Stones Cry Out

John McCain scored a huge victory in yesterday’s Virginia Republican primary winning nearly 51% of the vote and defeating Mike Huckabee by a double-digit margin. But a closer look at the results reveals McCain’s biggest weakness: his inability to win conservative voters.
McCain won the primary by over 50,000 votes. However, when you look at the individual city and county results McCain’s problems are immediately obvious to anyone who is familiar with the state’s demographics.
Mike Huckabee won in more rural and suburban counties which are the more conservative areas of the state. McCain won the larger cities and urban counties that traditionally lean more towards Democratic candidates. Even though McCain won a big victory8 he still did not do well in traditionally Republican areas.
Virginia has voted Republican in every presidential election since 1952. However, this year may be the year that Virginia turns blue. Consider this: the last two governors of Virginia have been Democrats (Mark Warner and current governor Tim Kaine). The last time Virginia elected a senator they picked Democrat Jim Webb over incumbent Republican George Allen. This year, long-time Republican senator John Warner (a RINO in every sense of the term, by the way) will retire and the aforementioned Mark Warner is a heavy favorite to win his seat over former Republican governor and one-time presidential candidate Jim Gilmore.
Unless McCain can figure out a way to get the conservative Republican base behind him, he’ll have a hard time winning Virginia. If he cannot win Virginia, he won’t be able to win the White House no matter who the Democrats decide to nominate.

Missed out during traveling (and server woes) yesterday.

• Jury and Jihad down under.
• Watching East.
• Evaluating the Clinton candidacy.
•  Messianic hopes assigned to Obama noted. Here too.
• One good way to appreciate your freedom.
• In Iraq, women.
• Inconvenient for the inconvenient truthers.

You expect this sort of talk from the Bush administration.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq faces an “extraordinary crisis”. Last year’s mass defection of ordinary Sunnis from al-Qaeda to the US military “created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight”. The terrorist group’s security structure suffered “total collapse”.

But this is not the script from the latest press briefing in DC.

These are the words not of al-Qaeda’s enemies but of one of its own leaders in Anbar province — once the group’s stronghold. They were set down last summer in a 39-page letter seized during a US raid on an al-Qaeda base near Samarra in November.

The US military released extracts from that letter yesterday along with a second seized in another November raid that is almost as startling.

That second document is a bitter 16-page testament written last October by a local al-Qaeda leader near Balad, north of Baghdad. “I am Abu-Tariq, emir of the al-Layin and al-Mashahdah sector,” the author begins. He goes on to describe how his force of 600 shrank to fewer than 20.

“We were mistreated, cheated and betrayed by some of our brothers,” he says. “Those people were nothing but hypocrites, liars and traitors and were waiting for the right moment to switch sides with whoever pays them most.”

Given that, this pronouncement seems at odds with reality.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said twice Sunday that Iraq “is a failure,” adding that President Bush’s troop surge has “not produced the desired effect.”

“The purpose of the surge was to create a secure time for the government of Iraq to make the political change to bring reconciliation to Iraq,” Pelosi said on CNN’s “Late Edition.” “They have not done that.”

The speaker hastened to add: “The troops have succeeded, God bless them.”

If al Qaeda is having to regroup and has lost all this ground, then the Iraqi government does have “a secure time”, at least far more secure than it has been. If that’s her definition of success, I’d say the Surge has been quite successful.

That the Iraqis have had a tough time coming together and resolving differences is simply human nature in action. As I mentioned earlier, culture and tribalism can work against a shared national identity, both in Afghanistan and Iraq. It will take time, but we are giving them that time, successfully.

[tags]Iraq,al Qaeda,Afghanistan,Nancy Pelosi,terrorism[/tags]

It looks like Mark O. tagged me with the Celebrity meme. I’ve listed it below (note, I’ve masculinized the list because writing (and reading) “s/he” drives me up the wall).

If you could spend 24 hours with a celebrity:

1. Who would he be?
2. Where would you expect him to bring you?
3. Where [what] would you bring him?
4. What would you like to do with him?
5. What’s the one thing you’d been always wanting to ask the celebrity?
6. If he didn’t treat you well, would he be your favorite celebrity?
7. What would you give to him as a gift before saying goodbye so he’d remember you?
8. Tag 3 people.

I’m not so sure that I agree with Mark’s assessment on the word “celebrity”, though. I mean, other than the Lohan / Spears / Hilton drivel that floods the news sites, I’m not very familiar with who the common famous people are. For instance, when Heath Ledger died, I had to look up who he was (but, I would have bet that he was an actor).

Maverick that I am, I’m also deviating from Mark’s conclusion that the celebrity still be alive (much less, in show business).

So, here goes:

1. The “celebrity” I pick is (are) Lewis & Clark. Why both of them? Well, think about it, no one evers speaks of the “Lewis Expedition” or the “Clark Expedition” – they refer to the trip the Corps of Discovery made as the Lewis & Clark Expedition.

2. I would expect them to bring me adventurous accounts (of their trip), heretofore unknown to historians.

3. Given that they would have to travel through time to speak with me (or, vice versa), I would bring them news, both good and bad, of how the United States has progressed in the last 200 years.

4. I would like to visit the place, from their adventure, that they considered the most exciting.

5. I would want to ask them how (and if) they thought their expedition would impact the growth of the new country.

6. I’d probably have a little less respect for them because, based on the accounts of their journey, they appeared to be forthright and honorable men.

7. One of the many books which chronicled their journey, as a memento of the gift they gave the U.S.

8. Bonnie at Intellectuelle, Ilona at TrueGrit, Tom at LotharBot.

…die by the asset seizure.

Exxon Mobil Corp has moved to freeze up to $12 billion in Venezuelan assets around the world as the U.S. company fights for payment in return for the state’s takeover of a huge oil project last year.

The company said it has received court orders in Britain, the Netherlands and the Netherlands Antilles each freezing up to $12 billion in assets of Venezuela state oil firm PDVSA. An Exxon spokeswoman said the total that could be frozen worldwide was $12 billion.

Exxon also won a court order from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in December freezing more than $300 million belonging to PDVSA, as Exxon argued it would have little chance to recoup its investment from PDVSA should it win its arbitration.

A taste of his own medicine that Chavez may find does not agree with his pallet. But somehow, socialists always seem to think that grabbing up whole industry sectors is the way to utopia. He’s been threatening to do it with the food sector as well because of food shortages caused by price controls.

And that is the lesson here, taught many times over the centuries but lost on socialists; price controls don’t work. And since that’s one of hallmarks of a socialist government, determined to control an economy down to every little detail, then socialism is doomed to fail as well.

A committee cannot hope to manipulate an economy to the degree that Chavez wants to. The sooner the people of Venezuela understand that, the sooner they can remove him from power before he starts expropriating that, too.

[tags]Venezuela,Hugo Chavez,socialism,economics,Exxon,PDVSA[/tags]

When oil company revenues are reported under screaming headlines in the paper or on new sites, they’re only telling you part of the story. Dr. Mark Perry fills us in.

Corporate profits receive a lot of media attention, but what receives considerably less attention are the corporate taxes paid on corporate profits. Do a Google search for “Exxon profits” and you’ll get about 8,000 hits. Now try “Exxon taxes” and you’ll get a little more than 300 hits. That’s a ratio of about 33 to 1.

I’m pretty sure that Exxon’s tax payment in 2007 of $30 billion (that’s $30,000,000,000) is a record, exceeding the $28 billion it paid last year.

By the way, Exxon pays taxes at a rate of 41% on its taxable income!

Dr. Perry has a quick graphic to illustrate profits vs. taxes, and, after a little quick math, notes that this one corporation, Exxon, pays more taxes than the entire bottom 50% of all taxpayers.

Just asking for a little perspective.

[tags]economics,taxes,Exxon Mobile,profits,oil industry[/tags]

• Speaking of heretics, a heretic and a man utterly devoted to evil noted at Faithworld.
• Turkey and the headscarf.
• Art and the Word. Blech.
• Regional differences in the grieving process. (heh)
• Considering the three contenders for the American crown.

In the US (and the West) little is known about Orthodoxy. Did you know on a little street called Via Recta (the Street called Straight) see Acts 9:

Almost 700 meters to the west of Bab Sharqi is a Roman monumental arch that was excavated and rebuilt in 1947 by the Syrian Department of Antiquities. It is here that the intersection of Straight Street and the north-south Cardo Maximus has been located. On the right-hand side in ancient times stood a Byzantine church dedicated to the Virgin Mary and called Mariamyeh. Today, on the same site, stands a church which serves as the Seat of the Greek-Orthodox Patriarchate. [emphasis mine]

The larger Orthodox church, from an church administrative standpoint is divided into autocephalus (independent heads) groups, e.g., the American Orthodox church OCA was granted autocephaly from the Russian in 1970. So what that quote above means is that the Greek Orthodox holds as its base of operations … a church on a street called “Straight”, that is one of not-just-a-little Biblical significance.

In the last conversation about abortion (at my personal blog) my frequent interlocutor, Jewish Atheist (JA), depends in part on arguments drawn from the Violinist question. This is odd, because JA himself finds the Violinist argument poor. In that discussion however, I’d like to concentrate on the reasoning the pro-choice/pro-abortion community uses to deny the father any say in the matter, with a blanket excuse “it’s the women’s body.” I’m going modify my narrative around the violinist argument to highlight why I think setting the father out of the picture in a point blank fashion is a violation of common sense contractual ethics. For the story, duck below the fold: Read the rest of this entry

Inside and outside of the Christian community at large views the prosperity gospel as errant, and proponents of the same such as Mr Osteen are seen as heretical. Now, I’m something of a Christian purist, if you don’t adhere to the Nicene Creed … you aren’t, by definition, Christian. Mr Romney as a Mormon, or Jehovah Witnesses for example, are not thereby, technically speaking Christian. Barack Obama holds to a church which professes what is called Black Liberation Theology. Now, I had formerly looked askance at that having associated Liberation Theology with the South American Catholic Liberation movement which intimately connected the gospel and Marxism, which I felt was probably “just wrong.” It was then remarked that the adjective “Black” has definite meaning and as such there is little or no connection with Marxism. However, I just looked into via a little googling what Black Liberation theology entails … and well first of all it’s not Christian, and secondly it’s not properly theology at all to my way of thinking. Mr Obama is not a Christian, he’s something worse. He’s a heretic claiming to be Christian but in fact is not.

Now I’m planning on going a little more details in future posts, but in precis it seems to me the theological content of Black Liberation (BL) theology might be summarized thusly. In my view, BL and the properity gospel are two sides of the same coin. Prosperity gospel is for the rich (white?) American folk hoping to get richer (simply put, Jesus = Good news (gospel) and what other than good news can one have than getting rich?). The other side of the coin, for those feeling or being oppressed is BL. For example:

The first question Bruce L. Fields asks in Introducing Black Theology is “What is black theology?” It is theology from the perspective of an oppressed people. It seeks to interpret the gospel of Jesus Christ against the backdrop of historical and contemporary racism. The message of black theology is that the African American struggle for liberation is consistent with the gospel—every theological statement must be consistent with, and perpetuate, the goals of liberation.

I find the statement “every theological statement must be consistent with, and perpetuate, the goals of liberation” to be, in a word, from the small “o” orthodox Christian perspective rankest heresy. An honest atheist is not dangerous in the way that man claiming to be your brother who in fact is not … is.

Now American’s Black included are notoriously ignorant of history. Historically speaking, one can argue that the majority of the starkly oppressed Christian churches have been the Eastern Orthodox. Now, I’ll admit some prejudice here, but I think it can be argued with that prejudice in mind that the proper Christian response to oppression can be found in the Early church and the Eastern church in lands conquered by Islam and the Orthodox church behind the Iron Curtain and under atheist communist persecution. If the American Black can claim oppression what by contrast does the Coptic Christian claim is his situation in Egypt, or the Antiochan Orthodox within Syria? In parts of the (former) Soviet bloc, it was a capital crime to baptize. I’m not saying the Black American today isn’t oppressed. But there needs to be another word to describe these other instances of oppression. A few people killed here and their is murder. Holocaust or Holodomor are not “murder” because the quantitative difference yeilds something which begs for a new word to describe and signify that difference.

In this series I’m going to examine Black Liberation Theology in more detail and contrast it, where possible, with a Christian viewpoint as well as, if appropriate, to contrast the how theological responses to the same stimuli played out in the East with the Black liberation ideas, and thus underlying and understanding what is meant by Mr Obama as Heretic.

(Cross-posted at New Covenant)

At the Thumb, we have a post titled, The Inner Fish speaks: Neil Shubin makes a guest appearance on Pharyngula, in which we’re given a glimpse into how natural process evolution views template fossil forms which appear fully functional for the environment, and time, in which they existed: They’re declared as gap-filling transitional forms (the kind OEC types like myself say don’t exist).

The human ancestor in question, this time, is the fish Tiktaalik roseae. Yes, that’s correct, a fish. How, you may ask, is a fish an ancestor of us humans? Well, you see, it all has to do with the fact that the bone structure of the fish fins is eerily similar to the bone structure for human hands. Over time, it is supposed, such early structures transformed into the variety of similar structures we see today. For the Tiktaalik roseae this, Great Transformation, is but one of the many transformations that obviously occurred  over the millions of years of life’s history. Watch this clip from the PBS series, Evolution, particularly noting the quick animation of a fin to hand skeletal structure. Or take a look at the Flash animation, on page 1, from this NOVA site. (note: Evidence for Evolution, a NOVA Vodcast from 11/9/07, provides another glimpse of the thought processes involved here)

But wait, there’s more.

Read the rest of this entry

Weekend Fisher has tagged me with the Celebrity meme. The meme, answer these questions:

1. Who would s/he be?
2. Where would you expect him/her to bring you?
3. Where would you bring him/her?
4. What would you like to do with him/her?
5. What’s the one thing you’d been always wanting to ask the celebrity?
6. If s/he didn’t treat you well, would s/he be your favorite celebrity?
7. What would you give to him/her as a gift before saying goodbye so s/he’d remember you?
8. Tag 3 people.

Now, I’m assuming some things about this “Celebrity”, that is the common famous people currently living related to “show business”, not for example famous Comp-Sci icon like Donald Knuth, mathematicians like Terrence Tao, or theologians like Metropolitan John Zizioulas and living so we might exclude any number of very famous people. Too many others I like, for example as authors Dan Simmons or other popular authors are too obscure to be celebrated/celebrity. What is my answer?

Iwas hoping over the weekend to come up with an idea of a celebrity who was really a celebrity, Eddy Merckx for example is a celebrity in Europe but cycling is too small a sport to matter here. From the acting community, I was really really impressed by Michael Kitchen in the Foyle’s War series … but again I think too far “down on the charts” to count.I wanted to think of a famous person recognized in America as really a celebrity who was actually praiseworthy and someone whom I wanted to meet. Alas, my small brain can’t figure an answer to that question this weekend. But there is a celebrity, with whom I think I’d be glad for some advice with respect to my youngest daughter … so with that in mind we begin:

1. So my celebrity choice would be Nadia Comaneci. She may be out of the spotlight for some time but I watched, was amazed with the world, and admired/adored her during the 1976 Olympic games. My youngest daughter is, albeit starting a little late, becoming enthusiastically involved in gymnastics and beginning to compete.
2. I wouldn’t expect her to bring anything.
3. Perhaps we could meet at a meet? That would be cool. I’m a novice at watching gymnastics. Some pointers at what to look for from the stands would be really nice.
4. I’d like to talk, to get advice with respect to my daughter.
5. What’s fame like? Is it worth it if it comes during your pursuit of your passion/vocation?
6. I wouldn’t feel bad if she didn’t treat me well. I’m the one imposing on her.
7. I think a nice goodbye gift might be an icon of St. Emmelia, my daughter’s name/Chrismation saint. I don’t know if she’s Orthodox, but the percentage of Orthodox in Romania is in the high 90’s so there’s a chance. I’d hope she might find a place for it in her corner if that wasn’t too large an imposition.

Three to tag? How about the rest of the crew here?

And those who need blood transfusions pay the price.

San Jose State University’s decision this week to ban blood drives on the 30,000-student campus over discrimination concerns is drawing a gush of criticism from local blood banks.

Stanford Blood Center officials said they actually agree with San Jose State President Don Kassing that the federal Food and Drug Administration is wrong to prohibit blood donations from gay men.

But in a statement Friday, the center called his decision to suspend campus blood drives for that reason "a terribly misguided tactic that could have a devastating impact on the blood supply, and therefore, patients in our community."

Kassing’s stand — based on the university’s non-discrimination policy — has focused attention on a longstanding FDA rule that many say is overly restrictive. Critics, however, worry it sets a bad example that could exacerbate blood shortages if others follow his lead.

It’s one thing to stand up for your principles, and it’s certainly San Jose State’s prerogative to do this, even though I disagree with the principle.  But to shut down blood drives on campus is just entirely misguided and ignores the very real cost of this particular type of stand.

Gay rights groups on several college campuses, including Stanford’s, have held protests on the issue in recent years. At San Jose State, it was an employee’s complaint last year that prompted Kassing’s office to investigate whether the rule made blood drives discriminatory.

They decided it did, since gay men were being treated differently than other groups of people with similar risk factors.

There is no inherent "right" to give blood, but fair enough; let’s assume some sort of evil "discrimination".  Who’s paying the price?  Certainly not the blood banks.  While we’re never really awash in too much donated blood, they’ll still do their jobs as best they can.  Not the FDA.  How does this really affect them?

No, the folks who are really getting punished for this restriction (and pardon me if the regulations regarding the nation’s blood supply err on the side of caution) are those who actually need the blood.  The patients in hospitals who need it to live and who, I’m pretty sure, are quite happy not to have to worry about AIDS-tainted blood. 

These are "bleeding-heart liberals" who care more about hurt feelings over donating restrictions (and really, that’s the only harm I see here) than they do people whose lives may depend on them.  How revealing.

[tags]San Jose State University,Don Kassing,FDA,homosexuality,blood donations,AIDS[/tags]

Townhall has some video of Mark Steyn, at CPAC. A couple of excerpts:

He quotes Gerald Ford as saying,

“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.”

To which he adds,

A government big enough to give you everything you want, isn’t big enough to get you to give any of it back. And that’s what the Europeans have.

Take the time to watch it all.

• Literature backing McCain (follow the link).
• Kos. Anti-American?
• Happy new year! And a fine label for the election season.
• CEO payscales as a carrot for the rest of us.
• de-Nazification deplored.
• Trash and the soul.