Hossa's hit on Hamhuis similar to Ovechkin's hit on Campbell? Not really.

At first glance, one can see where the Preds are coming from in saying that Hossa's it was just as bad. But here is a slam dunk case that there really is no parallel.

The Blackhawks advance to the Second Round

The Preds were tough, but my prediction (and most predictions I've come across) panned out: the Blackhawks in six. Last night's 5-3 victory over the Predators in Nashville sets up a re-match of last year's second round series against Vancouver.

I expect the Canucks to be even tougher than the Preds were. I'm going to predict another six-game Hawks victory, although it wouldn't entirely surprise me if it went seven.

I the meantime the Dogs have taken Detroit to a seventh game in the first round, and the Habs have done the same with Washington over in the other conference. I'd much rather face Phoenix than the Wings, and the Canadiens than the Caps. Still, the situation over in the Eastern Conference sets up an interesting situation. If we get to the Finals, we may well face one the last two teams that beat us there, Pittsburg and Montreal. Renewing one of those old rivalries with the Cup on the line would do something that is almost impossible: add even more of an edge to the crusade to bring Lord Stanley's Mug home to Chicago for the first time in 49 years.

Interestingly, it seems that not one but two rookie goalkeepers- Niemi of Chicago and Halek of Montreal- are making their mark in a big way in this year's playoffs. It would be interesting to see a matchup of those two in the Finals. Generally the team with the hotter goalie wins a short series, and these two budding stars might
well wage a spirited battle to see which one can carry their team over the top.

In the meantime... Go Hawks! ONE GOAL!

Change in schedule

Today is my last day in the office at Saint Mary; I begin a new job Wednesday morning. So posts may not be as regular for a while as they have been in the past.

Hopefully the Hawks will eliminate the Preds tonight!

Epic Fail

Scene from a Washington State anti-Sarah Palin rally:



HT: Bluegrass Pundit, Ida Flo

Drama in the afternoon

Patrick Kane ties the game with 13 seconds left, and Marian Hossa wins it in overtime.

The worrisome thing is that the Hawks once again blew a two-goal lead in the third period.

The Hawks take a three games to two advantage and head to Nashville Monday night for what could be the clincher. But the Preds- as they showed today- will be anything but a pushover.

At MSNBC, it's criticize Olbermann, and lose your job

I have often wondered how Keith Olbermann, who typifies everything negative the Left says about Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, et al- stays on the air, given the sheer, foaming-at-the-mouth hate, invective, smear tactics, and slander which characterize his very tired act. In terms of his rhetoric and tactics, if Joe McCarthy has a modern-day equivalent, it isn't the clowns on the Right the Democrat's love to complain about. It's Olbermann, who epitomizes everything about Limbaugh, Beck and the others they claim to find reprehensible.

But they watch him. Well, I guess somebody has to. His ratings pale before those his opposite numbers at Fox News run up. Still, if the Leftist criticism of the Limbaughs and the Becks were anything but sheer hypocrisy, wouldn't you think the Left would be embarassed by Olbermann?

But in fact, the opposite is the case. In fact, if you're at the liberal equivalent of Fox News (well, yes; I realize that NBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN are also the liberal equivalent of Fox News, but it's MSNBC I specifically have in mind) and presume to include Olbermann among those who have turned up the thermostat on our national political discourse farther than civility or rationality can bear, you get fired for it.

Ah, the hypocrisy of the American Left!

HT: Real Clear Politics

Now THAT was more like it!

Brian Campbell is back. And even better, tonight- unlike Tuesday night- the rest of the Blackhawks also showed up.

Crashing the net, winning the battles they weren't even realy fighting the other night, and generally playing with a passion that was conspicuously lacking on Tuesday, the Hawks beat Nashville 3-0, evening the series at two games each and taking back home ice advantage. Antti Niemi became the first Chicago goalie since Tony Esposito back in the 'Seventies to rack up two shutouts in a post-season series.

The teams meet again Saturday afternoon at the United Center, and the Hawks are in a position to put the Preds' backs against the wall. But there will be a Game Six at Bridgestone Arena on Monday night, and one of the teams is going to be pretty desperate. Hopefully it will be Nashville.

If the series goes the full seven games, it will be decided on Wednesday night at the United Center.

Soupy may be back tonight!

Brian Campbell will be a game-time decision for the Blackhawks tonight.

We badly need Soupy on the power play and Buffy back up in front of Rinne cracking heads and clearing traffic. If the Preds want to play physical, we need to play physical right back.

The Hawks aren't extinct yet.

Even if some of their fans are.

No more white flags. Ok, guys?

There doesn't seem to be much doubt in anybody's mind that the Blackhawks just didn't work hard enough or play with the necessary urgency and intensity last night. Only one team really showed up for the game, and it was Nashville.

The good news is that at least Jonathan Toews, the Hawks' captain, realizes it.

The Preds are a good hockey team, especially in goal and on defense. But the Hawks are a much better one. I said before the series that I thought Nashville would win two games. Well, they have. Now the Hawks have to make the talent differential decisive. Tomorrow night we should find out whether the Blackhawks are going deep into the playoffs, or right into the dumpster.

If they don't show up again tomorrow night, there will probably be no point in even tuning in Saturday afternoon.

Thank you, Mr. President

We can all join Victor Davis Hanson in thanking President Obama for teaching us the lesson that the rhetoric which was routine for Democrats when George W. Bush was president has suddenly become rude, childish, nasty, extreme, and generally naughty now that he is.

It will doubtless remain so until the next Republican president is inaugurated.

HT: Real Clear Politics

The Boston Globe is unclear on the concept

This editorial from one of America's farthest Left papers might better be titled, "Learning to Live with Tel Aviv as a Radioactive Crater."

There is a reason why the American people are reluctant to trust the Left with our national security. This editorial illustrates it perfectly. I hope the electorate remembers that reason in November of 2012- if the Iranians haven't nuked Washington yet, that is.

Thank God for the Israelis, who will pull the world's bacon out of the fire even if the Obama administration won't.

Here is a more sensible take on the matter.

HT: Real Clear Politics

I'm going to be sick.

4-1 Nashville in the third, the Blackhawks are playing like they don't care, and I'm going to upchuck.

Enough of this for one night. I can't listen anymore. I'll check the final in the morning. But one more effortless game like this and we can start calling this team the Chicago Black Cubs.

At least there was no silent clock for a change.

But Jack's off the reservation again.

I'd really hoped that Charles Logan had reformed. But he's the snake in Eden now- and sadly, President Taylor- whom I continue to think is doomed- has at least temporarily decided to listen to him.

"The most transparent White House in history"

This was the Obama administration's response to media coverage of the gay rights demonstration at the White House.

Notice the question one reporter asks another at one point: "Have you ever seen them do this before?"

Daley may not run again. Will Mayor Emanuel replace him?

Richard J. Daley was only mayor I knew when growing up in Chicago. I was in my twenties when he died. His son, Richard M. Daley, has established his own stranglehold on the office. But with the 68 year-old mayor's wife suffering from cancer, speculation is rampant in my home town that he may not seek a record seventh term.

One of those who may seek to replace him: White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Ah, the soap opera that is power politics in the City of Big Shoulders! Becoming Da Mare might be the only job other than his boss's that would actually make Emanuel more powerful than he is now.

GASP! Even TIME sees that Gates is right about Obama's lack of a viable Iran strategy

You know an administration is dropping the ball when a Secretary of Defense who has served in administrations of both parties and even TIME magazine point it out.

And TIME has joined with Sec. Bill Gates in pointing out that the Obama administration has no effective strategy for dealing with the threat of a nuclear Iran.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Why I'm for Trey Grayson

...and you should be, too:



Neither the Republican Party nor America needs another Paul in the public arena. Not with crackpot, isolationist ideas like father and son alike.

HT: Right-O-Sphere

But of course the NYT has a special dispensation from.... the NYT!

Mark Hemingway points out that the Tea Party movement is, in fact, quite a bit more diverse than the Board of Directors of The New York Times.

Will 2012 be as good a year for the GOP as 2010 figures to be?

Here, and here, and here, and then again back here, Ed Kilgore and Jay Cost carry on a lively debate as to whether the Republican party looks to be in anywhere near as good shape (or, to put it another way, whether the Democrats look to be in anywhere near as bad shape)in 2012 as in 2010.

While I think Democrat Kilgore is whistling in the dark, the discussion is instructive. I see Barack Obama as quite beatable. But I also think that beating him will be anything but easy.

Meanwhile, according to Gallup, more voters continue to say that President Obama does not deserve a second term than say that he does.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Just plain stupid

Some people's stupidity defies belief.

Just when the Left's loudest talking point is how crazy and dangerous the Tea Party people are (and in fact they're no more- and admittedly no less- crazy and dangerous than their opposite numbers on the Left), and Bill Clinton is comparing them to Timothy McVeagh, these moronic Virginians decide to hold a "restore the Constitution rally" at which they make it a point to be seen waiving guns around.

Could they possibly do anything more counter-productive, if they deliberately tried?

Together with all those "birther" fruitcakes and the whack jobs who insist on the basis of no real evidence at all that President Obama- who has been a member of the United Church of Christ for more than a quarter century- is somehow a Muslim have done more to strengthen the political hand of President Obama and delegitimitize opposition to him than the Left and the Democrats could ever have done.

How stupid can some people on the Right be, and still live?

Good-bye, Little Guy!

After a brief illness that I (and his vet) thought was under control, my Rainbow Benti Uromastyx, Muad'Dib (center) joined his childhood companion and former cagemate Atvar (left) on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge last night. I lost Atvar last October.

This morning Muad'Dib was stiff and unresponsive, and I couldn't get him to open his mouth to take his medicine. A trip to the vet and an ultrasound to check for a heartbeat confirmed my impression that Little Guy was gone.

Muad'Dib shared some of the darkest months of my life with me when my ex-wife and I first separated, as well as later, when we actually divorced. He moved to Washington, D.C. with me on the first ocassion, and, together with Atvar, moved with me to another appartment on the second. He was the one companion who's been with me through thick and thin in recent years, in good times and in bad.

The more than eight years I had Muad'Dib and Atvar were greatly enriched by their companionship. It'll be strange not hearing that scratching noise they made when they moved around in their cages, and stopping at the produce department for greens when I go to the grocery store, and knowing the companionship of friends who make so few demands and, even without knowing it, give so much.

Rest well, Atvar. Be at peace, Little Guy. I'll miss you both.

You know that volcanic cloud?

Well, here it is from space.

Hawks beat Nashville, tie series

The Finnish Fortress comes up strong and shuts out the Preds, 2-0. Goals by Bolland and Kane. The series is tied!

We got outshot again in the third, though. That has to stop. But as Troy Murray pointed out after the game, the Hawks have dominated, really, in five of the six periods in the series so far. We just had a bad third the other night.

Now to take back home ice Tuesday in Nashville. Momentum is back on our side.

Gallup: More Americans pro-life than pro-choice

According to Gallup, for the first time- and by nine points (!)- more Americans consider themselves pro-life than pro-choice.

Obama has no plan for a nuclear Iran

Or so says his own Secretary of Defense.

HT: Real Clear Politics

No...

...Yellowstone National Park is not located in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., nor is there a supervolcano there.

The hot air which covers the area is from Congress.

The Emergent Church: RIP

A travesty goes to its reward.

HT: The Right On Reverend Mason Beecroft

A study in hypocrisy

Doubtless the rhetoric of the Right Wing fringe these days is more than a little over the top.

Of course, given the rhetoric of mainstream Democrats when Dubyah was president, they are not now exactly in a position to complain about it.

HT: All in Faber

Obama's "Alienate our Friends" world tour hits a new subcontinent

The latest nation Barack Obama is busily alienating: India.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Common Sense

By Rich Lowrey rather than Tom Paine. But even so.

The deep, shameless and stunning hypocrisy of the Democrats- Bill Clinton being the most recent example- in expressing alarm at the excessive rhetoric of the crazies on the Right belies the shocking statements repeated over and over again even by supposedly mainstream Democrats during the administration of George W. Bush.

Clinton et al must thing the American people have the attention span of gnats.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Arguably the greatest single game in NHL history

...and the only thing that could have made it better would have been a different outcome.

Hawks lose opener to Nashville

A lucky goal and two empty-netters (!) resulted tonight in a wholly misleading score of Nashville 4, Blackhawks 1.

Character-check time. The Hawks are a sufficiently better team that they still should win the series. They need, as Hawks announcer Troy Murray says, to avoid letting themselves get frustrated, let tonight's game go, and come back strong on Sunday.

The Hawks did let themselves be thoroughly outworked in the last half of the third period. The question now is whether the Hawks will decide to reach down and make it happen, or whether they let themselves get flustered like Calgary and Vancouver did last year when the Hawks were the surprising underdogs.

We'll know the answer Sunday night at this time.

One note which should sound the alarm: Nashville won fourteen of sixteen one-goal games during the regular season.

Not panic time yet. Most of the favored teams lost their first games this year.

Nutty rhetoric from Bill Clinton on the Tea Baggers

"Moderate" Bill Clinton is at it again.

The former president claims that because both Tea Baggers are angry at the government, and Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was angry at the government, a "reasonable parallel" can be drawn between Timothy McVeigh and the Tea Baggers.

Mr. President, that is as nutty as... well, Timothy McVeigh.

So which side are crazy, violent fruitcakes on, again?

There was a video over at YouTube of the Leftist demonstrators outside the Southern Republican Leadership Conference dinner at Brennan's Restaurant in New Orleans Friday night.

It has been removed by its poster. But a witness said this:

I am the photographer for the LA GOP and I was at the Brennan fundraiser. When I left about one hour or so after all 3 of the governors left the crowd of protesters had grown. The were very nasty, signs were vulgar using the “F” word. As I left the restaurant I was yelled at – there was a family visiting the restaurant with a baby stroller – they had nothing to do with the fundraiser and they were being heckled using the “F” and “MF” words.. A couple of them made comments to me.

And here is the aftermath:



The two people on the ground are Allee Butsch- an aide to Louisiana's Republican governor, Bobby Jindal- and her boyfriend, Joe Brown. Ms. Butsch had surgery on her broken leg over the weekend. It will take months for her to recover.

Here is the police report on the incident.

Now, hysterical Democrats have been freaking out about allegedly violent, crazed Tea Baggers ever since members of that group dared begin exercising their First Amendment right to free speech. Undocumented claims about racist commends and threats have abounded. Yet the first of the two arrests made for threats against members of Congress for their votes on the health care bill was made because of a threat made against a Republican. And I have yet to read about a Democrat who has actually been the victim of a violent attack like the one made by that crazed moonbat in Louisiana against Ms. Butsch and Mr. Brown. Anti-democratic assaults on the First Amendment rights of conservatives, on the other hand, are commonplace

This post will be "Assault and Moonbattery." In this case, the assault by the moonbat was literal.

Now, just who are the crazy, violent extremists here? Hmmm?

HT: Jim Holt at Andrew Breitbart's Big Government

Thirteen things which ought not scientifically to be- but are

Reasons for scientists- and science- to be humble.

HT: Lisa Stapp

NRSC Tax Day ad

Darn! Missed it!

I would have been here at the church when the "super meteor" in the police video below appeared over Iowa, Missouri, and Illinois about 10:15 last night. Wish I'd seen it!

Just a hunch. I hope I'm wrong.

While I would really hate it, because President Allison Taylor is one of my favorite characters, I have a strong hunch that some time in the next several episodes of 24 she is going to be assassinated, and that Vice-President Mitchell Hayworth will be implicated.

Just a lot of things going on under the surface that make me wonder. Nothing to take to a grand jury or even to alert the Secret Service about. But I remember Hayworth's suspicious behavior when Benjamin Juma and his rebel terrorists from Sangala had taken over the White House and kidnapped President Taylor.

Another thing: I remember Jonas Hodges' warning when he was arrested in the Oval Office about the powerful co-conspiritors of his whom the President knew nothing about. I think they may want her out of the way.

Foreign Minister Novakovich and the other dissident Russians and Kamistanis, as well as former President Logan (though I'd really like to see him redeem himself) may also be involved in the plot.

How do all of these people fit together? Or do they? I don't know, frankly. But something tells me that President Taylor had better make sure her life insurance is paid up.

A taste of their own medicine

If it's any comfort to you (it isn't to me), most members of Congress find the tax code so complicated that they, too, hire somebody else to do their returns.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Keep Americans in space!

Here's the case against accepting the Obama plan to kill the manned space program, made by two members of Congress whose districts figure to suffer if it's adopted.

HT: Real Clear Politics

And the winner of the British PM debate is...

...Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats.

HT: Drudge

I'm the Ripper. Hear me roar.

In a statement equivalent to Jack the Ripper announcing that he is a feminist, President Obama says that he is in back of America's man-in-space program, in favor of American astronauts going to Mars- and that he expects to see it in his lifetime.

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin signed off on President Obama's gutting of America's space program in favor of turning manned space exploration over to a private sector ill-equipped to handle it. But fellow Apollo astronauts Neil Armstrong and James Lovell emphatically disagree.

In any event, it certainly seems to me that if we get to Mars- whether in Mr. Obama's lifetime or not- it will be in spite of, rather than because of, his decision to trash America's man-in-space program.

YES!

Dogs 3, Dead Things 2!

The game featured Phoenix fans replying to the hurling of octopi by doing the same with at least one rubber snake.

Meanwhile, the Sens also beat the Pens!

ADDENDUM: And the Sharks lost to the Avs!

Upsets are good... except in the Blackhawks-Preds series. May that be the only first-round match up that goes as expected! That can (at least in theory) only make it easier for the Hawks in the later rounds.

Hawks in six

Here's Second City Hockey's Round Table on the Hawks-Preds series.

I'm going to agree with what seems to be the consensus there that the Hawks will win, but that with a red-hot Pekka Rinne in goal for Nashville it may well take six games.

The Hawks have shown a disturbing tendency to let down, and that's frankly what worries me the most about this post-season. While they can play with anybody in the NHL, especially against good teams they seem to relax when they figure they have the game in the bag- and then, bad things happen. I remember especially that game where they led the Washington Capitals- the betting favorites to win the Cup this year- by three goals in the third period, but still managed to lose. And I'm hardly reassured by the recent game in which they led St. Louis 6-1 and won the game 6-5.

Some of the teams they'll be playing in the post season- including the Preds- may not all be in Washington's class, but they're considerably better than the Blues. The Good Guys will have to play sixty minutes of hockey every night- and above all, never presume either on the talent differential or on a lead. The Preds beat the Hawks twice this season, and are capable of pulling an upset, especially with the hottest goalie in the NHL playing for them.

But I don't think they will. The Hawks are a good enough team that even if they presume on the talent differential and manage to lose a game or two at the beginning of the series, they'll take the Preds once they buckle down. If they don't, of course, it will be a major blow to Chicago's hockey renaissance. It won't end it, of course. But in the town the Cubs play in, and one which has just seen Jay Cutler do a pretty good Rex Grossman imitation instead of leading the Ursines to glory, a first-round exit for a team as talented- and as hyped- as this year's Blackhawks would not sit well.

In fact, to keep the snowball growing (rather than merely avoiding a meltdown), the Hawks will probably have to do at least as well as they did last year, and reach the Conference Finals. I think they will.

The real question marks in my mind come when they meet the Wings (outside chance it will be the Sharks or even the Dogs, but I think not) in those Conference Finals, and hopefully an opponent I expect to be either the Caps or the Pens in the Finals.

I continue to fear the Red Wings. It would be going a bit far to say that beating them would be anywhere near as satisfying as winning the Cup, of course. But they're beginning to assume the role for me that Montreal did when I was growing up: as our most hated opponent, and the perennial obstacle to our winning it all.

Winning the division Detroit has won year after year was a great first step, but exorcising that particular ghost will mean beating them in the playoffs. But before we even get there, we'll have to bounce the Preds and probably one more opponent. Neither figures to be as big an obstacle. But each figures to be good enough that it would be a mistake to take winning either series for granted.

We know in advance that it would be a mistake to take the Preds for granted. The Blackhawks are a better team than they are, perhaps by an order of magnitude. But not enough better that they aren't a genuine threat we'd be well advised to take very seriously indeed.

Child marriage kills

A custom based on Mohammed's marriage to a child, adult males consumating marriages to pre-pubescent girls in Islamic countries often results in injury and even death for their child brides.

Soupy's on the mend!

Brian Campbell may return to the Hawks even before the end of the Nashville series!

This is news that greatly improves our hopes of taking home Lord Stanley's mug:

The odds on the Stanley Cup

Here are the odds of the various teams in the playoffs winning the Stanley Cup, according to Bodog.

The Caps are favored at 7-2. My Blackhawks are 9-2, the Sharks are 11-2, the Penguins 6-1, the Canucks 15-2, the Octopus Abusers 8-1, and the Devils 12-1.

There is a substantial dropoff thereafter, with the Sabres coming next at 20-1.

The article gives further historical reason to distrust the crowning of the Blackhawks by EA's simulation. Still, I really dig that picture...

Lefties plot to infiltrate Tea Party to make it appear "racist, homophobic and moronic"

Breitbart reports a plot by left-wingers to infiltrate the Tea Party movement for the purpose of making it appear "racist, homophobic and moronic."

You know. More or less the way mainstream Democratic leaders have been trying to make it appear for quite a while now with undocumented claims of scary words and actions which the media- while they have been unable to verify them- have nevertheless slavishly accepted at face value.

HT: Drudge

And this is the centerpiece of the Administration's program!

According to a new Rasmussen poll, public support for the repeal of Obamacare is now at 58%.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Well...

First they sign Marian Hossa.

Then, there's the mural with the pig-nosed Jonathan Toews in front of a gigantic Stanley Cup on the Eisenhower Expressway.

And now, a videogame simulation has the Blackhawks winning the Stanley Cup, beating Pittsburg 2-1 in sudden death in the seventh game of the Finals.

If I believed in jinxes, I'd give up now.

On the plus side, the simulation has Huet in goal for the Hawks. They should do even better with Niemi.

As regards tonight's 24...

...those Russians are so completely, so horribly, and so slowly, so very, very dead...

Two 'silent clock' episodes in a row. And two shockers.

From everything I know of President Subarov from past seasons, I've got to think that Foreign Minister Novakovich and the other plotters are renegades. Subarov may even get to them before Jack does.

They'll be lucky if that's the case.

Charles Logan? I'd assumed he died after his wife stabbed him. And why in the world would President Daniels- a Democrat- have pardoned a disgraced Republican predecessor, especially one who had conspired to cover up the murder of a previous Democratic president? And given Logan's failure to act on the plot to assassinate Subarov when he was in Washington, why would the Russians give him the time of day, much less be so buddy-buddy with him?

To coin a phrase...

Yes, we can!

HT: Drudge

Is Dubyah the new Truman?

How will history see George W. Bush? Perhaps as it now sees Harry S Truman.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Bothered about Barack

Germany's Angela Merkel worries about her erratic ally in the White House.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Obama's flawed thinking on nukes

James Carafano on Barack Obama's false nuclear premise.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Ahem!

What is it with this guy and bowing?

Mr. Obama, you are the President of the United States. You bow to nobody but God.

Wow.

A shock, and a disappointment: Conan O'Brien has signed a deal to host a late-night talk show, not with Fox- but with TBS!

He'll have ownership of the show, which apparently was the part he couldn't refuse. But this is a non-network show on a cable channel where he will labor in relative obscurity. And it's a shame- because since I don't have cable, this is one Conan fan who won't be able to watch him.

And I am far from alone. Bad Conan. Bad.

The Hawks lose to Day-twah, finish second in the West

Dead Things 3, Hawks 2 in OT.

We draw the Preds in Round One.

Drat those octupus abusers, anyway!

Why McDonnell's Confederate blunder is important

Race has never been far below the surface in American politics, and in the Obama era it has risen into plain sight. It is everywhere. If you disagree with the President, extremists on the Left both inside and outside the mainstream media (and the leadership of the Democratic party) are likely to ascribe that opposition to racism. On the surface, this provides them with a potent weapon and a ready tool for claiming the moral high ground on virtually any issue that might arise. The damage it does is, of course, incalculable. Not only does it obfuscate and falsify the content of our national debate on issue after issue, but it cheapens and effectively neutralizes what ought to be an ugly and potent accusation. If opposition to the President's health care program constitutes racism, what word does one use to describe actual hatred of and discrimination against people of other colors?

Likewise, the American Civil War is a subject which, especially for those south of the Mason-Dixon line, is an emotionally charged subject. With the exception of a few Alaskan islands attacked by Japanese forces in one of the more obscure campaigns of World War II, the American South is the only part of the United States ever to have been occupied by an enemy army. For those of us in the North, Sherman's march to the sea is a chapter from the history books. Not so for the people of Georgia, whose reasonably recent ancestors saw their homeland devastated by a slash-and-burn campaign of deliberate devastation waged by those they must now call their countrymen, and sometimes literally rendered homeless and destitute by Yankee torches and predation.

At one level, the war was the natural outcome of a debate which began among the Founding Fathers and continues to this day between those who have seen the United States as a federation of semi-autonomous quasi-nations at one extreme, and those who, on the other, have seen the states as little more than administrative provinces of a powerful central government to whom Americans owed their primary allegiance. There can be no doubt that the war itself permanently settled the question of whether it is proper to say, as was common before the war, "the United States are," or, as has been customary since, to say, "the United States is." There is no longer any doubt that we are a nation, and not an alliance of nations. Yet just how federal our federal republic is, or ought to be, remains perhaps our most fundamental and divisive political disagreement.

It is customary on the Right, and especially in the South, to see the Civil War (or "the War between the States," or even "the War of Northern Aggression," as it has sometimes been called in the South) as essentially a military struggle between advocates of Federalism and those of a strongly centralized government. There is, to be sure, some truth in this view. In fact, a strong case can be made that at least one of the reasons why the South lost the war was precisely that power was so decentralized under the Confederate constitution that it could not efficiently pull together in the kind of common effort a nation at war requires. Jefferson Davis had to constantly deal with state governments which saw themselves, rather than the government in Richmond, as the higher and more legitimate authority, often headed by governors of strong ego and sensitive sensibilities when it came to their personal prerogatives, and those of the states they governed. Davis was in the position not only of having to herd cats, but of leading them into battle. History will never properly recognize the genius required to lead a monstrosity like the Confederacy in even as effective a war effort as it finally waged.

But the proven inadequacy of a government as decentralized as the Confederacy hardly speaks to the legitimacy of the concerns of those who nevertheless pick up on the fact that the Founding Fathers visualized a far less centralized government than we have today. Southerners and others sensitive about the prerogatives of the several states have the preponderance of the Founding Father's writings on their side, and quite justifiably see themselves as more faithful to their vision than are those who favor a more centralized national government.

But none of this can ever change the fact that the practical issue which brought the question of states rights versus centralized government power to a head was slavery- and, in some ways even worse, the mindset which made slavery possible. The question of states rights in a federal republic and the matter of race are two separate issues- a fact of which conservatives are well aware. But liberals (excuse me- progressives) can hardly be blamed for having difficulty forgetting that, as history played itself out, the matter over which the advocates of states' rights and those of a strong Federal government actually came to blows was that of slavery- and, in a larger sense, of race.

And as reluctant as conservatives (and Southerners) may be to admit this even to themselves, the fact of the matter is that the experiment of the Confederacy is hopelessly tainted by the fact that the specific freedom it fought to preserve was the freedom to hold other human beings, assumed as a matter of philosophical conviction not to be entitled to basic human rights, in captivity. It is perfectly true that most Southerners did not own slaves. It is equally true that many of the leaders of the Confederacy- Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson come to mind- were personally opposed to slavery, and fought not to preserve it but to defend their home states against an invasion. But the fact remains that slavery was the issue over which the advocates of states rights asserted themselves in 1861, and while the two matters are entirely different and in no way necessarily even related from a philosophical point of view, they are directly and inextricably interrelated when the subject of the Civil War is raised.

In the movie "Gettysburg," General James Longstreet- admirably portrayed by Tom Beringer- muses that "we should have freed the slaves and then seceded from the Union." Doubtless that would have been an effective strategy, and one which many admirers of the Confederacy- who themselves are by no means racists- wish had been followed. But the fact remains that without slavery, there would have been no ultimate reason to secede. Even as it stood, men like Alexander Stephens- shortly to be the Vice-President of the CSA- argued eloquently in the aftermath of Lincoln's election that the South had adequate means and resources within the Union to defend its interests. Until Lincoln made the decision to supply Fort Sumter, only six Southern states seceded; others- notably including Virginia- flatly refused. But it was slavery- and the fears of slaveholders for its survival under a Republican administration- which caused the secession of those original six states, and put Lincoln in the position of having to make the decision which led to the secession of the other seven Confederate states in defense of the integrity of the Union. And as an aside, while it is true that some of the Founders did write in favor of a right of secession, there is not so much as a hint of it in the Constitution or in any other document of legal standing. The oft-repeated allegation that the treaty by which Texas gave up its own independence as a step toward admission to the Union contained a provision guaranteeing such a right is, in fact, an urban legend. If any legal principle governed here, it would have to be contract law. And viewed as a contract, the dissolution of the Union would have required the consent of all of the parties, and not merely the desire of some.

But even if one granted a legal right of secession, there would still be no way to get around the fact that the states of the Confederacy ultimately exercised that theoretical right with the explicit purpose of defending the institution of slavery. The Confederacy, as an historical phenomenon, simply cannot be rehabilitated. As a practical matter, it is so intertwined with the issue of slavery- and thus of racism- that the two can never be completely distinguised by anything resembling honest history.

That is not to say that good and decent men didn't fight for the Confederacy. Nor is it to say that everything about the Confederacy was bad because it was the issue of slavery which gave it birth. If Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell had issued a proclamation commemorating Lee and Jackson and all of those who fought specifically to defend their homes, or the principle of states' rights, that would have been one thing. Even then, to have failed to acknowledge the abomination of slavery would have been an inadmissible blunder.

But his mistake goes beyond not mentioning slavery in his proclamation commemorating the Confederacy. Especially at a time in which extremists will seize upon any excuse to falsely raise the cry of racism, it was a blunder for McDonnell to have sought to commemorate the Confederacy as such at all. Conservatives- and Southerners- need to get over their romance with the Lost Cause, and stop trying to pretend that it is not morally tainted beyond all possibilty of redemption by the practical issue which provided the ground upon which it fought for abstract philosophical principles which themselves might well have been worth fighting for.

The Confederacy does not deserve to be commemorated. Some of its heroes and some of the issues for which it stood, and which are by no means inseperable from the twin abominations of racism and slavery, certainly do deserve to be commemorated- and not only by Southerners. But if the memory of those men and the power of those ideas are to be the things upon which our minds and imaginations are cast, then we cannot afford to commemorate them in a context which cannot help but be an affront to our fellow citizens who are understandably unable to ignore the fact that racism and slavery form as great a part of that context as the individuals and the more worthy ideas we mean to commemorate.

I think I have a new favorite newspaper name.

The What Cheer Paper, in What Cheer, Iowa.

It's simple, straightforward, and tells you exactly what you're getting.

Incidentally, in case your one of the large percentage of those few who have even ever even heard of What Cheer, Iowa before who have wondered from whence comes the town's rather odd name, the consensus seems to be that it comes from its citizens greeting each other by saying, in Iowegian, "What do you hear?;" i.e., "What's new?"

This is disturbing.

HT: Christopher Guetzkow

ADDENDUM: And the worst part is, you can't pretend that you only imagined it:

"...The true North, not so free...."

Mark Steyn, writing in MacClean's, considers the degree to which political correctness has rendered Canada something less than a free society.

It's even sadder to see our neighbor to the North demonstrate that it's unclear on the concepts of democracy and freedom than to see the putative democracies of Europe demonstrate the same problem.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Retiring personalities

Rep. Bart Stupak and Associate Justice John Paul Stevens are both calling it quits.

It will be interesting to see whether the Democrats in Stupak's district nominate another pro-lifer. It will also be interesting to see whether they keep his seat. Unfortunately, I doubt that President Obama will have much trouble getting some Leftie confirmed to replace Stevens on the Court.

HT: Drudge

The sky in ancient times

Curious about how the skies would have looked in ancient times? Sol's location relative to other stars changes over time- and thus, so does the appearance of the night sky. The constellations and asterisms (star formations smaller or other than the constellations) were very different long ago from what they are today.

Check out the contrasts here.

BTW, if you hop into your time machine and re-materialize back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, and it happens to be winter, don't look for the Pleiades. They will still be forming.

One of the implications of the changing sky is that the modern horoscope- based on sky charts first drawn many centuries ago- is by this time one whole sign of the Zodiac off in the location of the sun in any given month. Just one more reason why belief in the pseudo-science of astrology is so silly.

Cubs win... finally!

Despite being outhit 8-4, the Cubs won their first game of the season tonight against two loses. Randy Wells shut out the Braves, 2-0.

Lou wised up and started rookie phenom Tyler Colvin in Left, sitting perennial disappointment Alfonso Soriano. Colvin responded by hitting a home run. The other Cub who turned heads in Spring Training, shortstop Ryan Theriot, has yet to get his first hit of the season after leading the majors in hitting down in Arizona.

I have a feeling that Starlin Castro will be moving from Des Moines to Chicago sooner, rather than later.

Leading with his chin

President Obama dismisses Sarah Palin's criticism of his bad judgment on matters of nuclear strategy by saying that she's no expert on the subject.

And he is?

McDonnell should forget "Confederate History Month"

Ed Kilgore of The New Republic doesn't like Virginia Gov. McDonnell's proclamation of "Confederate History Month."

I don't, either. With due respect to Lee and Jackson and all the other honorable men who fought for the Lost Cause despite, rather than because of, its treasonous and racist rationale, Ulysses S. Grant was right when he conceded, in defending such men, that the cause in which they fought was one of the worst in which good men have ever spilled their blood. Despite the desire of the Confederacy's contemporary defenders to suggest otherwise, slavery and the Confederacy are so inextricably intertwined that one simply cannot honestly consider one in isolation from the other.

The cause of Federalism doesn't need the historical albatross of the Confederacy hanging around its neck- especially because, as one historian has pointed out, states' rights was not only the cause which gave the Confederacy birth, but the disease it died from. Any serious study of the political history of the Confederacy quickly reveals what a totally unworkable system of government its version of decentralization yielded- and what a genius Jefferson Davis was to have kept it running long enough to have lost a war its own inefficiency denied it any real chance of ever having won.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Unacceptable

Yes, the Blackhawks won tonight. Yes, it was their fifth win in a row. Yes- like every win will, from now through the end of the season- it set a new record for the most victories ever by a Blackhawks team. Yes, it also set a record for the most points any team in franchise history has amassed, with 109. Yes, that record, too, figures to be broken more than once by season's end. And yes, with their victory tonight the Blackhawks have, once again, the best record in the Western Conference, having the same number of points as San Jose but winning the tiebreaker by having more victories.

But tonight's effort is still unacceptable. The Hawks led 4-1 after the first period, and 6-2 after the second. Yet they managed nothing more than to hang on, defeating the eminently beatable St. Louis Blues 6-5.The pattern of blowing- or nearly blowing- games they have dominated and seem to have wrapped up by becoming sloppy at the end has been a troublesome one late in the season. And if they're going to have any shot at all at their first Stanley Cup since 1961, it's a pattern they're going to have to put behind them once and for all.

We are at the point in the season where this sort of thing becomes very worrisome indeed. It has to stop- now.

Brady is creaming Quinn in Illinois

Republican Bill Brady is ten points ahead of Gov. Pat Quinn in President Obama's home state of Illinois- and the numbers don't look good for the Donkey.

No way, no how

Michael Goodwin of the New York Post gets it right: you don't make the world safer, Mr. President, by weakening America.

Meanwhile- demonstrating that nothing is so obvious that somebody can't get it exactly wrong- Robert Scheer of The Nation thinks that by crippling the potential American response to terrorism Mr. Obama is "earning his Nobel Peace Prize."

HT: Real Clear Politics

And when objects fall, they tend to go downward

Calvin Coolidge once famously remarked that "When people are out of work, unemployment results."

Well, Bloomberg quotes Fed chairman Ben Bernanke as observing that "joblessness, home foreclosures and weak lending to small businesses pose challenges to the economy as it recovers from the worst recession since the 1930s."

No fooling.

Actually Bernanke was merely making some rather reasonable observations on the current status of the recovery. But it's a strangely-worded lead even so.

HT: Drudge

The Administration is doing it to us, so why not them?

The Congressional Research Office has confirmed that under Obamacare convicted rapists and other sex offenders may qualify for Federally subsidized Viagra.


HT: Drudge

About time!

Well, well, well.

They finally arrested somebody for threatening a Democratic, rather than a Republican, member of Congress over the health care bill.

I guess Democratic MC's look at least slightly less silly now.

HT: Drudge

Ahmadinejad ridicules Obama's new nuclear strategy

You know President Obama's new so-called nuclear strategy? The one that's supposed to set a good example for other nuclear powers, and make us all safer?

Well, Iran's nutball President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has registered his response to Mr. Obama's decision to cripple our ability to retaliate against chemical or biological attacks by just such non-nuclear powers as Ahmadinejad and his cronies are fond of sponsoring.

The response is ridicule.

HT: Drudge

The Cubs may not have won a World Series in 102 years...

...but they now have the priciest tickets in the major leagues.

$52.56 is too much for a ticket to see a baseball game. Yet that is the average price at Wrigley for a non-premium seat.

I can remember when you could get the best seats in the house for half of that- and pretty darned good ones for about ten bucks.

I sometimes fantasize about how nice it would be to live back home in Chicago again, and be able to spend a summer's afternoon at a Cubs game whenever I had a day off, as in olden times. Guess I'd better revise my fantasy.

The winningest season in Blackhawks history

And with their 5-2 victory over Dallas tonight- their 50th of the year- the Western Conference Central Division Champion Chicago Blackhawks have set an all-time franchise record for most victories in a season.

Boy....

Jack Bauer is gonna be ticked now!

They didn't get the memo

Some over in Britain are still waxing rhapsodic over the failed presidency of Barack Obama.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Obama decides to fight chemical and biological weapons with both hands tied behind our backs

Roger Kimball of Pajamas Media on President Obama's silly decision to rule out the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries even if they launch devastating chemical, biological, or cyber attacks against the United States.

Let's make sure we're clear about this. Say, Iran finds a way to aerosol Ebola and sets it off in the New York subway system, causing tens of thousands of horrific deaths. Tens of thousands more die from contact with infected victims. A handful of others, not realizing they're infected, board airplanes for other major cities. Soon smaller Ebola outbreaks take place in Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Houston, Washington, Detroit, and dozens of more cities. The death toll climbs into the hundreds of thousands, and infected individuals continue to spread the plague to every corner of the nation.

The United States, having no biological weapons of its own, would have no credible way to retaliate short of a full scale invasion of Iran.

If the army remained healthy enough to mount one, that is.

Great move, Mr. President. Wonderful.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Kirk takes lead in Illinois Senate race; Toomey leads Specter in PA

For the first time, Republican Mark Kirk has taken the lead over State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias in the race for President Obama's old Senate seat.

Meanwhile, Republican Pat Toomey has taken over the lead from former RINO Sen. Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania

HT: Real Clear Politics

Should have known he was a leftie.

The Sox cap was one more reason to boo.

Rest in peace

Michael Spencer- The Internet Monk, a prominent Reformed blogger- has gone to be with the Lord.

Michael had suffered from cancer. May the Lord comfort his wife, Denise, and his other friends and family.

HT: MZ Hemingway

BREAKING : Obama to limit nuke use- even in self defense!

President Obama- breaking with the policies of his predecessors and disregarding the advice of his own Secretary of Defense- is planning to drastically restrict the circumstances under which the United States will use nuclear weapons and ban the further development of the weapons.

The development ban in particular raises serious questions as to whether the new policy is remotely compatible with the security of the United States.

HT: Drudge

What 'glass ceiling?'

There are, at this very moment, more women in outer space than ever before in history.

HT: Drudge

Point to ponder

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.--C.S. Lewis

HT: Rev. Jeffrey Ries

Postmodern

...Adj. 1) Devoid of content, significance or meaning. 2) Intellectually nihilistic. 3) Having to do with the presidency of Barack Obama.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Karzai...

...gets it.

Somebody wake President Obama up before the Muhajamoonbats nuke the White House, eh?

HT: Drudge

Opening Day

No predictions. No expectations.

Go Cubs! Cardinalidae delendae est!

Chicago Blackhawks: 2010 Central Division Champions!

The Hawks clinched the division when the Flyers beat Day-twah. The Good Guys then proceeded to beat Calgary 4-1, equaling their all-time record for wins in a season with 49 and clinching no worse than third seed in the Western Conference.

Three in a row now for the resurgent Hawks. Niemi- who had an assist today!- has now allowed two goals in the last three games.

Did (does) Jesus have a sense of humor?

1. Yes- He is fully human as well as fully divine.
2. We'd all better hope so!

Are the Republicans and the Democrats both parties of whack-jobs?

I find a new Harris poll of Republicans to be among the most frightening things I've read in years.

For eight years, Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) raged among Democrats and Leftists. Despite the fact that Democratic election officials were totally in charge of the count in all the contested counties in Florida in 2000, we're still hearing nonsense about Bush having stolen Florida and the presidency. Even lamer justifications are given for similar lies about Ohio in 2004.

Within months of the slander that Bush was AWOL during his National Guard service first was uttered, members of the Guard who remembered serving with Bush during the period in question came forward to refute it. But the charges are still being made. Even John Kerry, the Democratic candidate for president, repeated them during the 2004 campaign.

Wholly unimpressed with the fact that every intelligence service on Earth believed that Saddam Hussein had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction, or even with the fact that no reasonable person doubts that he would have replenished his supplies the moment UN inspectors stopped looking, the malicious continue to repeat that the reason we went to war in Iraq was that Bush L-I-E-D-D-D! There is even a colony of whack-jobs- the so-called "Truthers-" who suggest that Dubyah personally plotted the 9/11 attacks!

All of that was- and is- scary enough. But a new Harris poll has come out that's even more frightening. We need one political party in this country composed of rational people, and apparently it isn't the Republicans, either.

According to the poll, 57% of Republicans believe the nonsensical fabrication that President Obama- who was a member of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago for more than two decades- is a Muslim. 45% accept the absurd premise of the Republican equivalent of the "Truthers," the "Birthers-" who falsely insist that Mr. Obama (for whom the State of Hawaii issued an official birth certificate in the name of "Barack Hussein Obama II") was not born in the United States.

And it gets even crazier. More than a quarter of Republicans apparently believe that Obama may be the Antichrist!

Christians, at least, ought to be concerned about the Eighth Commandment. Bearing false witness isn't a very Christian thing to do. And all Republicans need to be concerned about reality. If this poll is accurate, most Republicans are at least as caught up in malicious, extremist slander against President Obama as most Democrats are against former President Bush.

That simply isn't good. Somebody has got to act like grown-ups here, people. Or at least manifest some contact with reality- and some acquaintance with sanity, if not elementary civility. Right now neither of our great political parties show much sign of being up to the challenge.

ADDENDUM: I suppose one can draw some comfort from the fact that the Columbia Journalism Review- not, as Hot Air notes, generally a quarter from whence come spirited defenses of the Right- has attacked the credibility of the Harris poll and its methodology on a number of counts.

Are most Republicans as crazy as most Democrats?

The unreasoning hate most Democrats held (and still hold) toward former President Bush is a matter of record. The proven lies about his supposedly having been AWOL during his National Guard service, the slanders concerning the intelligence of a man who holds two degrees from Ivy League schools and has a higher IQ, as measured by military tests, than Al Gore, and the nonsense about a vote count in Florida supervised in all the contested counties entirely by Democratic election officials having been stolen by Bush in 2000 continue to be repeated to this day, despite the conclusive evidence to the contrary. Democrats even continue to repeat even flimsier evidence that Ohio in 2004 was somehow stolen. The mantra that "Bush lied" about weapons of mass destruction believed by every intelligence service in the world to have been possessed by Saddam Hussein continues to reverberate, and not only off the walls of padded cells.

But no poll to my knowledge ever showed that the "Truthers-" the nut jobs who believe that Bush personally arranged 9/11- are a majority in the Democratic party, or anything close to it. However a new Harris poll does show that 45 percent of Republicans believe the discredited nonsense that President Obama was not born in the United States (Hawaii has certified that it issued a birth certificate to Barack Hussein Obama II). Even worse, a large majority- 57%- falsely believe President Obama, who attended Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago for twenty years, to be a Muslim!

Not only that, but more than a quarter believe that Obama may be the Antichrist!

If that poll is accurate, it goes a long way toward proving that a majority of Republicans are just as crazy as a majority of Democrats- and that's scary.

We Republicans need to take a look at ourselves. America needs at least one political party the members of which live, for the most part, in the realm of reality. It sure isn't going to be the Democrats, and that means that it's up to us.

ADDENDUM: The Columbia Journalism Review has attacked the methodology of the Harris poll, charging it, among other things, with asking leading questions designed to elicit precisely the extremist responses it got. Maybe the Republicans, at least, are not as crazy as it would appear at first glance.

He is risen!

Awake, my heart, with gladness,
See what today is done;
Now, after gloom and sadness,
Comes forth the glorious Sun.
My Savior there was laid
Where our bed must be made
When to the realms of light
Our spirit wings its flight.

The foe in triumph shouted
When Christ lay in the tomb;
But, lo, he now is routed,
His boast is turned to gloom.
For Christ again is free;
In glorious victory
He Who is strong to save
Has triumphed o’er the grave.

This is a sight that gladdens;
What peace it doth impart!
Now nothing ever saddens
The joy within my heart.
No gloom shall ever shake,
No foe shall ever take,
The hope which God’s own Son
In love for me hath won.

Now hell, its prince, the devil
Of all their powers are shorn;
Now I am safe from evil,
And sin I laugh to scorn.
Grim Death with all his might
Cannot my soul affright;
He is a powerless form,
Howe’er he rave and storm.

The world against me rageth
Its fury I disdain;
Though bitter war it wageth
Its work is all in vain.
My heart from care is free,
No trouble troubles me.
Misfortune now is play
And night is bright as day.

Now I will cling forever
To Christ, my Savior true;
My Lord will leave me never,
Whate’er He passeth through.
He rends Death’s iron chain,
He breaks through sin and pain,
He shatters hell’s dark thrall,
I follow Him through all.

To halls of heavenly splendor
With Him I penetrate;
And trouble ne’er may hinder
Nor make me hesitate.
Let tempests rage at will,
My Savior shields me still;
He grants abiding peace
And bids all tumult cease.

He brings me to the portal
That leads to bliss untold,
Whereon this rhyme immortal
Is found in script of gold:
“Who there My cross hath shared
Finds here a crown prepared;
Who there with Me hath died
Shall here be glorified.”

--Words: Paul Gerhardt, 1648. Music: Johann Cruger, 1648.

I'm sure

Drudge is running a story headed FOUND: MISSING LINK BETWEEN APES AND MAN.

Beneath it is a picture of Hugo Chavez and Vladimir Putin.

Inadvertent, I'm sure.

An icon of the American spirit

Claudia Rossett on why she'll miss Jack Bauer.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Making nice-nice with maniacs

Greg Sheridan of The Australian concludes that President Obama has decided to accept the utterly unacceptable: a nuclear Iran.

HT: Real Clear Politics

The Big Lie in action

Andrew Breitbart on the attempt to smear the Tea Baggers with phony charges of using the "N-word" and spitting on congressmen.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Ceád Mile Fáilte *

*Gaelic for "A hundred thousand welcomes"

Sometime in the last few hours, someone from Winchester, New Hampshire became the 100,000th visitor to this blog in the six years and 4,700 posts since it moved here from Blog Studio, where I'd had it for a little over a year, in early 2004.

I suppose I could really trace this blog's history back to a kind of proto-blog I had in the middle of the controversy over the 2000 presidential election. There werr oe a number of false starts under various names in the years following until watersblogged! finally got off the ground.

Anyway, thanks to all my readers It's been a memorable six years- or seven, or ten, or whatever- and I hope we'll be together for many more!

From Bach's St. John's Passion

HT: Rev. William Cwirla

With friends like us, who needs enemies?

Charles Krauthammer on the amazing diplomatic ineptitude of this administration.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Barack I and George III

Up-and-comer Rep. Paul Ryan on the Health Care bill as an "intolerable act."

HT: Real Clear Politics

The most important event in history

Isaiah 53- ESV

Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected[b] by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Tomorrow will be 'Good Friday' in Davenport after all

Davenport, Iowa has had an attack of common sense.

Good Friday will continue to be officially known as 'Good Friday' after all.

HT: watersblogged!

Hope, for a Change?

The Economist sees hope for America's economy.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Edsall: Obama has electoral majority, whites or no whites

Thomas Byrne Edsall writes in the Atlantic that Barack Obama, despite his unpopularity with white Americans, nevertheless may have an iron-clad electoral majority lined up.

HT: Real Clear Poltics

Hillary pushes abortion in Canada

It isn't enough for Hillary Clinton to support abortion in this country. She's doing it in Canada, too.

What she, like "pro-choicers" generally don't understand is that if one believes abortion to be murder, one is morally obligated to oppose its legality. One cannot with any moral coherence be in favor of the legality of murder.

Unless, that is, one's name is Mao or Stalin or Hitler. And few pro-lifers bear any of those names.

HT: Drudge

Outside China, Google is sometimes still evil

Despite well-deserved praise for refusing to oblige the Chinese oligarchy by censoring its results in the Middle Kingdom, Google continues to practice censorship elsewhere.

HT: Drudge

Belgium bans burkha

More evidence that Europeans do not understand freedom of religion.

HT: Drudge

Gallup: Half say no second term for Obama

According to a new USA Today/Gallup poll, half of Americans say President Obama does not deserve re-election.

HT: Drudge