Life After Death

Dinesh D'Souza has an article on Townhall.com today entitled Life After Death: The Message of Evolution that provides and entirely different analysis of the message of evolution.

I had read D'Souza's two other books, "What's So Great About America" and "What's So Great About Christianity." The first was a rousing read, but the second gave me a number of new ways to think about my faith. So, I am anxious to read his latest "Life After Death: The Evidence." D'Souza has a way of making complex philosophical and scientific concepts accessible to the average person, and thus is a treasure to the busy reader who nevertheless wants to join in following the debates. To show you his style, here's a sample quote from the article:

Strikingly Duve speaks of an “arrow of evolution” that makes this progression virtually inevitable. Duve speaks of biological history as proceeding through successive ages, from the “age of chemistry” to the “age of information” to the “age of the single cell” to the “age of multicellular organisms” and finally to the “age of the mind.”

The age of the mind: an arresting concept. It reveals that evolution has gone beyond increasing complexity; it has provided the catalyst for a new order of being in the world. Through the human mind, the cosmic code has finally produced a mechanism for its own detection. Surely this is a fact of fundamental significance. Not only has matter somehow generated life, it has also generated awareness and understanding.

It is certainly not the first time that someone has argued that the very fact that we can discover and appreciate God's creation is, at the very least a marvel, and indeed is key evidence in proving the existence of the Creator. But in my limited reading, I have not encountered an argument (though I'm sure they are out there) that attempts to use this fact as evidence of our continuation after death.

Go read the whole thing. It is well worth it.

Ft, Hood: Gun Free Zone

A great read from Jacob Sullum on Townhall.com today entitled The Folly of Unilateral Disarmament brings to light the stupidity of "Gun Free Zones."

If you have not served in the military, or like me, worked as a civilian employee of a military department, you may not realize that Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen are not allowed to carry guns on base, except for specific training purposes. When they do, they are unloaded, and ammunition is allotted very sparingly for the purpose at hand. Otherwise, guns are kept locked up in armories. Further, while I have never been to Ft. Hood, I have been to a number of military installations, and none are what you would think of as "heavily fortified." I doubt Ft. Hood is any different. A quote:

Neither Smith nor the other victims of Hasan's assault had guns because soldiers on military bases within the United States generally are not allowed to carry them. Last week's shootings, which killed 13 people and wounded more than 30, demonstrated once again the folly of "gun-free zones," which attract and assist people bent on mass murder instead of deterring them.

Judging from the comments of those who support this policy of victim disarmament, Smith's desire for a gun was irrational. According to Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, "This latest tragedy, at a heavily fortified Army base, ought to convince more Americans to reject the argument that the solution to gun violence is to arm more people with more guns in more places."

Except that is exactly the thing shown by John Lott's book "More Guns, Less Crime," and it is easy to see why more guns in the hands of responsible citizens equals less crime. Criminals may be amoral, and often not the sharpest specimens of humankind, but they are generally not deliberately suicidal. When shall issue concealed carry is allowed, the criminal planning on mayhem must calculate the unknown; "which of these people might be armed and stop me, or kill me outright?" So, if a criminal had to choose weather to hold up a convenience store with no posting of "no guns" and a liquor store with such a posting, all things being equal, which one do you think he is going to pick for a robbery? If you guess the liquor store, you would be right. Back to the Ft. Hood shooting:

The first people with guns to confront Hasan, two local police officers, were the ones who put a stop to his rampage. And while Sgt. Kim Munley and Sgt. Mark Todd acted heroically, they did not arrive on the scene until a crucial 10 minutes or so had elapsed and Hasan had fired more than 100 rounds.

If someone else at the processing center had a gun when Hasan started shooting, it seems likely that fewer people would have been killed or injured. Furthermore, the knowledge that some of his victims would be armed might have led him to choose a different, softer target in order to maximize the impact of his attack.

Exactly right. But this lesson will be another that will be ignored by those who will shortly be performing a "Lessons Learned" drill.

The Unconstitutionality of Obamacare

The American Thinker has a great article today entitled To Hell With the Constitution by Jon N. Hall. Another writer seems to be getting it. The Obamacare bill that passed the House last Saturday night is not Constitutional. The bill violates the 9th and 10th Amendments. The Commerce Clause can not be used to provide a fig leaf with which Congress may cover itself. The General Welfare never meant what Steny Hoyer implied in his news conference.

But now Congress is ramming through their abortion of a bill by the thinnest of majorities. The House just passed its version 220 to 215 -- a 3-vote margin to pass the "mother of all entitlements." The Senate is considering its options, among them the "nuclear option" (called "reconciliation"), which would allow them to get around a filibuster.


If Congress were to do the right thing and initiate an amendment to enshrine the "individual mandate" in the Constitution...it would fail miserably. If America is still America, Americans will not tolerate being told they have to buy something, especially if it's for no other reason than that they exist. If ObamaCare becomes law, folks will drop their insurance out of principle. They'll file suits against the feds. The states will resist, perhaps rebel. And great will be the tumult thereof.


I'm afraid Congress has not only misread the Constitution, but they've also misjudged the American people. Or maybe they just don't know what country they live in.

Or, they are trying to change the country into one they would rather live in, just so long as they are in charge.

Dedicated_Dad: Open Mouth, Insert,..?

Dedicated_Dad: Open Mouth, Insert,..?

Thanks to David Codrea of the War on Guns, and to Western Rifle Shooters Association. A must read.

AINOs

The Sipsey Street Irregulars (see here) has coined a great name for the people who passed the Obamacare in the House. There henceforth to be called A.I.N.Os, for Americans In Name Only. I like it. As an interesting coincidence, one of the commenters notes that ainos is Spanish for anus. Fitting.

Another Note From the Former USA

Matt Patterson has a great article today in the American Thinker entitled Losing Our Republic. In particular, the article asks if the TEA parties were too tame?

It left me wondering about the tea party movement, and how much effect they have really had in this whole affair. There was much chest-thumping in conservative circles after the August town hall uprisings, much talk that the demonstrations had put the fear of God into congressional Democrats. Maybe. And yet since then, liberal health care bills and plans have continued to coalesce on Capitol Hill, and now one has passed the House. The momentum it seems, is with the President and his party.

For two reasons, I think. One, as I was coming to work in downtown Washington D.C. on Thursday morning, the day of the "House call" protests, I emerged from my train and into Union Station and beheld the protesters, who were then gathering and preparing for their march on Capitol Hill just a few blocks a away.

I spoke to a number of them. They were uniformly middle-class, middle-American folks, whole families, whole neighborhoods of them. They looked, and acted, so nice. The kind of people who would bake you a tray of brownies if you weren't feeling very well. In other words, not intimidating in the slightest.

Apparently, to hardened Democrat Congressmen, we needed to "act out" more. We need to do something dramatic to get their attention. They do not fear us, and fear is the only thing that will, evidently, get them to back off.

So, what's the solution?

Interestingly, another article, by James Lewis, also in today's American Thinker seems to have the answer.

Conservatives are individualists, so we have to do something unusual: organize, organize, organize. Local and national. Even international. Some of our friends are in the British media, where they are looking for us to stand up and defend civilization, just as they stood up against Hitler when we were still dithering. Some of our friends are in Australia, in Canada, and yes, in France. Around the world there are millions of people who get it. We can be American patriots with allies all around the world. They need leaders and vocal support just as much as we do.


And we must militantly defend the freedom of the web. The Stalinoids will attack it viciously, just as they will attack talk radio and Fox News. We are fighting the same enemy Ronald Reagan fought. We have to do it just as intelligently and vigorously as he did.


The word "activist" used to be a media word for the Left. It's high time to make it work for American conservatives.

Organizing is indeed necessary, but we must also be perceived as dangerous to cross, just like the Left. What a sad world this is coming to.

Dark Angel: Tim Hawkins Sings the Truth#links

Dark Angel: Tim Hawkins Sings the Truth#links

Check out this video over at Dark Angel. Tim Hawkins sings the utter truth.