral and economic decisions on your behalf from on high than you, the citizen, can do on your own — to all of these, the failure of leftism is a trauma so great it has yet to be accepted. Rather, in order to distract both their followers and their opponents — and maybe themselves — from the gathering facts on the ground, leftists routinely rely on three well-worn techniques: insults, stupid arguments and lies.

The insults we all know. Disagree with the left and you’re a racist, a sexist, an Islamophobe — whatever. What do such insults even mean, really? Let’s say you oppose Barack Obama — and let’s say you really are a racist — does that mean his share-the-wealth ideology works? Of course not. If you’re a sexist, does that make women less interested in babies or more interested in trucks? If you’re Islamophobic, does that change the odds that the man who murders you will be named Mohammad?

We are what we are and the world is what it is regardless of our personal merits and failings. The insults — for the information of all you teabagging terrorists out there — are just the sound of the left indulging in base intimidation, hoping they can keep you from spreading the word that their philosophy has failed — failed always and everywhere.

As for the stupid arguments, they usually involve citing bad individual actions in order to obscure bad underlying principles. Thus when you note the disaster wrought on our economy by Obama’s governing philosophy, leftists counter that, well, George W. Bush spent too much money too. Yes, he did — because, in those moments, W. was operating under the same misguided redistributionist principles as Obama. It’s the principles that are wrong, no matter who holds them.

Likewise, when you point out that Islamism is an evil and oppressive idea, leftists counter that Americans have done many bad things as well. And yes, we have — all nations have — but the liberty we stand for is a good, just as shariah law is a bad, not for some people in some places but for everyone all over.

No group or philosophy is free of its madmen, villains, saints and clowns, but it matters, in the end, what you stand for. In fact, that’s what matters most — and the left stands for a philosophy that has failed.

Finally, the lies. For me, the worst of them are those that misrepresent the true nature of our disagreements — because these lies are intended to turn us against one another. No one, for instance, is arguing about whether the poor and aged should be cared for. We are arguing whether they should be cared for by a federal government that, by its very nature, is prone to power hunger and corruption. No one of good will disagrees about the immorality of institutional racism, but we are arguing about whether the past can be corrected by reverse racism now.

And we are not arguing about whether the United States is perfect. We are arguing whether our problems can be addressed within the framework of constitutional law, small government, unhindered markets, and the resultant liberty these provide.

To address our problems without crippling individual free will or confiscating private property (which amounts to the same thing) — this is the useful and noble enterprise that stands beyond the ruin of the moment. But before the left can join in that enterprise, it must first admit that its own enterprise has failed.

2011-08-08T16:31:00.000-05:00

20th Century Motors? -- Or, 21st Century America?

The stunning decline of Barack Obama 2011 edition: 10 key reasons why the Obama presidency continues to melt down – Telegraph Blogs

2011-08-08T16:13:00.000-05:00

The stunning decline of Barack Obama 2011 edition: 10 key reasons why the Obama presidency continues to melt down – Telegraph Blogs

America’s debt downgrade is a damning indictment of President Obama’s Big Government disaster – Telegraph Blogs

2011-08-08T15:56:00.000-05:00

America’s debt downgrade is a damning indictment of President Obama’s Big Government disaster – Telegraph Blogs

2011-07-15T10:38:00.000-05:00

Wonder

I've been listening to a lot of Natalie Merchant and 10,000 Maniacs recently. One of my favorite songs is "Wonder". It is a great song about special needs folks living with and even overcoming their handicaps.

In introducing this song before a performance, Natalie Merchant said that many people have told her that the song has so inspired them that they've adopted it as "their" song. I think she reflects that in this video as many of the actors are "singing" the song too.

Hey, Obama: Where are the jobs? | New Hampshire OPINION01

2011-07-12T12:33:00.000-05:00

Hey, Obama: Where are the jobs? | New Hampshire OPINION01:

"Obama’s jobs plan is to double down on his failed plan of two years ago. Incredible. It’s almost as if he wants to be a one-term President."

A damning indictment of the White House’s spineless foreign policy: Barack Obama gets the Kremlin’s vote for 2012 – Telegraph Blogs

2011-07-07T15:52:00.000-05:00

A damning indictment of the White House’s spineless foreign policy: Barack Obama gets the Kremlin’s vote for 2012 – Telegraph Blogs

2011-07-07T14:20:00.000-05:00

"You never know that it will be the most important day of your life until the day is over."

45 Seconds: Memoirs of an ER Doctor from May 22, 2011
by Kevin J. Kikta, DO on Jun 01, 2011

My name is Dr. Kevin Kikta, and I was one of two emergency room doctors who were on duty at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Joplin, MO on Sunday, May 22, 2011.

You never know that it will be the most important day of your life until the day is over. The day started like any other day for me: waking up, eating, going to the gym, showering, and going to my 4:00 pm ER shift. As I drove to the hospital I mentally prepared for my shift as I always do, but nothing could ever have prepared me for what was going to happen on this shift. Things were normal for the first hour and half. At approximately 5:30 pm we received a warning that a tornado had been spotted. Although I work in Joplin and went to medical school in Oklahoma, I live in New Jersey, and I have never seen or been in a tornado. I learned that a “code gray” was being called. We were to start bringing patients to safer spots within the ED and hospital.

At 5:42 pm a security guard yelled to everyone, “Take cover! We are about to get hit by a tornado!” I ran with a pregnant RN, Shilo Cook, while others scattered to various places, to the only place that I was familiar with in the hospital without windows, a small doctor’s office in the ED. Together, Shilo and I tremored and huddled under a desk. We heard a loud horrifying sound like a large locomotive ripping through the hospital. The whole hospital shook and vibrated as we heard glass shattering, light bulbs popping, walls collapsing, people screaming, the ceiling caving in above us, and water pipes breaking, showering water down on everything. We suffered this in complete darkness, unaware of anyone else’s status, worried, scared. We could feel a tight pressure in our heads as the tornado annihilated the hospital and the surrounding area. The whole process took about 45 seconds, but seemed like eternity. The hospital had just taken a direct hit from a category EF5 tornado.

Then it was over. Just 45 seconds. 45 long seconds. We looked at each other, terrified, and thanked God that we were alive. We didn’t know, but hoped that it was safe enough to go back out to the ED, find the rest of the staff and patients, and assess our losses.

“Like a bomb went off. ” That’s the only way that I can describe what we saw next. Patients were coming into the ED in droves. It was absolute, utter chaos. They were limping, bleeding, crying, terrified, with debris and glass sticking out of them, just thankful to be alive. The floor was covered with about 3 inches of water, there was no power, not even backup generators, rendering it completely dark and eerie in the ED. The frightening aroma of methane gas leaking from the broken gas lines permeated the air; we knew, but did not dare mention aloud, what that meant. I redoubled my pace.

We had to use flashlights to direct ourselves to the crying and wounded. Where did all the flashlights come from? I’ll never know, but immediately, and thankfully, my years of training in emergency procedures kicked in. There was no power, but our mental generators were up and running, and on high test adrenaline. We had no cell phone service in the first hour, so we were not even able to call for help and backup in the ED.

I remember a patient in his early 20’s gasping for breath, telling me that he was going to die. After a quick exam, I removed the large shard of glass from his back, made the clinical diagnosis of a pneumothorax (collapsed lung) and gathered supplies from wherever I could locate them to insert a thoracostomy tube in him. He was a trooper; I’ll never forget his courage. He allowed me to do this without any local anesthetic since none could be found. With his life threatening injuries I knew he was running out of time, and it had to be done. Quickly. Imagine my relief when I heard a big rush of air, and breath sounds again; fortunately, I was able to get him transported out. I immediately moved on to the next patient, an asthmatic in status asthmaticus. We didn’t even have the option of trying a nebulizer treatment or steroids, but I was able to get him intubated using a flashlight that I held in my mouth. A small child of approximately 3-4 years of age was crying; he had a large avulsion of skin to his neck and spine. The gaping wound revealed his cervical spine and upper thoracic spine bones. I could actually count his vertebrae with my fingers. This was a child, his whole life ahead of him, suffering life threatening wounds in front of me, his eyes pleading me to help him.. We could not find any pediatric C collars in the darkness, and water from the shattered main pipes was once again showering down upon all of us. Fortunately, we were able to get him immobilized with towels, and start an IV with fluids and pain meds before shipping him out. We felt paralyzed and helpless ourselves. I didn’t even know a lot of the RN’s I was working with. They were from departments scattered all over the hospital. It didn’t matter. We worked as a team, determined to save lives. There were no specialists available — my orthopedist was trapped in the OR. We were it, and we knew we had to get patients out of the hospital as quickly as possible. As we were shuffling them out, the fire department showed up and helped us to evacuate. Together we worked furiously, motivated by the knowledge and fear that the methane leaks to cause the hospital could blow up at any minute.

Things were no better outside of the ED. I saw a man crushed under a large SUV, still alive, begging for help; another one was dead, impaled by a street sign through his chest. Wounded people were walking, staggering, all over, dazed and shocked. All around us was chaos, reminding me of scenes in a war movie, or newsreels from bombings in Bagdad. Except this was right in front of me and it had happened in just 45 seconds. My own car was blown away. Gone. Seemingly evaporated. We searched within a half mile radius later that night, but never found the car, only the littered, crumpled remains of former cars. And a John Deere tractor that had blown in from miles away.

Tragedy has a way of revealing human goodness. As I worked, surrounded by devastation and suffering, I realized I was not alone. The people of the community of Joplin were absolutely incredible. Within minutes of the horrific event, local residents showed up in pickups and sport utility vehicles, all offering to help transport the wounded to other facilities, including Freeman, the trauma center literally across the street. Ironically, it had sustained only minimal damage and was functioning (although I’m sure overwhelmed). I carried on, grateful for the help of the community.

Within hours I estimated that over 100 EMS units showed up from various towns, counties and four different states. Considering the circumstances, their response time was miraculous. Roads were blocked with downed utility lines, smashed up cars in piles, and they still made it through.

We continued to carry patients out of the hospital on anything that we could find: sheets, stretchers, broken doors, mattresses, wheelchairs—anything that could be used as a transport mechanism.

As I finished up what I could do at St John’s, I walked with two RN’s, Shilo Cook and Julie Vandorn, to a makeshift MASH center that was being set up miles away at Memorial Hall. We walked where flourishing neighborhoods once stood, astonished to see only the disastrous remains of flattened homes, body parts, and dead people everywhere. I saw a small dog just wimpering in circles over his master who was dead, unaware that his master would not ever play with him again. At one point we tended to a young woman who just stood crying over her dead mother who was crushed by her own home. The young woman covered her mother up with a blanket and then asked all of us, “What should I do?” We had no answer for her, but silence and tears.

By this time news crews and photographers were starting to swarm around, and we were able to get a ride to Memorial Hall from another RN. The chaos was slightly more controlled at Memorial Hall. I was relieved to see many of my colleagues, doctors from every specialty, helping out. It was amazing to be able to see life again. It was also amazing to see how fast workers mobilized to set up this MASH unit under the circumstances. Supplies, food, drink, generators, exam tables, all were there—except pharmaceutical pain meds. I sutured multiple lacerations, and splinted many fractures, including some open with bone exposed, and then intubated another patient with severe COPD, slightly better controlled conditions this time, but still less than optimal.

But we really needed pain meds. I managed to go back to the St John’s with another physician, pharmacist, and a sheriff’s officer. Luckily, security let us in to a highly guarded pharmacy to bring back a garbage bucket sized supply of pain meds.

At about midnight I walked around the parking lot of St. John’s with local law enforcement officers looking for anyone who might be alive or trapped in crushed cars. They spray-painted “X”s on the fortunate vehicles that had been searched without finding anyone inside. The unfortunate vehicles wore “X’s” and sprayed-on numerals, indicating the number of dead inside, crushed in their cars, cars which now resembled flattened recycled aluminum cans the tornado had crumpled in her iron hands, an EF5 tornado, one of the worst in history, whipping through this quiet town with demonic strength. I continued back to Memorial hall into the early morning hours until my ER colleagues told me it was time for me to go home. I was completely exhausted. I had seen enough of my first tornado.

How can one describe these indescribable scenes of destruction? The next day I saw news coverage of this horrible, deadly tornado. It was excellent coverage, and Mike Bettes from the Weather Channel did a great job, but there is nothing that pictures and video can depict compared to seeing it in person. That video will play forever in my mind.

I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to everyone involved in helping during this nightmarish disaster. My fellow doctors, RN’s, techs, and all of the staff from St. John’s. I have worked at St John’s for approximately 2 years, and I have always been proud to say that I was a physician at St John’s in Joplin, MO. The smart, selfless and immediate response of the professionals and the community during this catastrophe proves to me that St John’s and the surrounding community are special. I am beyond proud.

To the members of this community, the health care workers from states away, and especially Freeman Medical Center, I commend everyone on unselfishly coming together and giving 110% the way that you all did, even in your own time of need. St John’s Regional Medical Center is gone, but her spirit and goodness lives on in each of you.

EMS, you should be proud of yourselves. You were all excellent, and did a great job despite incredible difficulties and against all odds

For all of the injured who I treated, although I do not remember your names (nor would I expect you to remember mine) I will never forget your faces. I’m glad that I was able to make a difference and help in the best way that I knew how, and hopefully give some of you a chance at rebuilding your lives again. For those whom I was not able to get to or treat, I apologize whole heartedly.

Last, but not least, thank you, and God bless you, Mercy/St John’s for providing incredible care in good times and even more so, in times of the unthinkable, and for all the training that enabled us to be a team and treat the people and save lives.

Kevin J. Kikta, DO is an emergency room doctor from the Department of Emergency Medicine at Mercy/St John’s Regional Medical Center, Joplin, Missouri.

This article courtesy of www.mercy.net website of the Mercy Health Ministry.

2011-06-10T10:40:00.002-05:00

Professor disaster
Bam's theories killing economy
Posted: 10:23 PM, June 8, 2011
Michael A. Walsh -- New York Post

No billions or trillions needed -- here's the simplest num ber to describe the dismal state of the US economy:

One.

With the departure of chief economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, that's the number of members from the original Obama economic team still working for the administration, not quite three years into the first term.

Rats, say goodbye to the ship of state: Gone are Christina Romer, Larry Summers, Peter Orszag. Headed out is Goolsbee, who abruptly announced his resignation Monday to return to teaching at the University of Chicago.

With the water lapping over the gunwales, the lone holdout is Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the former tax cheat, who sails grimly on.

The government racked up $5.3 trillion in new fiscal obligations last year alone -- bringing the current unfunded tab for future expenses on things like Medicare, Social Security and military medical and retirement programs to a whopping $61.6 trillion, or $534,000 per American household.

Then there's today's bills: We're borrowing $125 billion a month that we have no hope of ever paying back on our current course.

The growth in GDP declined to a measly 1.8 percent in the first quarter of 2011 as consumers hung desperately onto their wallets. Job growth has completely collapsed. Fully 60 percent of the electorate thinks the country is on the wrong track. No wonder the daily economic briefing, once on a par with the intelligence briefing, has vanished from President Obama's schedule.

Heckuva job, guys.

And now Obama says he's not worried about a double-dip recession. Easy for him to say: For Americans not feeding at the government trough, the first recession never ended.

We are witnessing the total failure of academic Keynesian economics, with its heavy emphasis on high taxes and exorbitant government spending. Yet Obama sails blithely on, already in full campaign mode and still blaming George W. Bush and the Republicans (admittedly no models of fiscal restraint or responsibility) for everything.

Worse, the what-me-worry president continues to insist that the ongoing hard times are just a "bump in the road" -- that if we can just get the "fortunate" rich to "pay a little more" everything will be just fine.

Never mind that most of the "rich" got their own money by inventing a product or providing a service in the private sector. That they invested an enormous amount of their own capital and sweat equity before it paid off. That they did it for the most part without any help from Obama or his friends in academe.

And never mind that if you tax the rich at 100 percent of their wealth, the country will still go bankrupt.

Bump in the road to what, Mr. President? The road to perdition?

The truth is, the only jobs the government can "create" are more government jobs. That's why real-estate values in DC are booming even as they've plunged everywhere else.

As Obama seeks Goolsbee's rePlacement, he might try looking toward the real world, where businesses are born.

In the faculty lounge inhabited by the president and his credentialed playmates, the economy is a controlled experiment, with manufacturers and consumers mere lab rats who cheerfully respond to the prodding of their ivory-tower betters, no matter how many taxes and regulations are piled onto their backs.

Oops.

What's needed now is a radical re-thinking of economic theory and the tax structure. Until the economy is addressed, we can't make rational, realistic decisions about anything else, including foreign policy.

In other words, private-sector jobs are Job One.

Of course, Obama's aiming to make the 2012 election a re-run of '08, with the same hope-and-change shtick. He and his campaign gurus understand that their only hope is to give the electorate the old razzle-dazzzle and hope nobody notices the foreclosure signs sprouting across the land.

How will we know when things are finally starting to go in the right direction? When the US is back on the right track and when hope -- real hope -- once more springs eternal? When the number of Obama holdovers in the next administration is zero.

2011-06-07T09:55:00.000-05:00

Thomas Sowell Rocks

If I was stranded on a desert island and could only bring two books, one would be one of Thomas Sowell's.

Different Decisions
Thomas Sowell
6/7/2011

Two unrelated news stories on the same day show the contrast between government decisions and private decisions.

Under the headline "Foreclosed Homes Sell at Big Discounts," USA Today reported that banks were selling the homes they foreclosed on, at discounts of 38 percent in Tennessee to 41 percent in Illinois and Ohio.

Banks in general try to get rid of the homes they acquire by foreclosure, by selling them quickly for whatever they can get. Why? Because banks are forced by economic realities to realize that they are not real estate companies.

No matter how much expertise bank officials may have in financial transactions, that is very different from knowing the best ways to maintain and market empty houses.

Meanwhile, there was a story on the Fox News Channel about schools that are using their time to indoctrinate kindergartners and fourth graders with politically correct attitudes about sex.

Anyone familiar with the low standards and mushy notions in the schools and departments of education that turn out our public school teachers might think that these teachers would have all they can do to make American children competent in reading, writing and math.

Anyone familiar with how our children stack up with children from other countries in basic education would be painfully aware that American children lag behind children in countries that spend far less per pupil than we do.

In other words, teachers and schools that are failing to provide the basics of education are branching out into all sorts of other areas, where they have even less competence.

Why are teachers so bold when banks are so cautious? The banks pay a price for being wrong. Teachers don't.

If banks try to act like they are real estate companies and hold on to a huge inventory of foreclosed homes, they are likely to lose money big time, as those homes deteriorate and cannot compete with homes marketed by real estate companies with far more experience and expertise in this field.

But if teachers fail to educate children, they don't lose one dime, no matter how much those children and the country lose by their failure. If the schools waste precious time indoctrinating children, instead of educating them, that's the children's problem and the country's problem, but not the teachers' problem.

Sex indoctrination is just one of innumerable "exciting" and "innovative" self-indulgences of the schools. There is no bottom line test of what these boondoggles cost the children or the country.

Incidentally, conservatives who think that schools should be teaching "abstinence" miss the point completely. The schools have no expertise to be teaching sex at all. We should be happy if they ever develop the competence to teach math and English, so that our children can hold their own in international tests given to children in other countries.

Schools are just one government institution that take on tasks for which they have no expertise or even competence.

Congress is the most egregious example. In the course of any given year, Congress votes on taxes, medical care, military spending, foreign aid, agriculture, labor, international trade, airlines, housing, insurance, courts, natural resources, and much more.

There are professionals who have spent their entire adult lives specializing in just one of these fields. They idea that Congress can be competent in all these areas simultaneously is staggering. Yet, far from pulling back-- as banks or other private enterprises must, if they don't want to be ruined financially by operating beyond the range of their competence-- Congress is constantly expanding further into more fields.

Having spent years ruining the housing markets with their interference, leading to a housing meltdown that has taken the whole economy down with it, politicians have now moved on into micro-managing automobile companies and medical care.

They are not going to stop unless they get stopped. And that is not going to happen until the voters recognize the fact that political rhetoric is no substitute for competence.

Curtains! by Andrew Klavan - City Journal

2011-06-05T12:20:00.000-05:00

Curtains! by Andrew Klavan - City Journal

2011-05-07T13:49:00.000-05:00

Last Facebook Post

2011-05-03T14:51:00.001-05:00

'Nuff Said!

2011-04-30T07:33:00.008-05:00

The Simple Joys of Childhood

So help me if you can
I've got to get back
To the House at Pooh Corner by one
You'd be surprised
There's so much to be done
Count all the bees in the hive
Chase all the clouds from the sky
Back to the days of Christopher Robin and Pooh

I was thinking about this song today. I'm not much on Kenny Loggins, but this is a great song. It has a great tune and it has thought provoking, albeit melancholy, lyrics -- a kind of wistfulness of a young adult longing for the simple joys of childhood.

What's unfortunate about the song, however, is that its message -- that adults must leave the simple joys of childhood behind -- is true if one adopts a secular worldview.

However, if one centers their life on God, the message of 'House at Pooh Corner' is wrong; in fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

If you center your life on God, life is full of joy and simplicity. There is a terrific little book entitled 'Keep It Simple' by Emmanuel de Gibergues that explains living your life with this joyful simplicity:

"Simplicity, or purity of intention, consists in keeping before yourself, in all your thoughts, words, and acts, one and the same end, one and the same object -- namely, the pleasing of God, or, more accurately, the doing of His will. ...

If man sees only God, seeks only God, and attaches himself only to God; if he voluntarily directs his thoughts, his words, his acts, and his whole life toward God; if, in some sort, he passes amid creatures without pausing, if he fails to find in them his repose as in an end, but desires to rest only in God -- then he is in the way of truth and order; he is righteous and holy, because he is perfectly simple. The catechism expresses the same idea in saying, "Man is created to know God, to love Him, and to serve Him, and thus to reach eternal life". ...

Thenceforth, simplicity becomes the soul of the spiritual life, ... The simple soul is ever pleasing to God, because it ever looks to Him, and ever seeks Him always, having no ambition other than to do His will in order to procure His glory.

To be simple is to see, love, and desire God in all creatures and in all things; it is to unify one's life with God."

2011-04-27T13:01:00.000-05:00

Great post from the excellent Conversion Diary blog

The 7 Habits of People Who Place Radical Trust in God

I read a lot of biographies and memoirs about inspiring people who place radical trust in God. (By “radical” I don’t mean reckless or imprudent, but am referring to the difficult, very counter-cultural act of recognizing God’s sovereignty over every area of our lives. More on that here.) From He Leadeth Me to God’s Smuggler, Mother Angelica to The Heavenly Man to The Shadow of His Wings, these true stories are about people from all walks of the Christian life: Catholic and Protestant, consecrated religious and lay people, men and women. And yet they all have distinct similarities in their approaches to life and the Lord.

I found it fascinating to see what common threads could be found in the lives of these incredible people who place so much trust in the Lord, and thought I’d share in case others find it inspiring as well.

1. They accept suffering

One of the most powerful things I’ve read in recent memory is Brother Yun’s story of being a persecuted pastor in China, as recounted in the book The Heavenly Man. After facing weeks of torture, including electrocution, starvation, beatings, and having needles shoved under his fingernails, he was thrown in a box that was four feet long, three feet wide, and four feet high, where he would stay indefinitely. The day after he was put in this mini cell, he felt prompted to pray for a Bible — a ridiculous idea, considering that many people were in prison at that very moment for being in possession of such contraband. Yet he prayed anyway. And, inexplicably, the guards threw a Bible into his cell the next morning. He writes:

I knelt down and wept, thanking the Lord for this great gift. I could scarcely believe my dream had come true! No prisoner was ever allowed to have a Bible or any Christian literature, yet, strangely, God provided a Bible for me! Through this incident the Lord showed me that regardless of men’s evil plans for me, he had not forgotten me and was in control of my life.

Now, the less saintly among us (cough-cough) might have reacted to that a little differently. Had I been tortured and thrown in a coffin-like cell, my reaction to receiving a Bible would have likely been more along the lines of, “Thanks for the Bible, Lord, but could we SEE ABOUT GETTING ME OUT OF THIS METAL BOX FIRST?!?!” I wouldn’t have even “counted” the Bible as an answered prayer since my main prayer — reducing my physical suffering — had gone unanswered.

Yet what I see over and over again in people like Brother Yun is that they have crystal clarity on the fact that suffering is not the worst evil — sin is. Yes, they would prefer not to suffer, and do sometimes pray for the relief of suffering. But they prioritize it lower than the rest of us do — they focus far more on not sinning than on not suffering. They have a laser focus on getting themselves and others to heaven. In Brother Yun’s case, he saw through that answered prayer that God was allowing him to grow spiritually and minister to his captors, so his circumstances of suffering in an uncomfortable cell became almost irrelevant to him.

2. They accept the inevitability of death

Similar to the above, people who place great trust in God can only do so with a heaven-centered worldview. They think in terms of eternity, not in terms of calendar years. Their goal is not to maximize their time on earth, but rather to get themselves and as many other people as possible to heaven. And if God can best do that by shortening their lifespans, they accept that.

The Shadow of His Wings is filled with jaw-dropping stories of Fr. Goldmann’s miraculous escapes from death during World War II, which begs the question, “What about all the people who didn’t escape death?” Fr. Goldmann would probably respond by saying that God saving him from death was not the blessing in and of itself — after all, every single one of us will die eventually. The blessing was saving him from death so that he could continue his ministry bringing the Gospel to the Nazis. He eventually died while building a ministry in Japan, and presumably accepted that God would bring good from his passing, even though there was undoubtedly more work he wanted to do.

3. They have daily appointments with God

I have never heard of a person who had a deep, calm trust in the Lord who did not set aside time for focused prayer every day. Both in the books I’ve read an in real life, I’ve noticed that people like this always spend at least a few moments — and up to an hour or two if circumstances permit — focused on nothing but prayer, every day. Also, they tend to do it first thing in the morning, centering themselves in Christ before tackling anything else the day may bring.

4. In prayer, they listen more than they talk

I’ve written before about my amazement that really holy people seem to get their prayers answered more often than the rest of us. I’d heard enough stories of people praying for something very specific, then receiving it, that I started to wonder if they were psychic or God just liked them more than the rest of us or something. What I eventually realized is that their ideas about what to pray for came from the Holy Spirit in the first place, because they spent so much time seeking God’s will for them, day in and day out.

So, to use the example of a famous story from Mother Angelica’s biography, she had a satellite dish delivery man at the door who needed $600,000 or he was going to return the dish, thus killing all the plans for the new station. She ran to the chapel and prayed, and a guy she’d never met randomly called and wanted to donate $600,000. Her prayer wasn’t answered because she had a personal interest in television and just really, really wanted it, but because she had correctly discerned God’s plan that she was to start a television station on this particular day.

5. They limit distractions

Of all the amazing stories in God’s Smuggler, one of the lines that jumped out to me the most in the book was in the epilogue, when the authors talk about how Brother Andrew’s work has continued in 21st century:

“I won’t even consider installing one of those call waiting monstrosities,” he exclaimed, “that interrupt one phone conversation to announce another.” Technology, Andrew says, makes us far too accessible to the demands and pressures of the moment. “Our first priority should be listening in patience and silence for the voice of God.”

Far too accessible to the demands and pressures of the moment. That line has haunted me ever since I read it. I love technology, but it does come with a huge temptation to feel a general increase in urgency in our lives: I have to reply to that email! Respond to that comment on my wall on Facebook! Ret-tweet that tweet! Read that direct message! Listen to that voicemail! Here in the connected age, we are constantly bombarded with demands on our attention. Periods of silence, where we can cultivate inner stillness and wait for the promptings of the Holy Spirit, are increasingly rare.

One thing that all the people in these books have in common is that they had very little of this pressure of false urgency. It’s hard to imagine Fr. Ciszek coming up with the breathtaking insights about God’s will that he shared in He Leadeth Me with his iPhone buzzing alerts every few minutes, or Brother Yun seeing the subtle beauty of God’s plan in the midst of persecution while keeping his Twitter status updated on a minute-by-minute basis.

6. They submit their discernment to others

People who have a long history of watching the way the Lord works in their lives notice that he often speaks through holy friends, family members and clergy. If they discern that God is calling them to something, especially if it’s something big, they ask trusted Christian confidantes to pray about the matter and see if they discern the same thing. And when others warn them not to follow a certain path — especially if it’s a spouse, confessor or spiritual director — they take those indicators very seriously.

7. They offer the Lord their complete, unhesitating obedience

One of my favorite parts of God’s Smuggler is when Brother Andrew got a visit from a man named Karl de Graaf who was part of a prayer group in which people often spent hours of time in prayer, most of it listening in silence:

I went out to the front stoop, and there was Karl de Graaf. “Hello!” I said, surprised.

“Hello, Andy. Do you know how to drive?”

“Drive?”

“An automobile.”

“No,” I said, bewildered. “No, I don’t.”

“Because last night in our prayers we had a word from the Lord about you. It’s important for you to be able to drive.”

“Whatever on earth for?” I said. “I’ll never own a car, that’s for sure.”

“Andrew,” Mr. de Graaf spoke patiently, as to a slow-witted student, “I’m not arguing for the logic of the case. I’m just passing on the message.” And with that, he was striding across the bridge.

Despite his initial hesitation, Brother Andrew discerned that this was something that God was calling him to do, so he learned to drive. It seemed like a complete waste of time, an utterly illogical use of his resources, but he was obedient to the Lord’s call. I won’t spoil what happened next for those of you who plan to read the book, but let’s just say that shortly after he received his license, it turned out to be critical to the future of his ministry (which eventually brought the Gospel to thousands of people behind the Iron Curtain) that he know how to drive.

I often think of how Mr. de Graaf responded when Brother Andrew was scratching his head about this odd message: “That’s the excitement in obedience,” he said. “Finding out later what God had in mind.”

__________________________

Obviously we can’t grow closer to God by aping the actions of others, but I find lists like this helpful as a starting point for reflection on my own spiritual progress. I hope you found it helpful as well!

Will Unions Clip Boeing's Wings? - Investors.com

2011-04-27T12:46:00.000-05:00

Is the NLRB an independent government agency? -- or the lap dog of Big Labor?

Will Unions Clip Boeing's Wings? - Investors.com

2011-04-26T13:36:00.002-05:00

Odumbo in Mourning

‘Hub’ Schlafly, TV engineer who helped invent teleprompter, dies at 91 - The Washington Post

Where Did All the Anti-War Protestors Go? � John Stossel

2011-04-26T06:55:00.000-05:00

Never underestimate the base and craven hypocrisy of the liberal left.

Where Did All the Anti-War Protestors Go? - John Stossel

2011-04-25T12:23:00.003-05:00

Didja Ever Wonder ...

... about the people who respond to polls?

For example, I just read this story about Odumbo's free fall in the polls:

According to The Post-ABC poll, by a margin of 44 to 28, US voters believe the economy is getting worse under Obama, with 46 percent strongly disapproving of the president’s handling of the issue compared to just 23 percent who strongly approve. 78 percent of Americans feel inflation is getting worse, with 71 percent agreeing that the recent increase in gasoline prices has caused financial hardship for themselves or their household.

Considering what an economic dunce Odumbo is, the numbers really aren't surprising. BUT, consider the flip sides of the numbers:

23% of Americans not just approve -- but strongly approve -- of Odumbo's handling of the economy.
22% of Americans believe that inflation is getting better.

Are these people smoking crack? Who in their right mind could rationally say "Gosh, gas prices are up, unemployment is up, the stock market is down, the housing market is down, foreclosures are up, etc. Isn't Odumbo doing a great job!"

Of course, these people aren't (all) smoking crack, but it seems pretty likely that they are such brain-washed liberal ideologues that they are going to support Odumbo no matter how bad things get.

That being the case, I think they we'd all be better of if they were, in fact, smoking crack. Maybe then they'll be too stoned to get out and vote come November 2012.

2011-04-20T16:27:00.000-05:00

Didja Ever Notice ...

... how some (well, more than some, a lot) of guys have to be the driver when they're in the car with the wife?

I'm reminded of that almost every day because as I look out the window of my office, a fellow gets picked up by his wife each afternoon. However, he doesn't get in the car. She stops, puts their vehicle in 'Park', gets out, walks around and gets in the passenger seat while he walks over and gets in the driver's seat.

What's up with that?

Is his wife such a bad driver that they are in imminent danger of crashing if she's behind the wheel? Or, is it some kind of man-card revocable offense to let your wife drive while you're in the car?

The Pope's 3 Simple Rules for Holiness | Daily News | NCRegister.com

2011-04-18T07:08:00.000-05:00

The Pope's 3 Simple Rules for Holiness | Daily News | NCRegister.com

2011-04-15T12:08:00.000-05:00

Reducing the Deficit Talk to "Bite Size"

2011-04-11T10:45:00.002-05:00

Ancient Wisdom

"High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants. Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point."

Tsunami-hit towns forgot warnings from ancestors
By JAY ALABASTER, Associated Press

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Modern sea walls failed to protect coastal towns from Japan's destructive tsunami last month. But in the hamlet of Aneyoshi, a single centuries-old tablet saved the day.

"High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants," the stone slab reads. "Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point."

It was advice the dozen or so households of Aneyoshi heeded, and their homes emerged unscathed from a disaster that flattened low-lying communities elsewhere and killed thousands along Japan's northeastern shore.

Hundreds of such markers dot the coastline, some more than 600 years old. Collectively they form a crude warning system for Japan, whose long coasts along major fault lines have made it a repeated target of earthquakes and tsunamis over the centuries.

The markers don't all indicate where it's safe to build. Some simply stand — or stood, until they were washed away by the tsunami — as daily reminders of the risk. "If an earthquake comes, beware of tsunamis," reads one. In the bustle of modern life, many forgot.

More than 12,000 people have been confirmed dead and officials fear the number killed could rise to 25,000 from the March 11 disaster. More than 100,000 are still sheltering in schools and other buildings, almost a month later. A few lucky individuals may move into the first completed units of temporary housing this weekend.

Workers at the tsunami-damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power complex finally halted a leak of radioactive water into the Pacific on Wednesday, but it may take months to bring the overheating reactors under control.

A natural disaster as large as last month's 9.0 earthquake and tsunami happens perhaps once in a person's lifetime, at most. Tokyo Electric Power Co., the nuclear plant operator, clearly wasn't prepared. Many communities built right to the water's edge, some taking comfort, perhaps, in sea walls built after a deadly but smaller tsunami in 1960.

Many did escape, fleeing immediately after the quake. In some places, it was a matter of minutes. Others who tarried, perished.

"People had this crucial knowledge, but they were busy with their lives and jobs, and many forgot," said Yotaru Hatamura, a scholar who has studied the tablets.

One stone marker warned of the danger in the coastal city of Kesennuma: "Always be prepared for unexpected tsunamis. Choose life over your possessions and valuables."

Tetsuko Takahashi, 70, safe in her hillside house, watched from her front window as others ignored that advice. She saw a ship swept a half-mile (nearly a kilometer) inland, crushing buildings in its path.

"After the earthquake, people went back to their homes to get their valuables and stow their 'tatami' floor mats. They all got caught," she said.

Her family has lived in Kesennuma for generations, but she said those that experienced the most powerful tsunamis died years ago. She can only recall the far weaker one in 1960, generated by an earthquake off Chile.

Earlier generations also left warnings in place names, calling one town "Octopus Grounds" for the sea life washed up by tsunamis and naming temples after the powerful waves, said Fumihiko Imamura, a professor in disaster planning at Tohoku University in Sendai, a tsunami-hit city.

"It takes about three generations for people to forget. Those that experience the disaster themselves pass it to their children and their grandchildren, but then the memory fades," he said.

The tightly knit community of Aneyoshi, where people built homes above the marker, was an exception.

"Everybody here knows about the markers. We studied them in school," said Yuto Kimura, 12, who guided a recent visitor to one near his home. "When the tsunami came, my mom got me from school and then the whole village climbed to higher ground."

Aneyoshi, part of the city of Miyako, has been battered repeatedly by tsunamis, including a huge one in 1896. Isamu Aneishi, 69, said his ancestors moved their family-run inn to higher ground more than 100 years ago.

But his three grandchildren were at an elementary school that sat just 500 feet (150 meters) from the water in Chikei, a larger town down the winding, cliffside road. The school and surrounding buildings are in ruins. The bodies of his grandchildren have not been found.

Farther south, the tsunami washed away a seven-foot (two-meter) tall stone tablet that stood next to a playground in the middle of the city of Natori. Its message was carved in giant Japanese characters: "If an earthquake comes, beware of tsunamis."

That didn't stop some people from leaving work early after the earthquake, some picking up their children at school en route, to check the condition of their homes near the coast.

Many didn't make it out alive. More than 820 bodies have been found in Natori, some stuck in the upper branches of trees after the water receded. Another 1,000 people are still missing.

Hiroshi Kosai grew up in Natori but moved away after high school. His parents, who remained in the family home, died in the disaster.

"I always told my parents it was dangerous here," said the 43-year-old Kosai, as he pointed out the broken foundation where the tablet once stood. "In five years, you'll see houses begin to sprout up here again."

Hora Zero from Redrocks

2011-04-10T23:10:00.000-05:00

Wow! I think the smoke you see if coming off the guitar strings!

Truth over Ideology by Bruce S. Thornton - City Journal

2011-04-09T20:40:00.000-05:00

"Its unbridled license and frequent triviality notwithstanding, the Internet has performed an invaluable political service by breaking the monopoly that the left-leaning mainstream media once held over public information and analysis. In the past, a New York Times or CBS Evening News could impose a narrative that served its political interests; today, myriad websites and blogs respond instantly to every shoddy argument and distortion of fact."

Truth over Ideology by Bruce S. Thornton - City Journal:

Stephen Moore: We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers - WSJ.com

2011-04-03T10:47:00.000-05:00

Stephen Moore: We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers - WSJ.com

2011-03-31T07:05:00.000-05:00

Buried Treasure Found in Chicago

2011-03-28T12:40:00.000-05:00

"Earth Hour celebrates ignorance, poverty and backwardness"

Earth Hour isn't just another worthless liberal feel-good gesture, it's actually a classic example of how stupid liberals can be. Check out this article below, and the next time some liberal starts chirping about Earth Hour, ask him/her:

Why they support child labor
Why they are against women's rights
Why they are against modern medicine
Why they are against technological progress

Earth Hour: Why I will leave my lights on

By Ross McKitrick, Vancouver Sun March 25, 2011

In 2009 I was asked by a journalist for my thoughts on the importance of Earth Hour. Here is my response.

I abhor Earth Hour. Abundant, cheap electricity has been the greatest source of human liberation in the 20th century. Every material social advance in the 20th century depended on the proliferation of inexpensive and reliable electricity. Giving women the freedom to work outside the home depended on the availability of electrical appliances that free up time from domestic chores. Getting children out of menial labour and into schools depended on the same thing, as well as the ability to provide safe indoor lighting for reading.

Development and provision of modern health care without electricity is absolutely impossible. The expansion of our food supply, and the promotion of hygiene and nutrition, depended on being able to irrigate fields, cook and refrigerate foods, and have a steady indoor supply of hot water. Many of the world’s poor suffer brutal environmental conditions in their own homes because of the necessity of cooking over indoor fires that burn twigs and dung. This causes local deforestation and the proliferation of smoke- and parasite-related lung diseases. Anyone who wants to see local conditions improve in the third world should realize the importance of access to cheap electricity from fossil-fuel based power generating stations. After all, that’s how the west developed.

The whole mentality around Earth Hour demonizes electricity. I cannot do that, instead I celebrate it and all that it has provided for humanity. Earth Hour celebrates ignorance, poverty and backwardness. By repudiating the greatest engine of liberation it becomes an hour devoted to anti-humanism. It encourages the sanctimonious gesture of turning off trivial appliances for a trivial amount of time, in deference to some ill-defined abstraction called “the Earth,” all the while hypocritically retaining the real benefits of continuous, reliable electricity. People who see virtue in doing without electricity should shut off their fridge, stove, microwave, computer, water heater, lights, TV and all other appliances for a month, not an hour. And pop down to the cardiac unit at the hospital and shut the power off there too.

I don’t want to go back to nature. Travel to a zone hit by earthquakes, floods and hurricanes to see what it’s like to go back to nature. For humans, living in “nature” meant a short life span marked by violence, disease and ignorance. People who work for the end of poverty and relief from disease are fighting against nature. I hope they leave their lights on.

Here in Ontario, through the use of pollution control technology and advanced engineering, our air quality has dramatically improved since the 1960s, despite the expansion of industry and the power supply. If, after all this, we are going to take the view that the remaining air emissions outweigh all the benefits of electricity, and that we ought to be shamed into sitting in darkness for an hour, like naughty children who have been caught doing something bad, then we are setting up unspoiled nature as an absolute, transcendent ideal that obliterates all other ethical and humane obligations. No thanks. I like visiting nature but I don’t want to live there, and I refuse to accept the idea that civilization with all its tradeoffs is something to be ashamed of.

Is President Obama the weakest Commander-in-Chief in US history? – Telegraph Blogs

2011-03-25T10:16:00.000-05:00

Is President Obama the weakest Commander-in-Chief in US history? – Telegraph Blogs:

The U.S. is "led by a president who increasingly makes Jimmy Carter look like General Patton"

2011-03-18T01:25:00.000-05:00

"Obama's ... legacy of weakness and indecision on several fronts will haunt future generations to come."

Barack Obama’s paralysed presidency: the White House looks incapable of leading at home and abroad – Telegraph Blogs:

Does Hillary Clinton believe in American leadership? Washington outsources US policy on Libya to the UN – Telegraph Blogs

2011-03-17T11:22:00.000-05:00

Does Hillary Clinton believe in American leadership? Washington outsources US policy on Libya to the UN – Telegraph Blogs

America must escape the doomed path of EU-style decline – Telegraph Blogs

2011-03-09T12:18:00.000-06:00

"Between 1980 and 1992, excluding the UK, “the EU failed to produce a single net private sector job,”

Wow! And this is what Obama wants for the U.S.?

America must escape the doomed path of EU-style decline – Telegraph Blogs

2011-02-24T01:36:00.001-06:00

Don't Try This At Home

2011-02-23T00:36:00.001-06:00

'This life of yours will pass quickly'

There is a great Catholic blog that I visit entitled 'Vultus Christi'. I was on it today and it had this prayer that is so good that I had to pull it over here and post it as well.

It is not by privileges, special graces, or mystical experiences
that souls are perfected in love;
it is by a total adhesion to my Will,
and by a real death to all that is not my Will.

This life of yours will pass quickly.
In the end, you will take comfort in one thing only:
in the "Yes" that you will have said to my Love for you,
and in your adhesion to my Will as it will have unfolded
minute by minute, hour by hour, and day by day in your life.

Tell me, then, that what I will, you will.
Tell me that all that is outside of my will for you is so much rubbish.
Ask me to cleanse your life of the accumulated rubbish of so many years.
Ask me to make you clean of heart and poor in spirit.
Seek nothing apart from what my Heart desires you to have.
Ask only for what my Heart desires to give you.
Therein lies your peace.
Therein lies your joy.
Therein lies salvation and glory.

Your plans, your desires, and your anxieties
are but puffs of smoke blown away by the wind.
Only what I will endures.
Only what I will gives you happiness.
Seek then what I will, and trust me to give you what you seek.

Souls who chase after rainbows
pass by the treasures that I have laid beneath their feet,
leaving them behind to pursue a future that is not,
and that will not come to be.

This is an exhausting exercise for you
and for so many souls like you,
who, enchanted by an ideal,
fail to see my work, and the splendour of my Will for them,
revealed in the present.

Live, then, in the present moment.
Choose to be faithful to me
in the little things that I give you
and ask of you from minute to minute,
from hour to hour, and from day to day.
It is foolish to pin your hopes and to spend your energy
on an imaginary good,
when the real good that I offer you is here and now.

It is not forbidden you to dream dreams
or to imagine a future that you think will make you happy
-- I give you your imagination and I am not offended when you use it.
The imagined good becomes an evil, however,
when it saps you of your energy;
drains you of the vitality
that I would have you offer me in sacrifice
by being faithful to the reality that is here and now;
and when you use your imagination
to flee from obedience and submission to me
in the circumstances
and in the places where I have placed you at this time.

Plan for the future by living in the present.
Open your heart to my voice each day,
and cling to the smallest manifestations of my Will.
Renounce all that springs from your own desires and imaginings,
and say "Yes" to all that springs from my most loving and merciful Heart.
Therein lies your peace, your joy, and your salvation.

From In Sinu Iesu, The Journal of A Priest

Paul Krugman and America’s delusional Left-wing elites remain stuck in the Twilight Zone – Telegraph Blogs

2011-02-22T09:59:00.000-06:00

Paul Krugman and America’s delusional Left-wing elites remain stuck in the Twilight Zone – Telegraph Blogs

2011-02-21T13:40:00.002-06:00

Heaven Is Real

After near-death experience, boy says "Heaven is Real"
Natalie Tysdal
9:54 AM MST, February 11, 2011

IMPERIAL, Neb. -- It sounds like a story dreamed up by a little boy, but to understand what Colton Burpo says you have to hear what he says happened to him.

It all started during a trip to Colorado.

Colton complained of a stomach ache, which led to a trip to the doctor and a diagnosis of the flu. Afterward, the Burpo family went home to the small town of Imperial, Neb., where another doctor dismissed suggestions that Colton was suffering from appendicitis.

Just two days later, Todd and Sonja Burpo rushed their lifeless son to another medical center, where he was immediately taken into surgery. Colton's surgeon estimates that the boy's appendix had ruptured five days before he was properly diagnosed.

Todd remembers thinking, "as parents we felt sick, what did we do wrong?"

While Colton was in surgery, Todd and Sonja prayed in separate rooms. They thought their son was dying and they blamed themselves.

Miraculously, after a difficult recovery and another surgery, Colton survived. But his story is far from over.

There were things Colton did and things he said after the surgery that were out of the ordinary, but none of it made sense until a drive past the hospital four months after the surgery.

His Dad jokingly asked Colton if he wanted to go back to the hospital.

Colton's response? "You know Dad, the angels sang to me while I was there," the boy said.

Todd remembers looking into the mirror and seeing his son's face being dead serious, with no smile or notion that he was joking in return.

Todd looked at his wife and asked, "Has he ever talked about angels with you before?"

Colton claims that while on the operating table he went to heaven and that he met his great-grandfather Pop. Colton says his grandfather didn't look like the man in the photo in his house, but instead looked like the man in the picture sent months later by his Grandmother, a young man without glasses.

But perhaps the most shocking part of Colton's story, the baby he never knew about.

One day while Colton was playing he walked up to his mom, and out of the blue asked, "Mom, I have two sisters, you had a baby die in your tummy didn't you?"

Sonja was shocked and overwhelmed by what her little boy had just said. When she asked him who told him, he said, "she did Mommy, she said she died in your tummy."

Todd and Sonja had never told their son about the miscarriage Sonja had before Colton was born. After all, it was more than a four-year-old would ever need to know.

Colton went on to tell his mom that she was a girl and, "she looked familiar and she started giving me hugs and she was glad to have someone in her family up there."

Over time his visions became more believable. He described Jesus, and he even talked about Armageddon and how God told him his father would fight in the final battle. Although Todd was a pastor, he says he never talked detail like this with his preschool aged son.

After years of stories and new details, Todd's friends and members of his church started asking him to write his stories down. They encouraged Todd to write a book, which wasn't something he wanted to do or had any idea how to do.

He remembers praying about it, and he said he would only do it if the opportunity fell right into his lap. It wasn't long after his prayer that a publisher called him.

Now Colton's stories of Heaven are documented in a book titled "Heaven is for Real."

500,000 copies of the book have been printed and there are now talks of a movie. Sonja says it's a lot for her small town family but they are seeing their story make a difference in many lives.

As for Colton, he is now 11 and he loves to sing, wrestle, and play the trumpet. His Dad says his experience in heaven hasn't changed his son, but because Colton was so young when it happened it has defined his life.

When asked why he thinks his son and his family had this experience, Todd says, "I don't know why God picked us. If we had a chance to vote when we saw our kid suffering about to die, we would have said no, we don't want this. We are just normal people that God did a miracle for."

Copyright © 2011, KDVR-TV

2011-02-21T13:30:00.001-06:00

Creepiest Looking Dictator

It's hard to tell which Middle East dictator is going to tumble next, but I think there's no doubt that Libyas' Gaddafi is the creepiest looking of them all.

2011-02-16T00:23:00.001-06:00

Woman in fatal crash was updating Facebook

By Cynthia Dizikes
Tribune reporter
1:47 AM CST, February 15, 2011

The daughter of a Chicago man who was struck and killed by a vehicle last year filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the driver Monday alleging that she was updating her Facebook page with her cell phone when the incident occurred.

Raymond Veloz, 70, was driving in the city’s South Chicago neighborhood on Dec. 7, 2010, when he got in a minor accident with another vehicle, according to the lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court by Veloz’s daughter Regina Cabrales.

Veloz stepped out of his vehicle to exchange information with the other driver. But shortly after, Araceli Beas, who was driving southbound on Ewing Avenue, drove her vehicle into Veloz, partially severing his right leg and causing him to bleed to death, Cabrales alleged.

The suit states that Beas’ Facebook page shows that she updated it by mobile phone at 7:54 a.m., the same time that Veloz made an emergency 911 phone call.

Veloz was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead a short time later, police said at the time.

Police cited the driver of the third vehicle for failure to avoid striking a pedestrian. That driver and the driver with whom Veloz had the accident told officers at the time that their ability to see the road was temporarily impaired by the sun.

Cabrales alleges that Beas negligently operated her vehicle “without keeping a proper and sufficient outlook.”

Beas could not immediately be reached for comment.

Cabrales is asking for an unspecified amount of money.

cdizikes@tribune.com

Moonbattery: Strangled With Red Tape Outside Socialist Hospital

2011-02-15T09:14:00.000-06:00

Moonbattery: Strangled With Red Tape Outside Socialist Hospital

"Dead, free of charge, compliments of socialized medicine."

2011-02-14T09:33:00.001-06:00

This Egypt Thing

2011-02-11T12:11:00.001-06:00

What Next for Egypt?

News is breaking now that Eqyptian President Mubarak is finally seeing the writing on the wall and is stepping down. That's great, but what's next for Egypt?

A move towards authentic democracy? -- or does their peaceful revolution get hijacked by the Muslim Brotherhood, or some other Islamofascist sect and we see the new Egypt as another Pakistan? -- or worse, another Iran?

Commentary � Blog Archive � All Aboard the T-Rex Express

2011-02-10T15:14:00.000-06:00

Commentary � Blog Archive � All Aboard the T-Rex Express

Robert J. Samuelson - High-Speed Rail Plans Defy Experience - washingtonpost.com

2011-02-10T12:49:00.000-06:00

Robert J. Samuelson - High-Speed Rail Plans Defy Experience - washingtonpost.com

2011-02-01T11:44:00.000-06:00

A Couple of Takes on 'The Relic'

One of the collateral problems of our society is its incessant bias against the Faith, such that one automatically presumes anything produced by the media, Hollywood, etc. is antagonistic and biased against the Faith (I think that thought was kind of circular, but you get the point ).

Anyway, to get to the point, I automatically assumed that the new movie, 'The Rite' about an exorcist would be -- all together now -- antagonistic and biased against the Faith. To my surprise, it appears not to be the case. Here is a review from a solid Catholic source, and an interview with the priest whose book, "The Rite", the movie is based on.

Steven D. Greydanus
Decent Films Guide

The Rite
Score "B"
The Rite really wants to get it right.

In some ways, Mikael Håfström’s film reminds me less of recent exorcism films than of the sort of movie that Terence Fisher made for Hammer Films in the late 1950s and 1960s, movies like The Devil Rides Out and the 1958 Dracula. If Father Lucas, an unconventional veteran exorcist working in Rome, had been played by Hammer icon Christopher Lee instead of Anthony Hopkins, he would have been right at home.

On the other hand, Michael Kovak (newcomer Colin O’Donoghue), a doubting seminarian roped into a Vatican-sponsored training initiative for new exorcists, belongs to the postcritical milieu of The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Requiem and The Last Exorcism. Michael is among the more thoughtfully skeptical characters in this type of movie, proposing naturalistic explanations for possible supernatural phenomena when he can, and citing other unexplained phenomena when he can’t. Still, Michael seems to respect the priesthood more than some of his less troubled classmates; he rolls his eyes at the future clerics in the dorm room across the hall playing violent video games. “Honestly?” he mutters rhetorically, pushing his door closed.

This is not a world in which demons manifest openly or in which sacred objects like crosses or holy water are omnipotent over the forces of darkness. Exorcism in The Rite is a long, drawn-out process that can last for weeks, months or even longer. In that way, among others, The Rite is probably the most sober, realistic treatment of exorcism in Hollywood history. It’s also a pretty thoughtful depiction of doubt and faith — one of a tiny number of exorcism films, along with the original Exorcist and The Exorcism of Emily Rose, that offers a spiritual, even theological take on what most films in the genre treat as mere horror-movie trappings.

Fr. Lucas goes so far as to tweak the godfather of all exorcism movies. “What were you expecting?” he asks Michael after their first go-round with a troubled, very pregnant Italian girl (Marta Gastini). “Spinning heads and pea soup?”

A movie that goes there had better not fall back on the old clichés itself. The Rite is only partially up to its own challenge.

Catholic World Report
'Doorways for the Devil'
Interview

Father Gary Thomas, the exorcist for the Diocese of San Jose, reflects on a neglected ministry.

Interview by Brian O'Neel

Just prior to the November 2010 meeting of the United States bishops in Baltimore, Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois announced he would host a two-day conference on exorcism. More than 50 bishops and 60 priests registered to attend. Paprocki explained he wanted to bring attention to a badly needed ministry in the American Church.

Father Gary Thomas is the exorcist for the Diocese of San Jose, California, and the subject of the book The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist, which inspired the new movie The Rite, starring Anthony Hopkins. Father Thomas spoke to CWR about exorcism, demons, and the power of the sacraments.

CWR: First of all, what is an exorcist? What does he do?

Father Gary Thomas: An exorcist is a Catholic priest or a bishop who is involved in using the name of Christ to break a relationship between a demon and a human being.

What does that involve?

Father Thomas: Well, an exorcist has to discern carefully the experiences of the person who claims a diabolical attachment and then determine whether or not anything satanic is present. So when people come and say, “I need an exorcism,” I don’t just start praying the rite.

How do exorcists see their position within the Church?

Father Thomas: It’s a very important ministry, a very dangerous ministry, and it’s a ministry that takes an incredible amount of time, energy, and personal sacrifice. We see ourselves in a healing ministry. That’s what this is.

How does one become an exorcist, and what training is involved?

Father Thomas: The bishop has to appoint you. It’s that simple. The Church needs to create a formation/training process in the USA. Right now, all we have is a yearly conference. The course I took was in Rome, and then I trained under an exorcist for three months. In the US, we have none of that.

Nationally, how many exorcisms are performed each year?

Father Thomas: No idea. I can tell you that in Italy there are about 500,000 exorcisms.

How many have you actually performed?

Father Thomas: In five years, I’ve probably met with 100 people. I’ve performed 40 exorcisms on about five of them. I see lots of people, and a lot of times, it’s mental health stuff. I have a psychologist, psychiatrist, a medical doctor, and two priests on my team. So we’re very deliberate about all this.

What is the difference between diabolic harm or oppression and diabolic possession?

Father Thomas: Possession refers to complete takeover of a body by a demon. Oppression and obsession are lesser degrees of diabolical involvement or intrusion. There’s another category I call diabolical harassment, where there’s not been any kind of demonic intrusion into someone’s body, but more of a harassing spirit.

Obsession would be where people would be very, very depressed, and feel very heavy and have a sense that there’s some evil around or within them. These people have very obsessive thoughts having to do with the demonic that they can’t be really freed from. That’s the stuff you have to tease out.

So I first ask questions and trace back events to when things started. We talk about life experiences and their background. A demon doesn’t just show up; he has to be invited in.

What about curses?

Father Thomas: When people say to me, “I’ve had a curse put on me,” I’ll ask, “What do you know about it?” “I don’t know anything.” “Do you know someone who knows how to do that?” “No.” “Has anyone ever come to you and threatened to put one on you?” “No.” Well, then I think the chances of a curse are really next to none.

I have had people tell me lots of things about the people who have put curses on them; they claim the person is a witch, this person did certain things to them, that person threatened to do certain things to them. That’s different. But if you have no way of knowing anything, I just don’t automatically assume that it is a curse.

How prevalent are the various forms of obsession and possession in Catholic families today?

Father Thomas: There really are no statistics. It’s like going to the sacrament of reconciliation. It’s a public ministry, but it’s celebrated privately. What I can tell you is that there are more and more Catholics involved in idolatrous and pagan practices. That’s really why there’s more demonic activity. There’s the absence of God in the lives of a lot of people.

A lot of parents today have no critical eye of faith with which to even recognize the dangers their children are in. A lot of this is going on with the Internet. There are lots and lots of demonic websites.

How does one protect himself and his family from satanic influences?

Father Thomas: If you have a strong faith life, a strong prayer life, and a strong sacramental life, then you have nothing to worry about.

Could you describe the exorcism process for us? When preparing for an exorcism, what do you bring, and how would you set up the room?

Father Thomas: The tools are very simple: holy water, stole, book of deliverance, a crucifix, the rite of exorcism, and that’s it. And we just use the reconciliation room, with three chairs and a lit candle. I try to be very discreet with anybody who comes in, and so does my staff. Only staff who need to know are told anything. I always do the exorcisms with at least one other priest present.

Have you ever engaged a demon in conversation in exorcism?

Father Thomas: Not other than, “What’s your name?” and, “In the name of Jesus, get out!”

Have you ever encountered Satan himself?

Father Thomas: Once or twice, or at least what appeared to be Satan, because he identified himself as such.

Have you ever been frightened by a demon during an exorcism?

Father Thomas: No. I’m not frightened. I give them a certain amount of respect because they’re more powerful than me alone. The only thing that makes me unafraid is having Christ on my side. If I didn’t have Christ, I would be afraid, but God is more powerful than any demon.

How do you know if the exorcism really worked? How do you prevent the demon from returning?

Father Thomas: Once the manifestations stop, that doesn’t necessarily mean the demon has departed. You continue the exorcism prayers for a time. That might mean the person comes back again because demons try and hide, by trying to convince the exorcist they have gone away. Demons enter through the senses—the eyes, the ears, the mouth, and the nose. I can tell through the eyes. I can see the presence. It is as if the eyes of a person look like they have Coke bottle-like contact lenses; there is a presence within the presence. But the demons are very devious, and they want to hide, and so I just continue to look at the eyes of the person after the manifestations have stopped, because sometimes it’s just a ploy.

What is the most surprising thing you have learned in the course of doing an exorcism?

Father Thomas: I think simply the presence of a pure spirit and its power.

What happens to those who are possessed yet never get help?

Father Thomas: If they don’t get help, they’ll simply continue to deteriorate, both physically and mentally, not just psychologically.

In your battles against demons and Satan, what is your greatest weapon?

Father Thomas: It would be Christ, the invocation of Christ. That would be my greatest weapon.

How would you respond to someone who says all you need is to use the name of Jesus?

Father Thomas: I think it takes more than just saying, “In name of Jesus Christ, I command you to leave.” We have a rite that’s recognized, even by the demons, as legitimate. Spontaneous prayers of deliverance are not the same thing as the official rite of exorcism.

What are the ways that demons gain access to souls?

Father Thomas: Well, they don’t get access to souls, they gain access to bodies. The involvement in pagan, satanic, or occult practices are the classical ways.

If a person suffered from physical or sexual abuse, and if they are also involved with things like the occult, the chances of something demonic or something of the spiritual realm affecting them increase. Because you’re tapping into the spiritual realm, and if you have a soul wound, you’re taking a risk.

Pornography is a doorway. But addictions of any kind can be—not are, but can be—a doorway, but it’s coupled with other things. For instance, drug use alone isn’t going to invite the demonic in, but coupled with the occult it could.

Is the occult satanic?

Father Thomas: Not in and of itself, but it’s opening a doorway. It’s tampering in the spirit world, and you do not know who’s going to show up. So when someone gets into Wicca, black magic or white magic, psychics, séances, Tarot cards, spells, or all that other idolatrous stuff, they don’t know what’s going to happen. They’re tapping into a realm they know nothing about, most of the time.

Who is most likely to become possessed?

Father Thomas: More often than not, it’s women. I think women have much more of an affective sense to them, where they’re much more open to the spiritual than men are. Again, that’s an opinion. But in my experience, most people who come to me—and this is not an opinion—are women, probably 70 percent.

In your experience, is it a problem that priests and even some in the episcopate no longer seem to believe in Satan?

Father Thomas: I think so…I’m not knocking the Second Vatican Council, but a lot of things in the formation of priests just disappeared following the Council.… The categories of sin have become very blurred, and so it doesn’t surprise me that the whole notion of Satan has become blurred, because the two are related. But I would remind anybody, look at the cross. The paschal mystery is why we continue to gather as a Church. If there’s no Satan, then the cross is a hoax, because that’s why Jesus Christ came, to defeat Satan, who made his presence known in the Book of Genesis and manifested himself as a serpent. If there’s no Satan, the whole economy of salvation is up for grabs. Why did Jesus come? He came because humanity had fallen from grace, and Satan had a stranglehold on the world.

We don’t see Satan face-to-face in all the calamities involving upheaval in the world in the same way as when someone has a diabolical attachment that is manifesting. People don’t see the demon because the demon is a pure spirit. But they must be blind if they don’t see what’s going on in the world around them and see that Satan is at the heart of much of the tumult in the world.

As an exorcist, I see the response of demons to sacramentals such as the crucifix or holy water or even the presence of a priest. The Eucharist will send possessed persons right over the edge. That’s the amazing thing. I tell the people in my parish, if demons believe in the Real Presence, shouldn’t we? I’m telling you, I’ve brought the Blessed Sacrament [to exorcisms], and the people want to go jumping out windows. It’s not them, it’s the demons.

How many exorcists do we have in the US?

Father Thomas: There are probably two dozen.

If, according to canon law, every diocese is supposed to have an exorcist, why do we have so few?

Father Thomas: My opinion is that bishops have been largely skeptical, because they don’t know who to appoint or know the criteria for how to appoint, or in some cases are ambivalent about the reality of Satan. Some are afraid of [deciding] who to appoint and how to go about appointing them. And I think that’s fair; I don’t think that’s a criticism. I don’t think that many bishops in the country know what’s involved…. Some do because we’ve told them, but when my bishop appointed me, he didn’t realize what it was really going to entail. And I know in talking with others, they didn’t know either.

If you compare the former rites of the Church with their revisions (blessings, baptisms, etc.), you notice that in times past, prayers against Satan were a more common feature. Has their removal had any real, practical effects, and if so, what are they?

Father Thomas: I can tell you that in the old rite of exorcism, the prayers have much more punch to them than the prayers of the new rite. And quite honestly, none of those [who actually do exorcisms] were ever consulted [about the revision], which I thought was amazing. How you would change prayers and not even talk to the experts who use the prayers all the time?

What brings joy to the demons?

Father Thomas: Look at the world and the kinds of behaviors and attitudes people hold toward personal conduct, how they treat their spouses, neighbors, children, and coworkers. Look at heads of states declaring war or acting dictatorially and oppressing people. I think whenever people are involved in what is ungodly, Satan is happy. And, of course, the allegiance to self. It goes back to Adam and Eve, when the serpent said, “Eat the fruit and you will become like gods.” This is one of our biggest problems in the world today.

In summary, what would you say to our readers?

Father Thomas: Don’t be afraid of Satan. Respect the power of evil only insofar as it does exist and it has limited power, but to remember Christ is more powerful than anything satanic.

Brian O’Neel writes from Wisconsin. This article appears in the February 2011 issue of CWR.

Sputnik Moment Or A Lost Opportunity? - Investors.com

2011-01-27T11:16:00.000-06:00

Editorial from Investor's Business Daily on Odumbo's "Sputnik" State of the Union speech. Definitely qualifies as a "must read".

Sputnik Moment Or A Lost Opportunity? - Investors.com

Winning the future: With trains and windmills? - Thursday, Jan. 27, 2011

2011-01-27T11:04:00.000-06:00

Winning the future: With trains and windmills? - Thursday, Jan. 27, 2011

State of the Union 2011: Barack Obama gets another F for world leadership – Telegraph Blogs

2011-01-26T16:15:00.000-06:00

State of the Union 2011: Barack Obama gets another F for world leadership – Telegraph Blogs

Democratic Congressman’s comparison of Republicans with Nazis is met with deafening silence from President Obama and America's liberal elites – Telegraph Blogs

2011-01-20T12:39:00.001-06:00

Democratic Congressman’s comparison of Republicans with Nazis is met with deafening silence from President Obama and America's liberal elites – Telegraph Blogs

The Hateful Left by Andrew Klavan - City Journal

2011-01-20T12:39:00.000-06:00

The Hateful Left by Andrew Klavan - City Journal

Barack Obama is firmly on course to become a one-term president – Telegraph Blogs

2010-12-20T12:40:00.000-06:00

Barack Obama is firmly on course to become a one-term president – Telegraph Blogs

America’s just not that into you, Mr President. The future still looks grim for Barack Obama – Telegraph Blogs

2010-12-13T13:35:00.000-06:00

America’s just not that into you, Mr President. The future still looks grim for Barack Obama – Telegraph Blogs

A Survival Guide to Catastrophe

2010-12-04T12:03:00.000-06:00

A Survival Guide to Catastrophe

Latest Gallup poll: Barack Obama gets another shellacking from the Tea Party – Telegraph Blogs

2010-12-01T20:51:00.000-06:00

More awesomeness from Niles Gardiner of the UK Telegraph. (Why is it that it takes a Brit to see Obama for who he is so well?)

Latest Gallup poll: Barack Obama gets another shellacking from the Tea Party – Telegraph Blogs

The decline and fall of Barack Obama: five key factors that drove the midterm revolution – Telegraph Blogs

2010-12-01T20:41:00.000-06:00

The decline and fall of Barack Obama: five key factors that drove the midterm revolution – Telegraph Blogs

2010-11-03T12:47:00.003-05:00

How Do You Define "Delusional"?

One of the great things about liberals, and one of the keys that distinguishes them from normal people, is their ability to ignore reality.

Most rational people would think that the beat down that the voters handed the Dummycrats would serve as a wake up call, and that they'd be licking their wounds and trying to figure out what went wrong.

Well, fear not! Liberals certainly are licking their wounds today, but their fierce resolve not to learn from their mistakes is unshakeable. A few examples:

E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post says that Tuesday was merely a setback and not a defeat for "progressives". Really? I mean, really??!! Please, Please, PLEASE keep thinking that way -- all the way 'till Nov. 2012. (In case you didn't know "progressive" is what libtards like to call themselves now. They can't understand that "liberal" has such a bad connotation because of what it stands for and figure all they have to do is change the name and their ideology will somehow become palatable to normal people.)

In the New York Times, Democrat Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana says that the Dummycrats simply got out in front of the electorate -- they just moved too fast for the rubes. It's no wonder what Sen. Bayh didn't run for re-election yesterday. He probably got a great deal on an ice sales dealership up in Alaska and is off to make his fortune selling ice to Eskimos.

This meme is and will be repeated and reinforced by the rest of the lame stream media. As insufferable as it is to have to listen to any of it, the good news is these idiots actually believe it. So, don't try and educate them. Don't help them see the light. Let the libtards and their enablers in the media go right into the 2012 election telling themselves that, if Odumbo can just do a better job explaining his socialist agenda, the voters will come out in droves to re-elect him. Afterwards, after they pick themselves up off the floor (again), they will stratch their heads and wonder at our obtusness and they recommence their delusional thinking that they just need to better communicate their message on the wonders of socialism.

The midterms may have saved a superpower: Americans say no to US decline

2010-11-03T09:16:00.000-05:00

The midterms may have saved a superpower: Americans say no to US decline

2010-09-16T12:58:00.000-05:00

"It's the Spending, Stupid."

There's a great song by the band My Morning Jacket called "The Way That He Sings". I thought of it today after reading Dan Heninger's latest column in the WSJ.

It's not so much what Mr. Heninger says, but it's 'the way that he says it' that I like so much -- Heninger Rocks!

It's the Spending, Stupid
A chronic voter 'concern' has now exploded into a broad public movement.

By DANIEL HENNINGER

At a backyard town-hall meeting in Fairfax, Va., Monday, President Obama explained why Christine O'Donnell was going to beat Mike Castle in the GOP's Delaware Senate primary:

"They saw the Recovery Act," he said. "They saw TARP. They saw the auto bailout. And they look at these and think, 'God, all these huge numbers adding up.' So they're right to be concerned about that."

Of course Mr. Obama was speaking generally about the public mood. Let's call it his "generic" explanation for the current voter impulse to wipe out GOP incumbents now and Democrats in November.

Here's your bumper sticker for the 2010 elections: It's the Spending, Stupid.

And the president didn't mention the two $3 trillion-plus budgets passed on his watch or the trillion-dollar health-care entitlement. They, the voters, are not "concerned" about Uncle Sam's spending floating toward the moon. They are enraged, furious, crazed and desperate.

Pennsylvania's shrewd Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell, scripting the new conventional wisdom, says the tea party movement supporting Christine O'Donnell, Sharron Angle in Nevada and Joe Miller in Alaska proves the GOP is in the grip of crazies. With luck, none of his audience will wake up from this delusion before November.

Back in April, the New York Times/CBS did a poll of tea party supporters. When asked, "What should be the goal of the Tea Party movement," 45% said, "Reduce federal government." That is, cut spending. Everything else was in single digits.

I'm convinced that beneath all the economic turbulence in the land is anxiety that's been building for years as public spending has continued to grow. What was a chronic "concern" has exploded this year into a broad public movement—in Washington, California, New York, New Jersey and indeed across Europe. This isn't "concern," Mr. President. It's a crisis.

Look at the astonishing numbers in the Rasmussen poll released last week. Nearly seven in 10 respondents (68%) want a smaller government, lower taxes and fewer services. The party breakdown: GOP, 88%; Democrats, 44%; and Other, 74%. In short, the independent voters who decide national elections have moved into the anti-spending column. I don't think they'll leave any time soon.

In a note on last week's poll, Rasmussen points out that the only time it recorded a higher shrink-the-government number, at 70%, was in August 2006. That was just ahead of the famous off-year election in which Republican voters withheld support for their party's free-spending members in Congress.

The Obama White House holds that the spending concerns Mr. Obama cited Monday—the stimulus, TARP, the auto bailout—were necessary. Whatever any individual merit in this stuff, it hit most voters at a moment when nearly any big government outlays were going to be written off as "more spending." When Mr. Obama said the health bill was "paid for," naturally polls showed that no one believed him. Why should they?

This loss of faith predates the Obama presidency.

I called Scott Rasmussen this week to discuss the roots of the anti-spending mood, and he suggested that the American electorate's desire for pushback against the growth in federal spending dates at least to 1992 and Ross Perot's third-party presidential bid, which drew 18.9% of the popular vote. Indeed, Mr. Rasmussen argues, you can find evidence of the turn in Jimmy Carter's "efficiency in government" efforts.

Until Barack Obama, the only Democrats who had a chance of winning the presidency were Southern governors with a reputation for fiscal moderation. But after Bill Clinton won the White House in 1992, he immediately tried to pass the mammoth health-care entitlement known as HillaryCare. After 17 acrimonious months, it died in August 1994. That November, voters gave control of the House to the GOP for the first time in 40 years. It was about more than Newt Gingrich's charm.

So this year the Democrats, who control Congress because of voter disgust with the Republicans in 2006, passed a health-care entitlement. And this year voters will transfer power back to the Republicans.

The most important and startling number in American politics today is Congress's approval rating: 23%. This is a no-confidence vote. The second branch of government is losing the country. Surely it's about the spending. What else? That Congress hasn't spent enough?

If voters give control of the House to the GOP, the party desperately needs to establish credibility on spending. Absent that, little else is possible. Independent voters now know that the national Democratic Party, hopelessly joined to the public-sector unions, will never stabilize public outlays.

In a sense, the GOP's impending victory is meaningless, a win by default. If the Republican rookies entering Congress next year don't do something identifiably real to stop the federal-spending balloon, voters two years from now will start throwing the GOP under the bus. Absent action, the political rage and cynicism on offer in 2012 could make this year's tea parties look like, well, a tea party.

Write to henninger@wsj.com

2010-09-16T11:04:00.000-05:00

Denmark Mugged by Reality

Did you ever hear the saying: A Conservative is a Liberal who's been mugged by reality? Well, what's true for people is also true for governments.

Salute the Danish Flag – it’s a Symbol of Western Freedom
by Susan MacAllen

In 1978-9 I was living and studying in Denmark.

But in 1978 – even in Copenhagen , one didn’t see Muslim immigrants. The Danish population embraced visitors, celebrated the exotic, went out of its way to protect each of its citizens. It was proud of its new brand of socialist liberalism – one in development since the conservatives had lost power in 1929 – a system where no worker had to struggle to survive, where one ultimately could count upon the state as in, perhaps, no other western nation at the time.

The rest of Europe saw the Scandinavians as free-thinking, progressive and infinitely generous in their welfare policies. Denmark boas ted low crime rates, devotion to the environment, a superior educational system and a history of humanitarianism.

Denmark was also most generous in its immigration policies – it offered the best welcome in Europe to the new immigrant: generous welfare payments from first arrival plus additional perks in transportation, housing and education. It was determined to set a world example for inclusiveness and multiculturalism. How could it have predicted that one day in 2005 a series of political cartoons in a newspaper would spark violence that would leave dozens dead in the streets – all because its commitment to multiculturalism would come back to bite?

By the 1990′s the growing urban Muslim population was obvious – and its unwillingness to integrate into Danish society was obvious. Years of immigrants had settled into Muslim-exclusive enclaves. As the Muslim leadership became more vocal about what they considered the decadence of Denmark ‘s liberal way of life, the Danes – once so welcoming – began to feel slighted. Many Danes had begun to see Islam as incompatible with their long-standing values: belief in personal liberty and free speech, in equality for women, in tolerance for other ethnic groups, and a deep pride in Danish heritage and history.

The New York Post in 2002 ran an article by Daniel Pipes and Lars Hedegaard, in which they forecasted accurately that the growing immigrant problem in Denmark would explode. In the article they reported:

“Muslim immigrants constitute 5 percent of the population but consume upwards of 40 percent of the welfare spending.”

“Muslims are only 4 percent of Denmark’s 5.4 million people but make up a majority of the country’s convicted rapists, an especially combustible issue given that practically all the female victims are non-Muslim. Similar, if lesser, disproportions are found in other crimes.”

“Over time, as Muslim immigrants increase in numbers, they wish less to mix with the indigenous population. A recent survey finds that only 5 percent of young Muslim immigrants would readily marry a Dane.”

“Forced marriages – promising a newborn daughter in Denmark to a male cousin in the home country, then compelling her to marry him, sometimes on pain of death – are one problem”

“Muslim leaders openly declare their goal of introducing Islamic law once Denmark’s Muslim population grows large enough – a not-that-remote prospect. If present trends persist, one sociologist estimates, every third inhabitant of Denmark in 40 years will be Muslim.”

It is easy to understand why a growing number of Danes would feel that Muslim immigrants show little respect for Danish values and laws. An example is the phenomenon common to other European countries and the U.S.: some Muslims in Denmark who opted to leave the Muslim faith have been murdered in the name of Islam, while others hide in fear for their lives. Jews are also threatened and harassed openly by Muslim leaders in Denmark, a country where once Christian citizens worked to smuggle out nearly all of their 7,000 Jews by night to Sweden – before the Nazis could invade. I think of my Danish friend Elsa – who as a teenager had dreaded crossing the street to the bakery every morning under the eyes of occupying Nazi soldiers – and I wonder what she would say today.

In 2001, Denmark elected the most conservative government in some 70 years – one that had some decidedly non-generous ideas about liberal unfettered immigration. Today Denmark has the strictest immigration policies in Europe . ( Its effort to protect itself has been met with accusations of “racism” by liberal media across Europe – even as other governments struggle to right the social problems wrought by years of too-lax immigration.)

If you wish to become Danish, you must attend three years of language classes. You must pass a test on Denmark’s history, culture, and a Danish language test. You must live in Denmark for 7 years before applying for citizenship. You must demonstrate an intent to work, and have a job waiting. If you wish to bring a spouse into Denmark , you must both be over 24 years of age, and you won’t find it so easy anymore to move your friends and family to Denmark with you.

You will not be allowed to build a mosque in Copenhagen . Although your children have a choice of some 30 Arabic culture and language schools in Denmark , they will be strongly encouraged to assimilate to Danish society in ways that past immigrants weren’t.

In 2006, the Danish minister for employment, Claus Hjort Frederiksen, spoke publicly of the burden of Muslim immigrants on the Danish welfare system, and it was horrifying: the government’s welfare committee had calculated that if immigration from Third World countries were blocked, 75 percent of the cuts needed to sustain the huge welfare system in coming decades would be unnecessary. In other words, the welfare system as it existed was being exploited by immigrants to the point of eventually bankrupting the government. “We are simply forced to adopt a new policy on immigration. The calculations of the welfare committee are terrifying and show how unsuccessful the integration of immigrants has been up to now,” he said.

A large thorn in the side of Denmark ‘s imams is the Minister of Immigration and Integration, Rikke Hvilshoj. She makes no bones about the new policy toward immigration, “The number of foreigners coming to the country makes a difference,” Hvilshøj says, “There is an inverse correlation between how many come here and how well we can receive the foreigners that come.” And on Muslim immigrants needing to demonstrate a willingness to blend in, “In my view, Denmark should be a country with room for different cultures and religions. Some values, however, are more important than others. We refuse to question democracy, equal rights, and freedom of speech.”

Hvilshoj has paid a price for her show of backbone. Perhaps to test her resolve, the leading radical imam in Denmark, Ahmed Abdel Rahman Abu Laban, demanded that the government pay blood money to the family of a Muslim who was murdered in a suburb of Copenhagen, stating that the family’s thirst for revenge could be thwarted for money. When Hvilshoj dismissed his demand, he argued that in Muslim culture the payment of retribution money was common, to which Hvilshoj replied that what is done in a Muslim country is not necessarily what is done in Denmark. The Muslim reply came soon after: her house was torched while she, her husband and children slept. All managed to escape unharmed, but she and her family were moved to a secret location and she and other ministers were assigned bodyguards for the first time – in a country where such murderous violence was once so scarce.

Her government has slid to the right, and her borders have tightened. Many believe that what happens in the next decade will determine whether Denmark survives as a bastion of good living, humane thinking and social responsibility, or whether it becomes a nation at civil war with supporters of Sharia law.

And meanwhile, Americans clamor for stricter immigration policies, and demand an end to state welfare programs that allow many immigrants to live on the public dole. As we in America look at the enclaves of Muslims amongst us, and see those who enter our shores too easily, dare live on our taxes, yet refuse to embrace our culture, respect our traditions, participate in our legal system, obey our laws, speak our language, appreciate our history . . we would do well to look to Denmark, and say a prayer for her future and for our own.

Susan MacAllen is a contributing editor for FamilySecurityMatters.org

2010-09-14T22:36:00.000-05:00

"Cleaning My Gun"

Great song from my current favorite album.

2010-09-12T10:09:00.000-05:00

"The eternal flame of Muslim outrage"
I'm really not too concerned about the latest flare up in Muslim violence about someone buring a Koran. It's not that I think burning a Koran is a good idea, but if it wasn't this, Muslims would just find some other excuse to riot. Michelle Malkin provides an excellent take down of the latest Muslim faux outrage.

The eternal flame of Muslim outrage

By Michelle Malkin • September 10, 2010 08:24 AM

The eternal flame of Muslim outrage
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010

Shhhhhhh, we’re told. Don’t protest the Ground Zero mosque. Don’t burn a Koran. It’ll imperil the troops. It’ll inflame tensions. The “Muslim world” will “explode” if it does not get its way, warns sharia-peddling imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Pardon my national security-threatening impudence, but when is the “Muslim world” not ready to “explode”?

At the risk of provoking the ever-volatile Religion of Perpetual Outrage, let us count the little-noticed and forgotten ways.

Just a few months ago in Kashmir, faithful Muslims rioted over what they thought was a mosque depicted on underwear sold by street vendors. The mob shut down businesses and clashed with police over the blasphemous skivvies. But it turned out there was no need for Allah’s avengers to get their holy knickers in a bunch. The alleged mosque was actually a building resembling London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral. A Kashmiri law enforcement official later concluded the protests were “premeditated and organized to vitiate the atmosphere.”

Indeed, art and graphics have an uncanny way of vitiating the Muslim world’s atmosphere. In 1994, Muslims threatened German supermodel Claudia Schiffer with death after she wore a Karl Lagerfeld-designed dress printed with a saying from the Koran. In 1997, outraged Muslims forced Nike to recall 800,000 shoes because they claimed the company’s “Air” logo looked like the Arabic script for “Allah.” In 1998, another conflagration spread over Unilever’s ice cream logo — which Muslims claimed looked like “Allah” if read upside-down and backward (can’t recall what they said it resembled if you viewed it with 3D glasses).

Even more explosively, in 2002, an al-Qaida-linked jihadist cell plotted to blow up Bologna, Italy’s Church of San Petronio because it displayed a 15th century fresco depicting Mohammed being tormented in the ninth circle of Hell. For years, Muslims had demanded that the art come down. Counterterrorism officials in Europe caught the would-be bombers on tape scouting out the church and exclaiming, “May Allah bring it all down. It will all come down.”

That same year, Nigerian Muslims stabbed, bludgeoned or burned to death 200 people in protest of the Miss World beauty pageant — which they considered an affront to Allah. They shouted, “Allahu Akbar!” And “Down with beauty!” And “Miss World is sin!” Contest organizers fled out of fear of inflaming further destruction. When Nigerian journalist Isioma Daniel joked that Mohammed would have approved of the pageant and that “in all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from among them,” her newspaper rushed to print three retractions and apologies in a row. It didn’t stop Muslim vigilantes from torching the newspaper’s offices. A fatwa was issued on Daniel’s life by a Nigerian official in the sharia-ruled state of Zamfara, who declared that “the blood of Isioma Daniel can be shed. It is abiding on all Muslims wherever they are to consider the killing of the writer as a religious duty.” Daniel fled to Norway.

In 2005, British Muslims got all hot and bothered over a Burger King ice cream cone container whose swirly-texted label resembled, you guessed it, the Arabic script for “Allah.” The restaurant chain yanked the product in a panic and prostrated itself before the Muslim world. But the fast-food dessert had already become a handy radical Islamic recruiting tool. Rashad Akhtar, a young British Muslim, told Harper’s Magazine how the ice cream caper had inspired him: “Even though it means nothing to some people and may mean nothing to some Muslims in this country, this is my jihad. I’m not going to rest until I find the person who is responsible. I’m going to bring this country down.”

In 2007, Muslims combusted again in Sudan after an infidel elementary school teacher innocently named a classroom teddy bear “Mohammed.” Protesters chanted, “Kill her, kill her by firing squad!” and “No tolerance — execution!” She was arrested, jailed and faced 40 lashes for blasphemy before being freed after eight days. Not wanting to cause further inflammation, the teacher rushed to apologize: “I have great respect for the Islamic religion and would not knowingly offend anyone, and I am sorry if I caused any distress.”

And who could forget the global Danish cartoon riots of 2006 (instigated by imams who toured Egypt stoking hysteria with faked anti-Islam comic strips)? From Afghanistan to Egypt to Lebanon to Libya, Pakistan, Turkey and in between, hundreds died under the pretext of protecting Mohammed from Western slight, and brave journalists who stood up to the madness were threatened with beheading. It wasn’t really about the cartoons at all, of course. Little-remembered is the fact that Muslim bullies were attempting to pressure Denmark over the International Atomic Energy Agency’s decision to report Iran to the UN Security Council for continuing with its nuclear research program. The chairmanship of the council was passing to Denmark at the time. Yes, it was just another in a long line of manufactured Muslim explosions that were, to borrow a useful phrase, “premeditated and organized to vitiate the atmosphere.”

When everything from sneakers to stuffed animals to comics to frescos to beauty queens to fast-food packaging to undies serves as dry tinder for Allah’s avengers, it’s a grand farce to feign concern about the recruitment effect of a few burnt Korans in the hands of a two-bit attention-seeker in Florida. The eternal flame of Muslim outrage was lit a long, long time ago.