Try It

I had a pretty productive day today. I read the book of Galatians, and I studied up on the Trinity, and I read a fair amount of Such a Firm Foundation, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein’s book relating Christianity to Judaism. And I created a new pork recipe. I wasn’t planning to do that, but I had to fix something to eat, and I had a lump of Costco tenderloin, and I threw something together.

Here’s the basic idea. Cut a tenderloin into medallions and marinate it in a little Marsala, garlic juice (solids strained out so they won’t burn and stink later), several sliced cayenne peppers, and salt. Cut up a big white onion. Fry the onion in butter until it starts to clear, and then remove the onion from the butter. Add more butter if needed, or even if not needed. Fry the pork in the butter to brown it. Splash a little Marsala in while frying. When you have a pile of browned medallions, fry the onions a little more and add them.

The Trinity is an interesting concept, because it’s one of the main things Jews cite when they criticize Christianity. Even though Islam is a bigger threat to the Jews, Islam is considered less heretical than Christianity, because Islam is purely monotheistic. Christianity has the Trinity, which appears polytheistic to Jews. And to a lot of Christians, I might add. I didn’t know until recently that many Jews consider themselves forbidden to enter a church or even walk in front of one, whereas mosques pose no problem.

I tend to think Christians have screwed up the Trinity concept. While Jesus is clearly divine, it’s also clear that He considered himself completely subordinate to Jehovah. As for the Holy Spirit being a person separate from Jehovah, I’m not so sure. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit was referred to as “the Spirit of God,” and it was no threat to monotheism. I see it as an extension of the life of God into the human body, just as a plant’s life extends into a leaf. I think it’s part of Jehovah. If it was not considered a polytheistic concept in Samson’s time, it shouldn’t be any different now.

Rabbi Eckstein’s book is informative. I’ve read the first chapter, and so far the obvious underlying message is, “It is a waste of time to try to convert us.” He talks about the way the Judaic legal system works, the way a modern legal scholar might explain the American legal system. And it’s impressive. There is no doubt about that. First there was the Pentateuch. Then the rest of the Hebrew Bible. Then there was oral law, supposedly dictated to Moses but not reduced to writing until the time of Jesus. Then there were endless commentaries, and commentaries upon commentaries. And there are immutable procedures for resolving questions, and man–not God–is considered the final arbiter.

The peculiar thing about man being the final authority is that it places his interpretation of scripture and commentaries and so on above even divine revelation. Rabbi Eckstein relates a story in which a group of rabbis have a dispute, and God speaks from heaven, giving them the answer, and they reject it, because tradition says they’re supposed to vote. And God agrees, even though their answer disagrees with His, and He says they’ve beaten Him! And He’s happy about it!

How do you convert people who believe things like that? We rely on faith and the action of the Holy Spirit; modern miracles, if you will. And Jews are trained to distrust these things. It’s not unreasonable; they’ve seen fraudulent messiahs come and go for centuries. And they haven’t had a prophet in over 2000 years.

Jewish scholarship is much deeper and older than ours. Christians tend to reinvent the wheel every time a church becomes unsatisfactory. Jews–at least the Orthodox–build on old foundations and don’t abandon them. If you look at it from an intellectual standpoint, you can hardly blame them for thinking they’re on firmer ground. It’s remarkable that any Jew with a religious education ever comes around. I suppose they only convert when they decide they see Jesus in the Bible, so convincingly that they’re willing to disregard the bits of the Talmud that were created after the advent of Christianity. I haven’t read the Talmud, but it’s my understanding that it’s not a document that could ever be used to support the divinity of Jesus. To put it lightly.

I’m not concerned. If Jesus is the Messiah, then creating intellectual barriers is like like building a house of straw to protect yourself from the Big Bad Wolf. Illuminating reading, however.

I can’t figure out whether Rabbi Eckstein is Orthodox or Conservative. I assume he must not be Orthodox, since he is willing to speak in churches. He hasn’t burst into flame yet.

Wonderful day. I recommend the “sabbath” observation to one and all.

Vacation

It’s Sunday, so once again I’m going to rest and give the day to God. No Nowlive show. I don’t know when I’ll get back to Nowlive, if ever.

I’ve noticed a few things about keeping the “sabbath” (I’ll bet there’s a better term for a Christian’s Sunday observation). The Jews are right when they say it’s something you look forward to.

When I was a kid, I thought it was a day of punishment and misery; you put on an uncomfortable suit and sit on a hard bench and listen to a boring guy talk about how rotten you are, until you think your head will explode. Then you go home, and you find out about all the fun bad things your friends have been doing all morning without you. I wrote a screenplay in which one of the characters says his mother told him God would take him to heaven as long as he allowed God to “rurn” all his Sundays.

I don’t see it that way any more. If you’re a believer, you presumably have moments when you feel God’s presence, or moments when your faith is confirmed, and they’re very enjoyable. You miss those sensations when they’re not with you. They give you strength and encouragement, and they reassure you that the choice you have made is right. During the week, earthly concerns tend to make those moments happen farther apart. You have too many other things to worry about. So by the time Sunday rolls around, you are very anxious to revive the sensations.

Also, Sunday is the only day when you really know what you’re doing. During the rest of the week, you have a variety of things to worry about, and things come up unexpectedly. On Sunday, you rest, you pray, you read the Bible, you watch religious programming, you spend time with your family, maybe you do good deeds, and that’s about it. It’s a relief to have that other stuff off your back, and to know that what you’re doing is correct and profitable.

When Jews compare the sabbath to a vacation or a holiday or an oasis, they’re right on target. You should try it. If you believe in God, you can’t believe it’s a net loss. Surely He will repay you more than you’re giving up.

Anyway, I’m off to enjoy the day. Hope your day goes as well as mine.

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If you like beginning your Sunday with an offering, you may be happy to learn that World Vision now has eightfold matching donations set up for malaria prevention and treatment.

Scary Nemesis of Brave Islamist Warriors Now Able to Sit up and Eat

Leah Friedman continues to improve. Prayers still needed.

Hope the death threats from the extreme regions of the Religion of Peace have stopped.

Artists Now Scarier Than Serial Killers

I have been busy dealing with an HVAC guy. Until I get it together, check out Moxie’s new pro-abortion art project.

Warning: the images are horrifying.

Don’t Forget to Write

I got a call from a friend to whom I was very close in college. We hadn’t talked in years. He said my sophomore roommate was trying to put together a contact list for a bunch of us who shared a floor my freshman year. And the friend relaying this information wanted to come to Florida and charter a boat and take me and my father fishing.

Does that seem appropriate to you? It occurs to me that once you’ve been out of touch with someone for years, unless it’s someone very special, that person shouldn’t call you up and demand that you participate in a weekend of fishing, as if you were still tight. A person like that isn’t really a friend any more. He’s an acquaintance. And you wouldn’t call a mere acquaintance up and expect him to act like a pal. You wouldn’t ask to borrow money. You wouldn’t expect him to be an usher at your wedding. You wouldn’t ask him to be the godfather of your child. Dinner, maybe. Or lunch. Talk about old times. That’s about it. Say hi, fight over the check, and part for another ten years.

He was saying I should crash class reunions, even though he and I both graduated apart from our freshman class. Crash reunions? Hell, I’d hide if I spotted most of those people. My family was a mess when I was in college. I went through hell. Those guys would just remind me and make me feel all those sensations over again.

I gave him my contact information via email, but I told him not to give it to anyone else, and that there was no way I would participate in an email list or reunions. And I explained that I didn’t enjoy reliving college. I was polite, but he hasn’t responded, and I’m not going to follow up. Now I’m the bad guy, I guess, but it doesn’t matter, because things weren’t going anywhere anyway.

I belonged to a group of six close friends when I was in college. I guess we thought we’d be friends for life. Out of the six, the two I still treasure are Aaron and old gay Dave. One other is okay, but I can’t say I miss him much. The others, I chose to allow to drift away. One I just don’t like or respect any more, and the other wore me out by disappointing me too many times. I won’t say which one called.

I drop people right and left. No warning. Poof, you’re gone. I’ve always been that way. I try to treat people very well, and when I realize I’m not going to be repaid to any real extent, I just close up. Or if I realize a person is an incorrigible bad influence. And I am especially bad about dropping people who tell me what to do. That’s degrading, especially when it comes from a younger friend or a friend who knows I’m smarter than he is. People shouldn’t be like chickens, always trying to establish a pecking order. Friends should be equals. I don’t do well with competitive friends. If you’re insecure, spring for therapy. Don’t abuse me to inflate your ego; buy yourself some Tony Robbins tapes and watch Stuart Smalley.

A friend isn’t a tool. A friend isn’t something you use to achieve goals that benefit you. A friend is someone you like and respect, even if there is nothing he can do for you, and whom you try to help however you can. You take pleasure in the good things that happen to your friends, even if good things aren’t happening to you. You only criticize friends when you feel you absolutely have to. A friend improves you and helps you succeed and enjoy life. If you disagree with this stuff, you have no idea what friendship is. You probably have no real friends. You may be a psychopath. At best, you’re underdeveloped, and you need to grow up.

Maybe I should work harder to keep friends and change them. Maybe that’s one of my shortcomings as a friend. But I think you can tell when a person is willing to change and when he’s not. And now that I think about it, I know I’ve talked to friends many times about issues we’ve had. I should be better about going to them first instead of complaining to other people, though.

On balance, I think I’m right about letting friends go. No one has more than four or five friends. Regardless of what they think. The rest are just extras. Nice to have around, but not to be relied upon.

I feel like a friend ought to be able to tell when I’m no longer excited about the relationship. If I never call you back, or I never take you up on your invitations, you say we should do this or that and I always change the subject instead of answering, or you find yourself carrying the entire weight of the friendship, you ought to realize things have changed. Am I wrong? Sometimes you have to end romantic relationships very explicitly, maybe in some cases with tear gas and a bean bag gun, but I’ve usually found that friends don’t have to be told when things have frozen over.

I don’t want to spend the weekend with this guy and his kids. I don’t want him spending $1500 on a fishing trip for me. There is no way I’d spend that kind of money on him. I’d spring for dinner, sure. But I hope he doesn’t expect me to show up or send presents when his kids get married. I’m sorry to say it, but I wouldn’t pay for an airline ticket to go to his funeral. If it was across town, sure. But fly? No way.

Dinner would be fine. I’m really glad he’s doing well; he has earned it, and he has a family to support. It would be nice to hear from him every couple of years. But this is like appearing on someone’s doorstep after twenty years and yelling “ROAD TRIP!” Like everything will be fine if we just start texting each other every day. The lack of communication isn’t the problem. The problem is, I’ve changed.

Asymmetrical relationships are so uncomfortable.

I See, I Buy

I had another fine experience at Costco today. Rib eyes were selling for $5.59 again, so I had to buy. They’re aging in the beer cooler now. Picked up some pork tenderloin as well.

They have really good Mexican blackberries, and what person from Kentucky could pass a blackberry up? So I nabbed those. Plus really cheap grape tomatoes. I think supermarket grape tomatoes are a little better, but I only eat the damn things for my health, so I don’t care. I bought a jar of assorted nuts for my gall bladder, and those were very good, too. And I got navel oranges. I have to eat fruit once in a while, and navels are easy to deal with.

I saw one item which I did not fully appreciate until I got home. A gigantic Crescent tool set. It had all sorts of stuff in it. Like 118 pieces. I know Crescent is a brand not known to explode immediately when you try to use them, so I figured it had to be worth the $29 price. But I didn’t think I needed them. Then after I got home, I realized: for $29 plus $5 for a Home Depot toolbox, I could have had a pretty decent emergency kit for the car trunk.

They also had Stanley tripod flashlights on sale, so I had to have one.

I managed to resist the truly stupid items this time. That’s always a challenge. And they were out of kosher Coke.

I would love to make a blackberry cobbler. That would be fantastic. I haven’t had that in years. I can’t believe my grandmother has been gone for half a decade.

They also had Pinch for $24 a fifth, but I didn’t buy any.

I think I’m starting to get the hang of Costco.

We are Going to Have to Develop a Taste for It

It’s Winn-Dixie weekly ad day again. My joy is without limit. Let’s see.

Skirt steak, $4.99 a pound! Not bad!

Winn-Dixie sausage, two for $4.00! They make really nice breakfast sausage. No boar taint.

Boston Butt, $1.49. Ground chuck, $1.99. Wings, $1.79. I only wish they’d put rib roasts on sale again.

Al Gore has worked his magic for a second day in a row. It is a bone-chilling 60 degrees here, or at least it was when I checked. I am loving this global warming. I hope the cold weather, which indisputably proves that the planet is warming up, continues into May.

The other day I was web-surfing, and I saw some information about Edgar Cayce, the “sleeping prophet.” This guy used to lie down and say things he claimed were supernaturally inspired. My mother thought he was fascinating. On a web site touting his predictions, it said that in 1934, he foresaw that Hitler would rise to power! Wow! Incredible! Then I checked, and guess when Hitler became Chancellor of Germany? Uh…1933. So it looks like you can be a great psychic, just by predicting stuff that already happened. Al Gore is even worse. He predicts the opposite of what actually happens, and once it starts to become clear that he’s wrong, he continues to predict it.

Al, please…predict a sharp increase in oil prices. Predict defeat in Iraq. Predict that Keith Olbermann won’t retire.

I’m really hoping this weather will score me some more tomatoes. If I could get Brandywines, my life would be complete.

Speaking of crops, have you noticed the increasing furor over the ethanol scam? This is one of those great unifying scams, because the perpetrators are both conservative and liberal. Liberals started it, and conservatives realized the public was hopelessly brainwashed, so they went along with it. And now the liberal press is raising hell, because it’s starving people. Unfortunately, being liberal, confused journalists are now starting to tell us that the answer isn’t more energy. It’s not more refining capacity, responsible drilling efforts, and plentiful, clean, safe, cheap nuclear power. Oh, no. The answer is to give up meat, because livestock eat grain.

So instead of progress, in the form of more energy, lower energy prices, and increased industry and commmerce–the only things that can save us–the left wants us to eat an unhealthy diet which conforms to their bizarre and unpopular prejudices. In other words, leftism caused the energy problem, by denying us oil and nuclear power and coal and God knows what else, and they caused starvation by pushing ethanol, and now instead of taking responsibility and admitting their ideas are backward and wrong, they are using the situation to promote another backward and wrong leftist idea. So far, we are being starved by environmentalism, and we are expected to suffer more, in the name of animal rights. I’m wondering…when do we reach the point where this can somehow be used to promote Wicca and gay marriage? The hook has to be in there somewhere.

Toplessness. Maybe our problems can be solved by public toplessness. By women ill-suited to the practice. Liberals resorted to this to end the war in Iraq, so I guess it will also end the grain crisis.

The world is down to a three-month supply of grain right now. I sure hope our harvests are good until we reach the inevitable conclusion that ethanol is a sick joke.

Love Thy Neighbor as Thy Doormat

Miami is unbelievable. Sometimes the rudeness is like something you would expect to experience in a federal prison.

I just went to Best Buy. They had a waiting area cordoned off. It was very obvious. You stand in the area, and the cashiers call you as they become available.

I arrived right after a lady with a big cart. She had her kids with her. Immediately, a man pushed his cart into the area in front of her, studiously avoided looking at both of us, and waited for a register. I was trying to be a Christian and not get into fights over trivia, and I guess she was, too, because we both let it go. Then someone with him–his son, I suppose–joined him with another cart. Still doing his best to pretend we didn’t exist, looking in one direction while he acted in another, as if looking in our direction would turn him to stone, he moved things from the other person’s cart to his and pushed the other cart directly in front of this lady, so she couldn’t get out of the waiting area unless she moved it.

“Nice manners,” I could not resist saying, very clearly and loudly. And she agreed wholeheartedly as she pushed the cart out of the way. Then another man and boy appeared, and they were headed for the register, when she flagged them and pointed out the big, conspicuous waiting area. They came and stood behind us, babbling with irritation, pretending to believe the waiting area was somehow irrelevant and that the proper thing to do was to barge ahead of other people. I could tell she was exasperated. Trying to get out of the store with her kids and her stuff, without killing anyone. “Miami manners,” I said. “Only in Miami,” she agreed.

She got a register, and the man behind me came and stood beside me, staring at the registers. I wondered if I was going to have to have a discussion with him. Imagine, acting like that in front of your kids. Teaching them to be trash. That other people are props in the grand dramas of their lives, to be used as needed. But he thought better of it and backed up.

I lived in New York, and while the people were nothing to brag on, you could generally count on them to wait in line at stores. In Texas, in a line dispute, the problem would be trying to convince the other person he was ahead of you.

I miss Texas so much. The people were wonderful. But I could say the same thing about other places I’ve lived. If you’ve lived in Miami and you’ve lived anywhere else in America, you know what I mean. Two kinds of people defend Miami manners. People who have never lived here, and people who have never lived in any other part of America.

Aren’t we human beings? Aren’t we better than rats and bugs, who think only of themselves? You have two choices in Miami. Live in constant conflict, or be treated like garbage.

I really want to move upstate. I’m going to visit another county and see what’s available. And when I’ve made the move, I want to have a shirt printed, reading, “Pardon my manners. I’m from Miami.” I guarantee you, it will be a hit everywhere I go. This town’s reputation has permeated the whole state.

His Rich Pastor Taught him Well

I see people are making hay regarding Barack Obama’s comments on small-town blue-collar people. I almost said “working people,” but that would tend to perpetuate the bigoted leftist canard that white-collar work isn’t work. It’s peculiar, how that myth is disseminated successfully by soft-handed liberals–politicians and journalists and academics–who sit behind desks and wouldn’t know which end of a shovel to hold.

People seem to hope Obama’s comments will kill his campaign. They say it proves he’s an elitist who looks down his nose at “flyover country.” I don’t see it happening.

Everyone already knows that liberals are elitists, largely concentrated in the northeast and on the west coast, who look down on flyover people. They are ignorant and provincial, and they believe their idiosyncratic ways should be imposed on the rest of us by the government. The knowledge that the rest of us can live in ways of which they have not approved eats at them like acid. No Democrat who is even dimly aware of what happens in this country will be surprised by what Obama said.

It kills these people to know that there are places where people drive pickups with gun racks in the windows. It infuriates them to know that far away, someone may be legally spanking a child. It enrages them to contemplate the fact that homeschooling is going on, pulling children out of their reach and destroying the left’s well-known plan to steal emerging generations and program them to do their bidding. It drives them crazy, not that other people are allowed to do things that affect them, but that other people are allowed to live their own lives, far away, as they see fit. The way refusing to submit to Islam in Nebraska infuriates an Islamist in Saudi Arabia.

Barack Obama sees religion and firearms and bigotry as refuges to which the simple run irrationally when life frightens them. So what? That’s not news. Hillary Clinton feels the same way. So do most people in Manhattan. Not the ones who’ve been mugged or burglarized or raped. I mean the ones who are still asleep, with visions of taxpayer-financed sugarplums dancing in their heads.

I don’t think this will hurt him. Most of the votes in Pennsylvania are in the cities, and the people who live there probably think Obama is absolutely right. “We really ARE better. This guy sees it!”

Obama was appealing to bigotry, pure and simple. Just like Jeremiah Wright. I think he knew what he was doing. I think he was saying, “We have to neutralize those crazy white Christians out in the boondocks, before they come to Philadelphia and hold lynchings.” The message will sell, among the people to whom he directed it. Not just white liberals, but also blacks raised on a destructive diet of victimhood. The folks who think Church’s Fried Chicken is a Klan operation that puts drugs in the food to sterilize black men (funny how they don’t go after those ubiquitous Planned Parenthood abortion abattoirs). The wackjobs who think AIDS was developed intentionally by the government/Jews/Bill O’Reilly/the Easter Bunny (take your choice) to kill blacks. The people who seriously believe the ancient Egyptians were black geniuses who flew around in helicopters, or that white people are a race of devils created in a laboratory by a mad scientist named Mr. Yakub.

Alicia Keys is an example of one kind of person I’m talking about. She says the government created gangster rap to drive blacks to kill each other. How do you counter that kind of willful stupidity and close-mindedness? “I’m hitting myself in the face with a hammer. It’s obviously the result of a government conspiracy.” If you’re prejudiced enough to believe a thing like that, what hope is there that you will ever believe the truth about anything? It’s not enough to treat black people well. In order not to be accused of genocide, you have to proactively prevent them from killing each other on their own initiative.

Please don’t take my word for any of this; take five minutes and check the web. I could not make this crap up if I tried.

Geez, I’m sorry. I’m sorry about all the drive-bys I caused by voting for Republicans. I’m sorry about that poisoned fried chicken. I’m so sorry I made people run around and have unprotected, sinful sex and get AIDS. I apologize for belonging to a race of devils created by a vicious lunatic; I take full responsibility for his actions. I am really, really sorry for destroying all evidence of those Egyptian helicopters.

I created crack. I admit it. I made the first batch on my very own stove. I’m the guy. I feel so bad about it now. I couldn’t help it. I’m a devil, after all. This is what I do. Because like all white Republicans, I have nothing better to do than make life miserable for black people I don’t even know.

How does a people improve and overcome and live in victory, when it cannot identify its mistakes and accept responsibility for them? Maybe Alicia Keys can tell me.

On the other hand, being continually accused of wrongs you didn’t commit eventually destroys your desire to help the accusers. Something to think about when you fraudulently cry “victim” for the five-millionth time.

It’s so frustrating, seeing American blacks, as a bloc, make the worst possible decision, time after time. Almost all Americans want to help. But how do you help someone who is willing to take extraordinary measures–willing to swallow any story, no matter how ludicrous–in order to believe the worst about you?

Anyway, to get back to the point, Obama was appealing to bigotry, both white and black, and I’ll bet it ends up helping him. I can’t think of a single example, in the recent history of blacks in America, where this strategy has not succeeded wildly.

Blog Post From the Heaven-Rescued Land

A longtime reader and MSM mole has informed me that Kathy Shaidle is being sued for libel. I don’t know Kathy. She has linked to me a few times.

Kathy lives in Canada. As the mole points out, CANADIANS HAVE NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH. I capitalized that. If you take nothing else away from this post, remember the big letters. Especially if you live in Canada.

A Canadian activist named Richard Warman appears to have created a profitable business, suing Canadian bloggers for libel. When he’s not suing libraries for offering books he doesn’t like. And Kathy just made his list. This business has been going on for quite some time up there. I’m sure you know about the Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant stories. It is evidently extremely easy to prove libel up there. Things that wouldn’t begin to meet the American standard satisfy Canadian judges, and the verdicts are big.

Kathy has a link to a defense fund. You’ll see it if you click the link above. She has pledged to fight this character to the end.

How very precious the Bill of Rights is. Look how crazy other countries are. This story really drives it home. Here in the US, liberals have worked very hard to outlaw conservatism and free speech, creating tyrannical “speech codes” and filing frivolous indictments against prominent conservative politicians. Think what they could do if we didn’t have the first amendment, and our laws were as left-leaning as Canada’s. The game would be over. What a beautiful sanctuary is America.

A reminder to any American who supports Kathy and her colleagues from within the US: sooner or later, this guy’s verdicts may generate a big enough war chest to fund lawsuits within the United States, against Americans. And he will clearly be willing to use it. So think before you mention him on your blog. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t say about your next-door neighbor. The facts more than suffice to condemn him. And if you plan on visiting Canada, don’t announce it on your blog.

It’s odd how our enemies are developing more and more power to reach inside the USA and shut us up. First the standard Islamist death threats. Now litigation-happy foreigners might pose a risk. According to Kathy, even if Warman hasn’t sued any Americans yet, he has tried to prevent our websites from being seen in Canada.

Maybe it’s time for Canadians who aren’t completely insane to move to America. I can’t imagine a better addition to our workforce than Mark Steyn. In some small way, he might make up for Keanu Reeves.

And now that I think about it, Canada appears to be a great permanent destination for liberals.

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Canadian commenter Paul C. says the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects freedom of speech. I am getting incredibly forgetful, and I failed to check the emailed assertion that Canadians had no constitutional right to free speech; sorry about that.

But while what I said was somewhat misleading in letter, the spirit appears to have been right on.

Via blogger Larry Borsato, here’s a bit from the Boston Globe’s Alex Beam:

How do you like your free speech — well chilled? Canada has no First Amendment and adheres to primitive British-style libel laws.

Here is a hilarious definition of defamation la Canadienne, from the Media Libel website: ”A defamatory statement exists if the publication tends to lower the plaintiff’s reputation in the estimation of those who are commonly referred to as ‘right thinking’ members of society.” Allow me to reiterate my widely known position: Celine Dion is the greatest singer who ever lived.

Just this year, the Canadian Parliament passed what the religious right has branded a ”Chill Bill,” or ”The Bible as Hate Speech Bill,” effectively preventing churches from using the Bible to preach against homosexuality. ”With the passage of Bill C-250, Canada has now embarked upon a course of criminalization of dissent,” according to a statement released this spring by the Catholic Civil Rights League.

Good Lord. Is it okay to say “good Lord” in Canada? If anything, it appears that I was too kind to Canada’s laws. If Beam is right, it is completely fair to state that freedom of religion does not exist in Canada. The right to criticize sinful behavior isn’t just an expression issue. It impinges on your right to worship as you will, by making it impossible to instruct other believers by teaching doctrine.

This is the direction in which the left wants to take America. If it doesn’t scare you, there is something wrong with you. Or maybe you’re just a right-thinking person.

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David Bernstein, at the National Review’s site:

In another incident, after Toronto print-shop owner Scott Brockie refused on religious grounds to print letterhead for a gay-activist group, the local human-rights commission ordered him to pay the group $5,000, print the requested material, and apologize to the group’s leaders. Brockie, who always accepted print jobs from individual gay customers, and even did pro-bono work for a local AIDS group, is fighting the decision on religious-freedom grounds.

Any gains the gay-rights movement has received from the crackdown on speech in Canada have been pyrrhic because as part of the Canadian government’s suppression of obscene material, Canadian customs frequently target books with homosexual content. Police raids searching for obscene materials have disproportionately targeted gay organizations and bookstores.

Moreover, left-wing academics are beginning to learn firsthand what it’s like to have their own censorship vehicles used against them. For example, University of British Columbia Prof. Sunera Thobani, a native of Tanzania, faced a hate-crimes investigation after she launched into a vicious diatribe against American foreign policy. Thobani, a Marxist feminist and multiculturalism activist, had remarked that Americans are “bloodthirsty, vengeful and calling for blood.” The Canadian hate-crimes law was created to protect minority groups from hate speech. But in this case, it was invoked to protect Americans.

Support the Troops With Fattening Grub

A reader asked about a link I once posted, to an organization that allows Americans to buy pizza for IDF soldiers. Rather than put it in an email, I’ll post it here.

PizzaIDF.org

You can have a pizza delivered, and you can include a personal message. I don’t know much about the organization, but you might like it.

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Prefer to buy pizza for American soldiers in Iraq? Here’s a link to GIPizza.org.

Caveat: for some reason you have to buy GI Pizza by the slice, which makes it obscenely expensive.

So Let’s Kill the Supply With History’s Greatest Boondoggle

When are we going to give up the ethanol insanity?

We’ve known for a long time that ethanol doesn’t work. We don’t have enough land to grow enough corn to replace oil. Unlike gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel, ethanol is a highly temperamental fuel which causes problems because it absorbs water from the air. And even Time Magazine–the famous right-wing rag–tells us ethanol causes more pollution than oil. Ethanol gave the left a stick with which to beat the right, and it depressed our economy, which is good for Democrats in the upcoming election, and it generated profitable contracts for fat cats who could not care less about their country or the food supply. We know all this, yet we continue to grow excessive amounts of corn for ethanol, driving up the price of other grains, meat, and oddly, corn.

Some scientists are now telling us that ethanol threatens to exacerbate famine in deprived areas of the world. Isn’t that wonderful? At least we get a warm, fuzzy feeling. Too bad if people starve.

Here’s a story from Worldnetdaily. Dairy prices rose 80 percent last year. Farmers in Thailand are sleeping in their fields to prevent their rice from being stolen. In six of the last seven years, the human race has used more grain than it produced. Even warm, fuzzy environmentalists are starting to get upset.

I am thinking about this today because I just read an article in The Jewish Week News, which I found via the blog of the International Federation of Christians and Jews, about the cost of Passover food. Observant Jews have always paid more for food, and Passover food is even more expensive, and this year, it’s worse than ever because of ethanol. Matzoh costs twenty dollars per pound now. Crackers cost more than prime beef! Because they’re made from wheat, and corn is growing on land where wheat used to grow.

We have lots of oil; we just won’t drill for it or refine it in the US. We have gigantic reserves of nuclear power, but ignorant and misguided people shut down that magnificent industry–which was a gift straight from God–years ago. We have a tremendous amount of coal, which can be burned more cleanly than ever, but just try building a plant. And what was the sop they threw us to offset all this? Wind farms, or as I like to call them, “bird-grinding low-output generators.”

It seems to me that the consequences are not hard to guess. The US grows a huge percentage of the grain, so we’ll decide what happens to it. We’ll export less. We’ll pay more for food, but we won’t have shortages. Other countries will have to grow more or do without. Charities will suffer. People will starve. But it’s okay, as long as you have a “Flex Fuel” sticker on your car when you drive to Obama rallies.

Somehow, the left will find a way to blame the famine on America and the right. They’re already working on it, I promise you. “We created this situation by refusing to live in huts and walk to work, like sane people.” “Ethanol, like socialism, will work. If we just spend another hundred years fine-tuning it.”

There is a word that describes the truly green lifestyle. Here it is. “Poverty.”

You can’t have prosperity and good food and good shelter and fine medical care without consumption. If we live in huts and eat what we grow in our yards and stop buying and driving and consuming, industry will shrivel, the economy will tank, and in twenty years, we’ll be living in huts because there is no choice, not because it’s cute and trendy. Consumption pays bills. For everyone, not just Dick Cheney and Halliburton. Who builds SUVs? Unskilled union workers with no education. Who delivers big-screen TVs? Unskilled union workers with no education. You can’t stop spending without causing someone else to stop earning. Historically, the green people in huts have been kept alive by donations from the earth-exploiting people who drive big gas-guzzling cars. Doesn’t that tell you something? Who is on the right track here? Isn’t it obvious?

We need more domestic refining capacity. We need more domestic drilling. We need more nuclear reactors. We need to put serious money into developing realistic new power sources, and I’m not referring to fantasies like solar panels. Retreating and cutting consumption and production will screw up our economy, and what hurts the US a little hurts the rest of the world a lot. The answer isn’t to go backward. The answer is to make realistic choices while going forward.

Efficiency is wonderful. Doing more with less is great. Doing less with less is bad.

Ethanol, to get back to the original subject, would be a fine idea. If it did not wreak havoc on the balance of the grain market and every market the grain market affects. If we could create ethanol in big vats in urban settings, from readily available raw materials, it would be a wonderful fuel for some purposes. But right now, we have to get it from corn. And corn is just too important to use for fuel.

Another Jewish Week News article discusses the growing acceptance Pastor John Hagee is getting in Israel. It’s a crazy read. Hagee’s chief problem, it seems, is that in addition to wanting Israel to prosper financially, he wants Israel’s territory to grow to include the nation’s historic possessions. In other words, he’s in trouble because he’s advancing the cause of Israel, more than many Jews can stand. And failing to advance the interests of their enemies.

Do we live in a nutty world, or what?

Hagee has other troubles. If you haven’t seen him at work, I’ll save you the research and tell you that he’s a fire and brimstone sort of guy. Much more like Elisha than Paul. He has criticized Catholicism and modern morality, and I doubt he’s a friend of Islam. I’m a fairly kooky Protestant, and he even gets on my nerves. But I gather that his support for the reestablishment of Eretz Israel is what really puts off secular Jews and their very close relatives, Reform Jews.

One promising thing about the article: it reflects a growing realization that “mainline” American churches are hostile to Israel. Look:

A top Jewish leader said there is a different communal calculus in the face of mounting attacks on Israel by “mainline” Protestant churches. “Frankly, we’d rather be standing up with the Presbyterians than with people who speak in tongues, but we can’t because they are more and more biased against Israel. So Hagee looks more attractive to many.”

Yes, I suppose a sincere but odd friend looks more attractive than an outright enemy. I can see how that makes sense.

Notice the bizarre prejudice against pentecostals. Where did that come from? What did pentecostals do to deserve that? As far as I know, their record on Israel is virtually pure. No inquisitions. No pogroms. The Catholics can’t compare. Neither can the Orthodox churches or the Anglican Church. Not even the Baptists. I’m not trying to rub salt in old wounds, but things have happened, and they can’t be denied. What’s the deal with fearing one of the few groups of Christians that have not caused problems?

I have been involved with the pentecostals in one way or another since the early 1980s, and while they have many faults, I can tell you that I have consistently heard one message about the Jews and Israel: SUPPORT. Regardless of the nature of the reaction. Support, support, support. Not to gain influence in Israel, but to please God. Pentecostals would continue to support Israel even if Elijah appeared on a cloud and informed them that there was no possibility that any Jew would ever convert again. And they do not see themselves as “the real Jews,” and they do not want to move to Israel and take over.

I know pentecostals wish Jews would convert, and from time to time they proselytize. And some (some) have been known to say that Jews can’t enter heaven, because they haven’t accepted Christ. I can’t think of any other potential sore spots.

I have to wonder. Is it the bold and consuming faith of the newer Protestants that puts off Jews? Some people like God best when He is kept at arm’s length, and they’re freaked out by people who want Him closer. Is it our conservative streak? It’s completely unrealistic, at this time in history, to expect liberalism and support for Israel to exist in the same body of individuals. Maybe Jews are disturbed by the thing that makes pentecostals pentecostal. This guy mentioned tongues. Most Jews believe things like prophecy are dead. Maybe it offends them to see modern people who are not Jews, asserting that the Holy Spirit communicates with them.

Should any of those things make mainline churches preferable? To the Jews, we’re all heretics. What difference does degree make?

It’s confusing.

Check out this quotation from a recent website post by the IFCJ’s Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein:

I’ve spoken before about anti-Israel sentiment in “mainline” Protestant denominations like the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA), the United Church of Christ (UCC), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), and others. In recent years these groups have considered, and in some cases approved, measures that seek to punish Israel economically through divestment and condemn Israel’s attempts to defend itself through construction of a security fence.

Maybe the Jews are coming around. I know Rabbi Eckstein has. I hate to say this, but maybe appeasement is a concept that applies to watered-down Christian churches as well as Islamists. Israel can’t make the UCC happy. Why try? Rabbi Eckstein has said, “The Bible Belt is Israel’s safety belt.” I say, take your friends where you find them. Cyrus and Darius were primitive, warlike Gentiles, yet the Jews allowed them to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. Surely John Hagee is easier to stomach than they were.

If I could be present, even at a distance, at the building of the next temple, and if I could see one stone I paid for put into place, I would fall on my face and weep at the honor. And so would millions of other American Christians.

It’s going to turn out, in the years to come, that most Christians are enemies of Israel. We’re already headed that way. The Jews need to discern the sheep from the goats and figure out which churches truly want to help. Urging appeasement and land concessions is not help.

Christians, who readily accept Jesus’s pronouncement that the church of his time was “the synagogue of Satan,” tend to feel that their enlightened churches are immune to corruption, and that they can’t be used by the enemy. But it’s not true. As churches age, they tend to conform to the world. And the very things that make them effective and sincere–their “saltness”–are the things that are discarded first. God becomes a myth. Jesus becomes a well-meaning eccentric who was mistaken when he said he was the only path to salvation. Regeneration by the Holy Spirit–the power supply of the body of Christ–is completely dropped as a doctrine. First thing you know, the church is inviting Oprah to stand at the pulpit and explain that every individual creates his own god, and that they’re all valid. That’s what she’s doing right now, if you didn’t know. She has hooked up with a false messiah who basically says anything goes, and she’s financing his sick, evil ministry. People seem to think one or two billion dollars automatically make you worth listening to. But the super-rich are just like you and I. Ordinary. Human. Mortal.

It’s only natural that mainline churches would be corrupted by the enemy and used to persecute Jews and, as Rabbi Eckstein calls them, “Christians who take the Bible seriously.” It’s happening. It’s going to get worse. Satan does much of his best work using the church, because he passes it off as God’s work, making it unassailable. Christians aren’t naturally smarter or better than Jews, and when we operate purely under our own strength, we are just as susceptible to misdirection. Churches that stick to old-fashioned, scriptural morality and rely on the Holy Spirit will be okay. Churches that are accepted by the godless world and by bizarre multifaith bodies will not. And a church’s treatment of Israel will be one way to tell the difference. No church that opposes Israel is led by God.

Jews and Bible-believing Christians make up one faction, and the rest of the world makes up the other. The spirit of anti-Semitism is the spirit that drives persecution of Bible-believe Christians. We may not be Jews, but we wear the same target on our backs. The world hates us for the same reason. So it’s wonderful to see bonds like those formed by Pastor Hagee and Rabbi Eckstein. In the future, they will be much more important than they are now.

Who is Austin Bay?

Moxie links to a marvelous piece about Eretz Israel.

Warning: I may be pulling your leg.

Oh Yeah, This Will Work

The news from Israel could be better.

First off, Leah Friedman is off her ventilator, but it is not yet clear how much brain damage she suffered when she went into respiratory arrest. So keep those prayers coming.

The local representatives of the Religion of Peace are doing their part to provide comfort at this trying time. Leah, who supports the reestablishment of Eretz Israel, has received five death threats by email and some others by phone. You have to congratulate Muslim terrorists on their uncanny ability to demonstrate their umatched cowardice by finding the weakest, least threatening victims on the face of the planet. In that regard, it’s hard to top an eighteen-year-old girl in a coma. Although they did beat and hang the dead bodies of American contractors in Iraq; that was even less brave than what they’re doing to Leah. It’s odd how often the people who clamor most for respect are among the least deserving.

One of the peculiar characteristics of thugs is that they try to make themselves appear manly and intimidating by means of shameful attacks on people who have no chance of fighting back. The elderly, women, children, and so on. Somehow they don’t realize it makes them look weak and small and underdeveloped. Like little boys. Which is what they remain, until the day they die.

Leah’s parents took her photo and email address off her blog. The damage is already done, but maybe her story will serve as a warning to other people who blog and who may be inviting reprisals without knowing it. If you’re a woman, you should never reveal your entire name and location on a blog, unless you carry a gun and you’re willing to face the consequences of your openness. And children just shouldn’t blog. Not unless every bit of their personal information is kept out of it, and their parents approve everything they put on the web. In my opinion, no one under the age of eighteen has any business whatsoever using the Internet without an adult standing behind him at all times.

Second, via Sondra, left-wing bloggers are going to Israel on a fact-finding mission. That’s like sending a rabbi to certify a kosher pork-processing plant. And you don’t need to go to Israel to learn the facts. These lying creeps already know the facts. They just don’t care. According to Ynet news, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been working hard to arrange this. It’s distressing to learn that the government of Israel is that foolish and uninformed.

Here is a politic and understated quotation from the article:

While Israel enjoys relatively balanced coverage in American mainstream media, there are numerous blogs identifying with the liberal left who are unwaveringly critical of Israeli policies, often referring to Israel as an apartheid state which, among other things, is responsible for Washington’s decision to go to war in Iraq.

“Relatively balanced.” Like a car on two wheels, which hasn’t quite reached the tipping point.

This trip is a mistake. The Israelis clearly have no understanding of the American left. That’s probably because so many Israelis are leftists and suffer from the ridiculous, idealist notion that other leftists are their brothers. They ought to keep two famous Georges in mind. The first is George Santayana, who made the famous remark about repeating history. The second is George Bush, who reached across the aisle repeatedly and always retrieved a bloody stump for his efforts. These bloggers are going to continue to attack Israel unfairly and dishonestly, because they are not driven by facts. They are driven by fashion and a perverted secular faith. The only difference between their pre- and post-visit coverage will be that they will be able to claim more legitimacy after returning home, because they went and saw the elephant for themselves.

Israelis are downright stupid about America. In polls, they say they think the Democrats will be better to them than Republicans. They would generally prefer to see liberals elected in the United States. This is one of the few areas in which they are in complete agreement with Osama bin Laden and other Muslim terrorists. Maybe it’s something they can build on. Maybe if they gave away more land, the Islamists would come to the table and celebrate this common view with them.

Jewish liberalism is probably the single greatest threat to Israel’s existence. In this respect it has completely supplanted Baal, Tammuz, Ashtoreth, Dagon, and the golden calf. Who needs an idol made of wood or gold when you have Karl Marx? And who needs strong enemies without, to conquer you in battle and take your land, when you have stronger enemies within, willing to give it back no matter how many times you buy it with blood?

Jews seem willing to forgive leftism no matter how many times it fails or how much it costs them. It failed in the USSR, but that’s because they didn’t do it right. It is costing them the battle against their genocidal, land-grabbing enemies, but that’s okay, because eventually, the Muslims will see that the Jews are decent, reasonable people, and they’ll want to coexist in peace. The way you would expect followers of a murdering gangster to do. The way they’ve always coexisted peacefully with each other.

You know what they ought to call the conflict between Israelis and Muslims? The Warm War. It’s too friendly and loving to be a cold war. Israel and the Bush administration are cozying up to Islamism and cuddling it, spoon-feeding it concessions and ignoring its dirty diapers.

I hope Israel learns from this futile and unbelievably naive experiment. I hope they learn something from the vitriol that continues to spew after these bloggers go home. But they won’t. Not any time soon.

A famous anecdote–mentioned in a recent Hal Lindsey column–says that Frederick the Great once asked his cabinet for a proof of the existence of God. And one of them said, “Have you considered the Jew, your majesty?” He was referring to the fact that Jews survived in spite of persecution. You might as well say, “Have you considered Israel?” One dumb decision after another, yet still she survives.

I guess the blogger trip is not that big a deal. The Jews survived Hitler, and they can survive Markos Zuniga.

Here’s a question: when is Israel going to pay conservative bloggers to travel to Jerusalem and come back and write fairly about Israel’s problems?

Oh, that’s right. They don’t have to. We do that already.

Interesting fact, before I go. Yesterday I learned that On Wings of Eagles, a program implemented by the conservative-Christian-funded International Federation of Christians and Jews, has moved over 300,000 Jews to Israel. That’s 5% of the population. One in twenty Israelis.

Hope that means as much to Israelis as a nearly fair blurb on Atrios.

PLEASE

I keep seeing and hearing that Condi Rice is going to be McCain’s running mate. Just in case it turns out that McCain is really that stupid, let me suggest three alternative choices that would be more popular with black voters.

1. David Duke
2. Tom Metzger
3. Duane “Dog” Chapman

Surely McCain will not do something this dumb. Surely he learned something from McCain-Feingold. If there is a person in the United States who is more uniformly hated by black voters than Condi Rice, I am hard-pressed to guess who it is. Black voters who would not leave their homes to vote for Obama will crawl on their bellies through molten lava to vote against Rice.

Are we really this out of touch? I was just starting to feel good about this election.