Legal torture--abortion.

How in God's name can the left reconcile their support for abortion on demand with their supposed outrage over pouring water in a terrorist's nose? The hypocrisy is stunning.

Here: Legal Torture: The Upturned Moral Universe of the Progressive by Miguel A. Guanipa in The American Thinker

The wise Thomas Sowell on the treatment of prisoners of war.

Another on the moral preening of the left by a man whose writings are an anchor for the moral and political conservative.

Thomas Sowell: Survival Optional: What Matters More--National Survival or Political Correctness? in National Review Online

Miss California/Perez Hilton

Who is it that takes Perez Hilton seriously? Did somebody give him a paycheck for this?
In spite of liberal noise, there are biblical scholars (not fundamentalists) who would agree with Rev. Giles.

here Miss California is Braver Than Some Pastors by Doug Giles, Townhall

The push to prosecute Bush officials over "torture"

By all appearances, Nancy Pelosi and others in the house are vindictive liars.

here Pelosi's Claims of Powerlessness by the editorial board of the Investors Business Daily

here The Left's Angry Mob Recalls Madame Defarge by Michael Barone, Townhall

here The American Left Trys a Bloodless Coup by Sandy Rios, Townhall

here The ceasless whimpering over KSM's waterboarding almost universally ignores his victim's agony... by Deroy Murdock, National Review Online

This makes me sick.

3 articles I find helpful and interesting

here The Prophet's Wanderlust Emmet Tyrell, The American Spectator

here Prosecuting Patriots: The Left's Love of Show Trials Ralph Peters, New York Post

here Manufacturing Consent for the Gay Agenda Alicia Colon, American Thinker

A Short Rant from Sagacity

I had lunch with a friend today who asked the question, "how can Obama call himself Christian when he has done everything in his power to remove every restriction on abortion and will continue to do so?" I don't have a good answer for that. While I am not sure what legislation regarding abortion should look like, I believe Obama's actions in regard to it have been despicable. And he is surrounding himself with nominees for key positions who are like-, or even more radical-, minded.

Eric's Ultimate Frisbee Commercial

I know that every mother thinks their kid is attractive, bright, creative (etc.) but mine really is! This video is the mid-term assignment for his first class in producing and editing videos. The assignment was to produce a commercial (for something that doesn't exist, I think.) So this is his commercial for the Ultimate Frisbee League.
He told me to tell all of you that he understands this is not professional-quality yet. Heck, does a mother care????
I especially like the opening, the use of the music and the ending. It a minute and 1/2, if you have the time.
(Eric is the blond with "the hair". The other fellow is his friend Matt.)

Two articles on the Media manipulating our view of Obama and his family

Two articles on the media coverage of Obama and his family as celebrities. It makes me sick.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/04/20/_media_cover_obama_like_hes_ultimate_a-list_celebrity__96072.html
"Media Cover Obama Like He's Ultimate A-List Celebrity."

and

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-presidency20-2009apr20,0,6622688,full.story
"Getting to Know the Obamas, on Their Terms"

Who is really tolerant here? "Carrie Prejean Says Her Answer to the Gay Marriage Question Cost Her the Miss USA Title."

A clear example, I think, of freedom of speech and/or diversity of thought being for "me" (a liberal) but certainly not for "thee" (anyone who disagrees with the liberal line). I think it took some bravery on this young woman's part, given the high-profile venue and the stakes at hand. And, by the way, I do not believe she is alone in her opinion. I suspect that there are millions upon millions who agree with her. Read here.

Pres. Obama's Weekend

Pres. Obama's trip to the Summit of the Americas gives the right plenty of fodder for (well-deserved, I think) criticism.

Read here for Anastasia O'Grady's article America's Summit: Missed Opportunity

Susan Boyle's rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream"

A wonderful story exposing a terrible cancer in our western societies. If you haven't heard Susan Boyle sing, visit You Tube here. I promise it will make you smile--what a character and what a talent. Read the article here.

Barack Obama's Incurable Nausea

What makes Obama apologize for the United States all over Europe? Read here.

A Rant from Sagacity

Can someone explain to me why we are congratulating Barack Obama for the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips? He only did what a Commander in Chief should do. Nothing more. And I wonder if it could not have been done a few days earlier????

Captain Phillips and the Navy Seals are the true heroes of this story. And it felt good to have something good happen for the USA without cynicism. And then Obama and his handlers take credit for it!

God bless all of us on this Easter weekend.

Oh Christ, the
Master Carpenter
who at the last
with wood
and nails
purchased
man's whole
salvation;
wield well
Thy tools
in the workshop
of our lives,
so that when
we come
rough-hewn
to Thy bench
we may be
fashioned
to true
beauty

by Thy hand.

http://townhall.com/columnists/CharlesKrauthammer/2009/04/10/its_your_country_too,_mr_president

It's Your Country Too, Mr. President

by Charles Krauthammer

Camille Paglia (a liberal) on Modern Liberalism

This is copied from a monthly column in Salon magazine where Paglia answers questions put to her by her readers. So the bold is the question and Paglia's answer follows. I find her refreshing, even if I cannot understand her support for Obama, who is the modern liberal of all modern liberals. See what you think.

"Regarding your observations about the rehabilitation of Sarah Palin and the insufferable snottiness of Dick Cavett and other good liberals: Is it possible that there might be something really ugly at the core of contemporary liberalism? You call yourself a liberal, and you vote liberal, yet you are under constant attack by your liberal compatriots. Why? Because of your open-mindedness and your "real feminism" (as opposed to faux leftist feminism).

In the meantime, the torching of Sarah Palin's church in Alaska (children were inside when the fire with accelerant was set) evokes a collective shrug in the mainstream media and other liberal precincts (if you can find any reference to the event at all). Why the all-too-frequent and downright nasty face of contemporary liberalism?

Timothy Condon
Tampa, Fla.

Yes, something very ugly has surfaced in contemporary American liberalism, as evidenced by the irrational and sometimes infantile abuse directed toward anyone who strays from a strict party line. Liberalism, like second-wave feminism, seems to have become a new religion for those who profess contempt for religion. It has been reduced to an elitist set of rhetorical formulas, which posit the working class as passive, mindless victims in desperate need of salvation by the state. Individual rights and free expression, which used to be liberal values, are being gradually subsumed to worship of government power.

The problems on the American left were already manifest by the late 1960s, as college-educated liberals began to lose contact with the working class for whom they claimed to speak. (A superb 1990 documentary, "Berkeley in the Sixties," chronicles the arguments and misjudgments about tactics that alienated the national electorate and led to the election of Richard Nixon.) For the past 25 years, liberalism has gradually sunk into a soft, soggy, white upper-middle-class style that I often find preposterous and repellent. The nut cases on the right are on the uneducated fringe, but on the left they sport Ivy League degrees. I'm not kidding -- there are some real fruitcakes out there, and some of them are writing for major magazines. It's a comfortable, urban, messianic liberalism befogged by psychiatric pharmaceuticals. Conservatives these days are more geared to facts than emotions, and as individuals they seem to have a more ethical, perhaps sports-based sense of fair play.

Probably the main reason for my unorthodox view of politics (as in my instant approval of Sarah Palin) is that I had much more childhood contact with working-class life than appears to be the norm among current American columnists. One of my grandfathers was a barber, and the other was a leather worker at the Endicott-Johnson shoe factory in upstate New York. Thanks to the G.I. Bill, my father was able to attend college, the only one in his large family to do so. I was born while he was still in college and mopping floors in the cafeteria. Years later, he became a high-school teacher and then a professor at a Jesuit college, but we never left our immigrant family roots in industrial Endicott. To this day, I have more rapport with campus infrastructure staffers (maintenance, security) than I do with other professors or, for that matter, writers. Don't get me started on the hermetic bourgeois arrogance of American literati!"

Random Thoughts by Thomas Sowell

I like Thomas Sowell so very much. Common sense and intellect working together. His statements are random but wonderfully pithy and right on target. I encourage you to read the whole thing here.

3rd Party for Conservatives by 2012?

The Republican party just might become irrelevant to conservatives. Interesting.

Obama, North Korea and foreign policy

According to this article, Obama's foreign policy actions have been terrible mistakes from the beginning. It is entitled "The Softest of Power". Click it to read.

from friend Susan Bruebeck--an e-mail

---

From: muffysmom@gmail.com
To: slgstrick@embarqmail.com; ndeem5220@yahoo.com; tdaumer@sbcglobal.net; aebuchholz@hotmail.com; susan_baldwin_26@comcast.net
Subject: Fw: Sharing Tea Party Info With Friends
Date: Sat, 21 Mar 2009 07:25:38 -0400

Dear Friends & Family, (please print attachment for a better view of the Tea Party flyer)

I invite you to share with me the opportunity to participate in the Indianapolis Tax Day Tea Party on April 15th. We are part of a national grass roots effort with one focus...protesting the federal government's recent budgetary decisions: spending billions of dollars they don't have for pork projects and social programs we don't need, for raising taxes not only on the "wealthy", but on all Americans who use electricity, gasoline, or oil-heat, and for jeopardizing capitalism, thus the American dream.

The core Indy Tea Party committee is comprised of "everyday" citizens who are so fed up with current policies, we are publicly speaking out for the very first time. If you feel like we do and want to help make a loud noise across the nation, come join us.

Please RSVP at indianapolisteapart@gmail.com., and please forward this information/flyer to your friends and family members with your own personal comments. Our goal is to have a crowd in the thousands!

Thank you all so much!

In the spirit of our founding fathers,
Susan

For more information you might like to go to the following websites:
www.indianapolisteaparty.blogspot.com
www.taxdayteaparty.com

SAVE THE DATE! -- APRIL 15th!

---

Our Evangelical Friends

Evangelicals get pretty bad press these days. (Christians in general do but the characterization and criticism of the evangelical end of the continuum is brutal, I think and a great deal of it unfair.) There are several things in the interpretive realm about the evangelical view of their religion and of Jesus with which I cannot agree. But in at least one key way, I admire them, even envy them. And that is that they live their days with their God and with Jesus, front and center. He is their companion minute by minute. He is the most important aspect of their lives and it is their heartfelt desire, so it seems, to always be deepening and strengthening that.

Those of us "intellectuals", those of us with lots of "sophisticated" education, those of us for whom critical thinking becomes the guiding principle in their religion and for whom liberal interpretation was the rule in their seminary education--we lose some, if not all of that relational aspect. We are so afraid of political incorrectness, of heart instead of mind, of not being able to footnote what we say, of somehow or another betraying that almighty intellect, that we cease (or at least I did and am working hard to get some of it back) to remember that above all, our God wants our hearts.

In my dealings with my evangelical friends--the most consistent and obvious is in the community that has grown up around the Walk to Emmaus retreats in the Bloomington, Indiana area--I sometimes have to closet my more liberal views in order to function as a pastor in their midst (an opportunity I find dear, time and time again). But I also am faced over and over again with these truly religious people, people whose hearts are far more engaged then mine, who speak so much more freely of their emotional attachment to their savior then I do. And I am chastised. For even though I have Rev. in front of my name, I do not love God as they do, nor do I access him minute by minute as so many of them do. And I realize how much I can learn from them.