Veritas Rex

Richard Dawkins spoof

Sorry, I couldn't resist.  Hilarious. 

Wake up with humor

Very funny.

 

Why SDI is still important

Sunday Update:  You can add SDI to the Elections of 2000, 2004, and 2008 New Hampshire.  It's tests are RIGGED!!! (probably by Diebold folks!!)  I'm positively flattered folks, that Indiana Democrat Party part-time employee Thomas Cook over at Blue Indiana took some time away from theorizing about how John McCain RIGGED his signature count to deal with little old me.  BTW, the source for his facts?  A post on the nutroots weblog DailyKos (which at closer examination is one that he submitted himself)!  Now, I've always thought that Thomas was a little full of himself, but seriously.

However, the best part of all is this one.

The truth of the matter is that no terrorist organization in their right mind is going to try and shoot a nuclear missile at the United States. Why would they? They could much more easily just put it on a cargo container, ship it to the United States through one of our unguarded ports, and never risk the loss of their horrific goods. And yet, we spend billions a year on a missile defense system with no palpable results while our borders -- over both land and water -- wallow in disrepair.

This is the same ridiculous argument folks like Jen Wagner and others make about Voter ID.  You know the one- people cheat in elections all the time, but no way would they ever do so at the precinct.  Everybody's too honest!  So in the same way we get this ridiculous argument that terrorists will fly planes into the WTC, in fact they may even use nuclear weapons, but never (never ever) would they ever consider launching a weapon at anyone!  No, they are too rational.

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The 25th Anniversary of Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative went by last week.  With the War in Iraq dominating national defense discussions, initiatives like SDI haven't been discussed as much as they should.  We've stopped focusing on the potential for Nuclear War with the likes of the USSR, and have been thinking more about smaller battles in deserts with terrorists.

But with terrorism on the rise and the break-up of the Soviet Union, the missile defense shield is more important than ever.  With rational nation-states controlling nuclear weapons we could rely on some sort of measured use of them.  But the proliferation of nuclear weapons is spreading to states like Iran, who support terrorism.  In addition, there have been a number of chilling reports about missing Soviet-bloc nuclear material.

Considering the possibility that some of this material could fall in the hands of less-rational terrorists, it makes good sense to continue to develop our missile defense shield.  Critics have suggested the missile defense to be an impossible technology to create, but recent tests have been encouraging. 

Generally, I believe in giving the government as little of my money as possible and putting it to tangible projects with easily measured results.  However, if government is to do one thing well, it's national defense.  One would have to be a far left peace nick to not see the benefit of having the ability to stop a nuclear weapon from destroying a US City.  So I'll continue to tolerate expenses in the form of defending me and my family from nuclear attack.

Future lawyers of tomorrow

What is Lambda Law Society?  Here is their group description on the IU Indy law school website:

The IU School of Law-Indianapolis chapter of the Lambda Law Society is an organization for law students who share a vision of equality in all endeavors, regardless of sexual orientation. The society's goals include developing a social structure where gay, lesbian, and bisexual students feel comfortable being themselves; offering education opportunities at the law school on gay, lesbian, and bisexual interests; providing service to the legal community in areas of interest to the homosexual community; and offering charitable assistance to the Indiana community in areas of gay, lesbian, and bisexual concerns.

I'm not sure whether promoting cross-dressing fits under the "offering education opportunities" umbrella or "providing service to the legal community."  However, I'm sure Veritas Rex nation will help me make that distinction.  Here is an invitation to participate in an upcoming "drag show" that the IU Indy law students received:

Hello Student Body,

The Lambda Law Society would like to offer an opportunity for anyone interested in participating in our upcoming drag show.  This is our main fund-raising event and all proceeds will go to The Indiana Youth Group -- an organization dedicated to supporting local youth [Ryan cutting in - In actuality, the Indiana Youth Group is a gay activist organization that promotes homosexuality and bisexuality among Indiana's youth].  This is a very important organization as it helps youth face the everyday challenges of parental relationships, school, individuality, and social awareness.  We would really appreciate your support.

This show will be a light hearted, tongue-in-cheek, drag show. 
Participants will be competing for the prestigious title of Ms. IndyLaw
2008 (complete with crown and sash).  The winner will also receive a large prize package that consists of $50 cash prize and gift certificates from various restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and salons.

Your very own law professors will be asked to judge; however, just like in American Idol, their opinions are just gudance and the audience members will be casting their own votes to select the winner.

Also performing will be the locally famous Bag Ladies -- a group of men who do drag shows to raise money for charity; a real drag queen -- Ms.
Annastacia DeMoore (emphasis mine), a drag queen MC, and IYG.  The professional participants are happy to help with hair/wigs, makeup, costume, and performance tips.

This event will be held Thursday, April 10th in the Atrium at 8 pm.

When searching for the details of the Lambda Law Society I came across the Washington College of Law's chapter of Lambda Law Society and had to add it here because it made me laugh.  Here are the examples they use for social events that they host:

"Activities Include: ...Social events, such as Happy Hours, pot-luck dinners, and Bingo."

Wow...if you didn't know any better you would think that the Lambda Law Society was a church group of elderly ladies, not a den for drag queens!

New leadership for the Evangelical movement?

A recent discussion in Washington DC about the future of the Evangelical movement brought to my attention an interesting organization, The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

From an article about the meeting:
 

Samuel Rodriguez, who heads the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, disagreed with Perkins, predicting the future of the evangelical movement will be "brown, prophetic and centered." He claims that via America's fastest growing demographic, "Latino evangelicals will reconcile the righteousness and justice platform with a bit of salsa and a couple more Taco Bells."

Pastor Rodriguez also argued that the agenda of evangelicals is broadening because in 50 years, the majority of evangelicals in America will be non-white. "That browning of the evangelical movement in America will reconcile ... righteousness, life and marriage issues with healthcare, immigration reform, education, poverty, [and] global warming," he continues. "Not only is it an ethnic transition -- or demographical shift -- but a trans-generational element ... the generations after the baby boomers -- they really repudiate the idea of trying to put in a box in the Christian right category the ethos of a entire belief system."

According to Rodriguez, although they reject the "religious right" label, Latino evangelicals are more committed than are white evangelicals to protecting life and traditional marriage.

I've long held that Hispanics belong on the Conservative side of the political aisle.  Most are very religious, many are Catholics.  After Bush won 40% of their vote in his campaigns, it was clear that they are not going to be the voting block for the liberals like the African American vote is.

Perhaps with McCain at the top of the ticket, Republicans will again win more of this vote in 2008.  And with continued growth from their demographic, it is entirely possible that Mr. Rodriguez's prediction will be true someday- that Hispanics will dominate the Christian right.

Prominent Conversion

The Drudge Report carried a story on Easter Sunday from Reuters.  It is about Magdi Allam, a recent convert from Islam to Christianity who was baptized on Easter Sunday by the Pope.

"I realize what I am going up against but I will confront my fate with my head high, with my back straight and the interior strength of one who is certain about his faith," said Magdi Allam.

In a surprise move on Saturday night, the pope baptized the 55-year-old, Egyptian-born Allam at an Easter eve service in St Peter's Basilica that was broadcast around the world.

The conversion of Allam to Christianity -- he took the name "Christian" for his baptism -- was kept secret until the Vatican disclosed it in a statement less than an hour before it began.

I rejoice at the news, but also pray for Allam's safety.  We've discussed on this blog before the danger that many Christians and Christian converts face from fundamentalist Muslims.  Check out this blog, which has a number of links to articles about the dangers that Mr. Allam will soon face.

Welcome, brother.

Is Christianity Warlike?

In a recent post on the website “The Bilerico Project: Daily Experiments in LGBTQ,” Bill Browning describes me as “a blogger for the fundamentalist hate group Indiana Family Institute, explaining why Christians need to start attacking progressives.”  This post is made under the heading “Because Christianity is warlike,” and quotes from my blog for Veritas Rex titled “Putting Christianity on Offense.”

Here is the quote that Browning sites:

"Christianity is now on offense... We're taking the battle to a new level, and the result will be either that Christians regain the authority to speak to all areas of life or that Christians lose the ability to speak at all. The stakes are high.”

From that, I draw the ire of The Bilerico Project?

If you read my entire blog you’ll see that nowhere do I suggest that Christians attack progressives.  You certainly do not see that in the quote Mr. Browning sited.

My sole contention is that Christianity is under a new kind of attack by the likes of Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris. These individuals and their followers are not content to co-exist with Christianity.  They aim to destroy it.

These individuals assert that religion in general and Christianity in specific are a detriment to civilization itself.  They suggest religion is a form of child abuse.

I’m not making this stuff up.

Richard Dawkins wrote that “Faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the small pox virus but harder to eradicate.”

Sam Harris believes religion is akin to slavery.  He writes: “I would be the first to admit that they prospects for eradicating religion in our time do not seem good.  Still the same could have been said about the efforts to abolish slavery at the end of the eighteenth century.”

These are quite inflammatory (and warlike) statements.  This is not a philosophy or worldview of “live and let live” as suggested by an individual identified as “Sportin’ Life” in a comment on The Bilerico Project’s website.

In light of this new, vehement, highly aggressive (and warlike) atheism, we’ve opted to put Christianity on offense.  This does not mean we are attacking progressives or that Christianity is warlike, as Browning suggests.  What it does mean is that we are seeking to answer the arguments of the New Atheism and that we are willing to do it on their terms and on their turf.

Warlike?  Hardly.  We’re simply, as one of the original disciples of Jesus wrote, attempting to give an answer to everyone who asks us to give a reason for why we believe.

As I said in my earlier post, the result of this current spiritual and intellectual battle will either be that Christians regain the ability to speak to all areas of life or Christians will lose the ability to speak at all.

I’m happy that Mr. Browning read my blog but I’m disappointed his post tends to promote a spirit of hate rather than a spirit of genuine discussion.  From his post I got the feeling he thinks I closely resemble Darth Vader.

If Mr. Browning is seriously interested in discussion of these issues and not mere posturing, I’d encourage him to pick up a copy of Dinesh D’Sozua’s latest book What’s So Great About Christianity. 

D’Souza writes in the preface:

“I think that if atheists are genuine rationalists they should welcome this book.  It is an effort to meet the atheist argument on its own terms.  Nowhere in this book do I take Christianity for granted.  My modus operandi is one of skepticism.”

There’s a difference between being warlike and being on offense.  To learn more about strategies to put Christianity on offense, go to www.worldchangers.us.com.  When you’re there, email us your thoughts.  We’d love to hear from you.

And liberals fret over 'hate speech' in churches??

Looks like it's not just Obama's pastor spewing anti-American and hateful, intolerant things to his congregation.  Seems this lady pastor helpd Hilliary link her opponent with the grand opponent of all! 

From Citizenlink.com 3/25/08

Commentary: Hillary Also Has Skeletons
in Her Church Closet   

Religious supporters use sacred hymn to compare her one-time opponent to Satan.
by Paul Kengor, guest columnist

Hillary Clinton has been conspicuously silent regarding the political fallout created by Barack Obama’s pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. I suspect two primary reasons for this: 1) She may be adhering to what the late Republican political strategist Lee Atwater used to call “the Napoleonic maxim: Never interfere with the enemy when he’s in the process of destroying himself." 2) Senator Clinton’s campaign may be aware of her own vulnerability in this area.

This second point is much less obvious. I’m aware of it only because I’ve written a book on the faith of Hillary Clinton, during which I repeatedly encountered the often explosive situations involving Mrs. Clinton in African-American churches — situations utterly ignored by the media.

One of my favorite examples took place at Emmanuel Baptist Church in New York City before the 2000 election, in which Mrs. Clinton was running against Congressman Rick Lazio, R-N.Y., for the U.S. Senate seat from New York. On that morning, Mrs. Clinton was introduced by co-Pastor Darlene Thomas McGuire. After McGuire issued the standard claim that she was not speaking for the church — so as to suggest that her tax-exempt church was not making a political endorsement, a claim that any honest ACLU lawyer would laugh right out of the courtroom — the Rev. McGuire issued a religious proclamation to her congregation: Hillary’s opponent was evil.

Actually, Congressman Lazio was judged much worse than that. In a rousing hymn for the faithful, McGuire substituted Hillary’s opponent for no less than the Prince of Darkness. Immediately after claiming, “I’m not speaking for the church today,” McGuire led Hillary and the entire congregation in a unique rendition of an old-time hymn:

I told Satan, get thee behind
I told Satan, get thee behind …
Victory today is mine!

The good reverend then made a seamless transition, leading her flock in a revised second verse, belting out the new lyrics loudly and proudly:

I told Lazio, get thee behind!
I told Lazio, get thee behind! …
Victory today is mine!

The hymn, Victory is Mine, about Jesus Christ defeating Satan, was transformed into a political hymn about Hillary Clinton defeating Rick Lazio.

This was a unique integration of church and state. Now, granted, Rev. Jeremiah Wright has said some crazy things behind the pulpit at Barack Obama’s church, but he has yet (to my knowledge) to dub Obama’s political challenger — Hillary Clinton — Lucifer.

This display of Christian charity from the Religious Left was transcribed for political posterity by Beth Harpaz, a New York reporter who traveled with the Hillary campaign in 2000. To her credit, Harpaz — who shared a van with a group of sycophantic “reporters”/Hillary advocates who long ago tossed all objectivity out the window — figured that making a direct analogy between the Catholic Lazio and the Devil might be just a tad over the top, and stopped to ask the former first lady what she thought of the new lyrics. “She paused for a second,” recorded Harpaz, “then smiled and replied, ‘I love hymns.’ ”

So did the press, which, uplifted by that old-time religion, was experiencing an old-fashioned conversion. Not one of the usual liberal pundits, like the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank — who flipped his lid when President Bush in 2003 was introduced as “our friend and brother in Christ” by a group of fellow Christians — or The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd, who accused Gov. Bush of “playing the Jesus card” when he cited Christ as his favorite philosopher in Iowa in 1999, complained about how Hillary Clinton’s supporters were comparing her opponent to Satan.

For that matter, fast-forwarding to 2008, Barack Obama has not complained, either. Sen. Obama has not made an issue of such documented church moments by Sen. Clinton. Hillary Clinton (thus far) has gotten away with this kind of thing, including the occasions in which she was just as divisive as the Leftist pastors who fawned over her. One might recall the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2006 — a day of national unity on race — when Sen. Clinton stepped to the pulpit of the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem and claimed the Republican leadership was running the U.S. House of Representatives “like a plantation.”

I’ve cited only a couple of examples. Beth Harpaz counted 27 churches in which Mrs. Clinton campaigned in the two months prior to Election Day 2000. There have been many more since then. The names of many, if not most, of those churches are known, as well as their pastors. One must wonder if the Obama campaign has looked into these churches to see if there is video of a Rev. Wright at one of them — one who could be used to embarrass Mrs. Clinton, if she seeks to make hay of Rev. Wright.

I’m not being conspiratorial. This is how political campaigns think. And it may help to explain why Mrs. Clinton’s political team is not expressing outrage over the unhinged remarks by Obama’s pastor, including Rev. Wright’s nasty remarks (and body gestures) regarding Mrs. Clinton’s husband’s sessions with Monica Lewinsky, which surely must have made Bill Clinton’s blood boil when he (like the rest of us) first caught the video on Fox News. Mrs. Clinton herself no doubt hopes to keep the door shut on more than one church closet. Barack Obama is not the only Democratic frontrunner with some skeletons.

Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College in Grove City, Pa. His recent books include God and Hillary Clinton (HarperCollins, 2007) and The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan’s Top Hand (Ignatius, 2007).

In the Name of the Almighty $

Apparently some young, crafty pro-lifers decided to call up Planned Parenthood and see how far they would go towards funding the murder of the unborn.  Here is the horrifying result.  Be careful...this will make your blood boil. 

Our deadly enemies

Recently, at the Politics Online Conference run by GWU, I spent some time talking with a number of individuals from the left and some Paulistinians. 

Their position on the war on terror: "If we just stop intervening all over the world, particularly in the Middle East, then our enemies will have no reason to attack us."  The idea is that if we mind our own business, they will go away.  This argument goes hand in hand with the "Bush is a bully.  When he's gone we'll just meet with all these dictators and peace will come."

I don't know how they reconcile that view with reality.

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden threatened the European Union with grave punishment on Wednesday for publication of cartoons mocking Islam's Prophet Mohammad.

In an audio recording posted on the Internet coinciding with the birthday of Islam's founder, bin Laden said the drawings, considered offensive by Muslims, were part of a "new crusade" in which Pope Benedict was involved.

"Your publications of these drawings -- part of a new crusade in which the Pope of the Vatican had a significant role -- is a confirmation from you that the war continues," said the Saudi-born militant leader, addressing "those who are wise at the European Union".

You are "testing Muslims ... the answer will be what you shall see and not what you hear."

Don't they realize that our enemies are deadly, and they are willing to kill over CARTOONS!?  Our enemies aren't rational, thoughtful human beings.  They are deadly, hateful people who want to kill us.  They won't go away when we get out of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. 

No, then they'll hate us because some newspaper criticizes Mohamed.  Or they'll hate us because our flag has stars and stripes or because our President meets with some foreign leader they don't like.

Our enemies won't stop until their brand of deadly religious extremism has covered our world in blood.  If the left can't see that, they and their political allies aren't fit to defend our country.