The Postwest - A civilization that has become just a dream.

Everyone....Please read Victor Davis Hanson's column at NRO.

More on "global warming"

Here's an interesting graphic and description from NASA:
The number of sunspots on the Sun’s surface is roughly proportional to total solar irradiance. Historical sunspot records give scientists an idea of the amount of energy emitted by the Sun in the past. The above graph shows sunspot data from 1650 to the present. The Maunder Minimum occured from 1650–1700 and may have influenced Europe’s little ice age. (The data from this period are not as reliable as the data beginning in 1700, but it is clear that sunspot numbers were higher both before and after the Maunder Minimum.) Since then, sunspot number have risen and fallen in a regular 11-year cycle. An 11-year running average shows only the long-term variation, which shows a rise in total sunspot numbers from 1700 until today. [Graph by Robert Simmon, based on data compiled by John Eddy (1650-1700) and the Solar Influences Data analysis Center (SIDC)]

Giuliani stands by support of publicly-funded abortions

CNN - Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Giuliani stands by support of publicly-funded abortions

When asked directly Wednesday if he still supported the use of public funding for abortions, Giuliani said "Yes."

As far as supporting Rudy in the primaries, he just shot himself in the ass with me and a whole lot of other Christian conservatives. It's bad enough that he's "pro-choice." Now he wants to make all of us accessories to murder. Maybe he gets an A for honesty, but I'm honest, too, and I can't honestly vote for someone who thinks like this--at least until I have no other choice.
I read a letter from a woman, I think in the Washington Times, who took issue with the charge that pro-Lifers are often single-issue voters. She made one excellent point: that single issue tells us an awful lot about how a candidate thinks and makes decisions--especially if he claims to be "personally against" abortion, which is exactly what Giuliani does in the citation above.
Remember Chesterton's words: "To admire mere choice is to refuse to choose."

If Giulani is the Republican nominee I'll more than likely vote for him. Someone else will be getting my primary vote.

The Trouble With Islam

Sadly, mainstream Muslim teaching accepts and promotes violence.

BY TAWFIK HAMID
Tuesday, April 3, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

Not many years ago the brilliant Orientalist, Bernard Lewis, published a short history of the Islamic world's decline, entitled "What Went Wrong?" Astonishingly, there was, among many Western "progressives," a vocal dislike for the title. It is a false premise, these critics protested. They ignored Mr. Lewis's implicit statement that things have been, or could be, right.

But indeed, there is much that is clearly wrong with the Islamic world. Women are stoned to death and undergo clitorectomies. Gays hang from the gallows under the approving eyes of the proponents of Shariah, the legal code of Islam. Sunni and Shia massacre each other daily in Iraq. Palestinian mothers teach 3-year-old boys and girls the ideal of martyrdom. One would expect the orthodox Islamic establishment to evade or dismiss these complaints, but less happily, the non-Muslim priests of enlightenment in the West have come, actively and passively, to the Islamists' defense.

These "progressives" frequently cite the need to examine "root causes." In this they are correct: Terrorism is only the manifestation of a disease and not the disease itself. But the root-causes are quite different from what they think. As a former member of Jemaah Islamiya, a group led by al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, I know firsthand that the inhumane teaching in Islamist ideology can transform a young, benevolent mind into that of a terrorist. Without confronting the ideological roots of radical Islam it will be impossible to combat it. While there are many ideological "rootlets" of Islamism, the main tap root has a name--Salafism, or Salafi Islam, a violent, ultra-conservative version of the religion.

It is vital to grasp that traditional and even mainstream Islamic teaching accepts and promotes violence. Shariah, for example, allows apostates to be killed, permits beating women to discipline them, seeks to subjugate non-Muslims to Islam as dhimmis and justifies declaring war to do so. It exhorts good Muslims to exterminate the Jews before the "end of days." The near deafening silence of the Muslim majority against these barbaric practices is evidence enough that there is something fundamentally wrong.

(read more)

A Blessing for Easter

Coalition for a Conservative Majority

I just finished reading No Retreat, No Surrender by Tom DeLay. It offers a fascintating glimpse behind the curtains of power in Washington. If you want to know how the 1994 Contract With America came about, what really happened when New Gingrich shut down the government in 1995, the inside story of Clinton's impeachment, plus lots of other plots and personalities that have made the last 15 years so tumultuous, then read this book. You can order it at http://www.tomdelay.com/.

I attended a book-signing by Tom last Tuesday and he announced that he's formed the Coalition for a Conservative Majority (http://www.ccmajority.org/). He describes it as a nationwide "grassroots action and information organization" that will "IDENTIFY, RECRUIT, TRAIN, INSPIRE, ACTIVATE, and MOBILIZE conservatives." With the Democrats working so hard to give the terrorists a victory in Iraq and criminalizing anyone who dares to disagree with them, we all need to get involved. Please consider going to the website and volunteering to help in your area.

Humility

...if a man would make his world large, he must be always making himself small. Even the haughty visions, the tall cities, and the toppling pinnacles are the creations of humility. Giants that tread down forests like grass are the creations of humility. Towers that vanish upwards above the loneliest star are the creations of humility. For towers are not tall unless we look up at them; and giants are not giants unless they are larger than we. All this gigantesque imagination, which is, perhaps, the mightiest of the pleasures of man, is at bottom entirely humble. It is impossible without humility to enjoy anything -- even pride.

G.K.Chesterton, from Orthodoxy (1908)

A Vote Too Far

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Friday, March 23, 2007 4:20 PM PT

Congress: In passing a bill that will force a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq, Democrats have again shown why they can't be trusted with our nation's security — or with spending money responsibly.

How sad that Congress' new majority didn't have the guts to take a straight-up vote on withdrawing troops without linking it to all sorts of pork-barrel spending.

This shows Democrats don't have the courage of their convictions — unless bribed. As far as party ideals go, using our troops as a bargaining chip for pork really descends to the basement.

Read more

An open letter to Congressman Nick Lampson

Dear Congressman Lampson,

I am a conservative voter.  Although I usually vote Republican, I hesitate to claim party affiliation because--in my view--the only politicians worse than Republicans are Democrats. To be perfectly honest, then, it's highly unlikely that you'll ever get my vote. 

I also want to tell you that I'm a Marine veteran of Vietnam who clearly remembers how the Democratic party cut funding for South Vietnam after the Paris peace accords were signed, an act that I sincerely believe led directly to the slaughter of thousands in southeast Asia.  I also believe, sincerely, that a similar carnage would result from the premature withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.  This bill will also--correctly--cement the reputation of Democrats as the party of appeasement.

I plead with you, therefore, to oppose the effort by Speaker Pelosi to tie war funds to a withdrawal date.  As a veteran I can state for a fact that this can only harm the morale of our troops and play into the hands of al-Qaida.

Thanks for your time,

Cliff Raymond
Sugar Land

Choice

The worship of will is the negation of will. To admire mere choice is to refuse to choose.
--G. K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy, 1908)

Men without chests

"Such is the tragicomedy of our situation--we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. . . . In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst." -C. S. Lewis

Gore's Sunburn
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2007 4:20 PM PST
Environmentalism: Even green-friendly media are daring to ask if higher temps are really just part of a natural cycle that could peak before all the forecast doom and gloom. Has Al Gore oversold man-made global warming?
The New York Times, seeing a chance the debate could shift in favor of alternative sources for recent warming, cautiously threw some cold water on Gore's overheated rhetoric.
In Tuesday's issue, it opened the possibility that some of his central claims are 'exaggerated and erroneous,' and deigned to recognize scientists who have challenged him.
'A few see natural variation as more central to global warming than heat-trapping gases' produced by cars and factories, the Times reported.
A few? Hardly a week goes by without a new research paper questioning the assumption that carbon-spewing humans are the cause of global warming. Many blame solar activity instead. Because such reports don't fit with the left's anti-industry agenda, they've been buried in the debate.
Most recently, National Geographic News cited new NASA data showing that ice caps near Mars' south pole have been melting due to milder temps on that planet, too.
As far as we know, no Martians drive SUVs. Or run factories. Or do anything else that could produce evil 'greenhouse gases.' So what could be warming the two planets simultaneously?

READ MORE

timepeace

aground

Generations

Generations
an essay by Cliff Raymond

Communicating values between generations has always been difficult, since it is the nature of youth to question the assumptions and values of the previous generation. By and large, this "generation gap" is a healthy phenomena: worthy values tend to survive and are reinforced by the testing process, while faulty assumptions are replaced by new ideas that will be tested by the next generation.

But if we fail to communicate those ideas that we believe are important, if we do not pass on the lessons that our parents were taught by their parents, then we spawn a generation with no compass, doomed to repeat the mistakes of history that were not effectively communicated. In short, we are left with a nation in decline, a society in chaos -- a television-addicted nation where the generation "gap" has become a gulf of illegitimacy and broken marriages.

Unintended consequences

In America, the "unintended consequence" seems to have replaced the Constitution as the law of the land. Before the stigma of divorce was relaxed during the 60's, the divorce rate averaged 25% to 30%. By 1990, the "glue" of stigma was so diluted that half of all marriages foundered, often at the first sign of rough weather. The same people who hold a "no pain, no gain" attitude about jogging or aerobics will throw in the towel at the first hint of marital problems.

The original idea, of course, was that disintegrating bad marriages would allow us to find fulfillment with more compatible partners. Children were widely believed to be resilient enough that they could adapt, and even profit, from the separation of unhappy partners. In many cases, no doubt, that was true -- particularly in abusive situations. Most divorces, however, are the result of "incompatibilities" rather than violence, and the single-parent household is now widely acknowledged to be one of the biggest contributors to our welfare and crime problems.

Another stigma that has been relaxed is the one that used to shame "loose" women, irresponsible boys, and bastard children. Girls with bad reputations have always been popular with young men -- at least until they got pregnant. Not surprisingly, girls that "go all the way" are still in great demand by boys influenced more by hormones than an overriding concern for society.

Life is terribly unfair in that an unmarried mother has always suffered more than the father. This injustice has pervaded just about all societies throughout recorded history.

In today's America, though, loose girls are no longer treated with contempt. As a result, even more girls are ready and willing to join in the fun. After all, it's not "fair" that a girl should be shunned for doing something that a boy is expected to do (at least by other boys). Still, it's amazing how—in the name of sexual freedom—these young women so casually discard the incredible power they hold over men.

READ MORE

A Louisiana Summer

for Lois

Why2K

Paradoxes of Christianity

The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait. I give one coarse instance of what I mean. Suppose some mathematical creature from the moon were to reckon up the human body; he would at once see that the essential thing about it was that it was duplicate. A man is two men, he on the right exactly resembling him on the left. Having noted that there was an arm on the right and one on the left, a leg on the right and one on the left, he might go further and still find on each side the same number of fingers, the same number of toes, twin eyes, twin ears, twin nostrils, and even twin lobes of the brain. At last he would take it as a law; and then, where he found a heart on one side, would deduce that there was another heart on the other. And just then, where he most felt he was right, he would be wrong.

G. K. Chesterton, from Orthodoxy (Chapter 6, The Paradoxes of Christianity)

A Prayer for Choice

Dear God,

You have shown me that

I am the sum of my choices

Past, present, and future.

Small or large,

Remembered or forgotten,

Glad or sad,

Forgiving or bitter,

Bold or fearful,

Cynical or trusting,

Noble or not,

To be friend or enemy

Or mere acquaintance;

These are decisions

I will have made

Ten times ten thousand times

Before I leave this life.

Please, Lord, remind

Me always that the choice

That matters most

Is Jesus Christ.

For only through Him

May the right choice

Be always clearly seen,

And my true sum entered

Into the Book of Life.

Amen.