Senator McCain, I tip my hat. This was a left hook from outta nowhere to the Democrats.
Awesome.
Like most of Western Civilization, I know little about Sarah Palin. However, here's what I know. Rush Limbaugh is gushing about her as I type. Hugh Hewitt loves her. The National Review crew, never completely agree on anything, are more positive than negative on the Corner.
I don't think anything the McCain camp could have done would have more effectively taken the wind from the Obama camp's sails than this.
I can't help myself. Even though he's the Palehose skipper I just love Ozzie Guillen. His remarks on Jay Mariotti's departure from the Sun Times, taken from the same paper:
''Am I enjoying this? Yes, because he tried to make my life miserable. He did everything in his power to make my life go the wrong way, but he didn't make me miserable because I don't believe him. Maybe if somebody else wrote that stuff about me, then I would put attention on it. And that's what he wanted. He wanted attention. He has to thank me because I gave him a lot of [stuff] to work with. I know I helped him the last four years to make his money, and, obviously, he did not help me at all to make my money.''
Just an aside: I always thought Mariotti was a self aggrandizing jerk (who was nonetheless an interesting read), but I am astounded by the volume of the hatred for that man that is still reverberating throughout Northern Illinois. Everyone is coming out of the woodwork to take their digs.
You know, I wasn't all that offended by Obama's incredibly stupid remark about Cubs fans. When you're a Cubs fan, you expect smack talk from Sox fans and you give in return. (Here's an example: It's always interesting to observe the fans during the crosstown series. Cubs fans show up early for batting practice; Sox fans show up early for the back shaving ritual.
And that's just the chicks).
But it was incredibly stupid, from a political standpoint. I doubt Obama has a clue as to the millions of people he has offended. If he had even the remotest inkling, he would have issued an apology five minutes after making that remark. I generally listen to the Cubs games on the radio, because like so many other Cubs fans I love Pat Hughes and Ron Santo. I hear the crowds cheering during the Cubs' road trips--I hear the crowds cheering for the Cubs. Often, the cheering is so loud that if you didn't know the schedule, you'd think it was a home game. Sometimes, the cheering is louder for the Cubs than for the home team. The expression "Cubs Nation" is not an exaggeration or wishful thinking.
And if you think people won't vote against Obama over this seemingly insignificant slight, you don't understand how "serious" the Cubs Nation is.
My first impression upon hearing that Obama had picked Joe Biden has his running mate was that it was a safe choice that would neither help nor hurt Obama. Biden, for all of his past plagiarism scandals, is a pretty tame cat compared to some of the other pols out there. Plus, he's old, something sorely lacking from the Obama campaign.
However, It's suprising that the news yielded absolutely zero bounce for Obama. According to Gallup, McCain has actually pulled ahead slightly. This poll was conducted Aug 23-25, during the runup to and beginning of the DNC convention. It appears none of that buzz helped Obama either. Not the kind of news I'd want to wake up to, were I O.
McCain's VP choice by contrast will probably cause a significant shift in polling data, for good or ill depending upon whom is chosen. If Daddy Mac picks Romney I would expect to see a substantial boost as on-the-fence conservatives start to board the Straight Talk Express.
Obama should still be able to look forward to a temporary 15-20 point bounce in the polls after the convention, but after Mrs. Clinton's "knockout" appearance last night at the convention, democrats may be feeling some buyer's remorse about Biden.
I was prepared to take Hitchens to task for his rather slovenly and ill informed assault on the New Testament, but I happened to recall that a rather smart joe named Mark D. Roberts debated Hitchens on Hugh Hewitt's radio program and subsequently tore GING a new one at his blog. And I figured, why go to all that trouble to post when somebody else has already done the work far better than I could?
Dr. Roberts may not be the best person to rebut a genius like Hitchens, seeing as how only got his PhD in New Testament from this podunk little university called Harvard, but he still does an admirable job.
Note: the links below are only a portion of Roberts' blog entries on this subject, and they come in somewhere in the middle. Therefore, what I'm calling Part 1 is actually Part 3 of his posts on GING.
Chapter 7: "The Nightmare of the "Old" Testament."
Much like he does with his examples of apparently "flawed" design, Hitchens presumes to know how God really would have inspired the Bible if he in fact truly existed. It's interesting that an atheist as passionate as Hitchens seems to know so much about how a God should do things. I'm referring to his indictment of the ten commandments, which are too authoritarian, patronizing and misogynistic for his tastes.
I don't want to give the impression that I have never struggled with certain old testament passages-- in particular instances like the destruction of Jericho in which every single person, "man and woman, young and old," was killed per God's command. But I stop short of expressing how I could have done things better. Hitchens trots into the realm of fallacy by claiming how he could do things better than one who does not exist.
Hitchens also makes much of whether Moses was the exclusive author of Genesis and the books in which Moses appears. I don't think I've ever met one scholar who was willing to die on the Hill of Moses' exclusive authorship (in fact, many lean away from that idea). The point is not whether Moses wrote all, or any, of the first five books of the Bible. The point is that God accomplished what he set out to accomplish when he inspired the author or authors of the first five books of the Bible. God effectively communicated to Balaam through the latter's donkey; I'm quite confident He could give us the pentateuch the way He wanted it written via one, twenty, or twenty million different "authors."
Lastly, Hitchens flatly claims that the 400 years of Egyptian captivity, the Exodus, the wandering in the wilderness, and final settlement in Canaan never happened. He trots out an expert or two with impressive sounding credentials who claim that there is no archeological evidence whatsoever for the Biblical account of the 440(ish) years under scrutiny. (Interestingly enough, Hitchens does seem to lend credence to the notion of a mass-extinction flood event.) My response is: I haven't bothered to look into the evidence. But beyond the obvious fact that it would not follow, in the event that there was there no evidence, that the events themselves did not occur: Hitchens is revealed here by Pastor Mark Roberts to be either woefully misinformed at best, or at worst a blatant liar, on at least 15 significant points concerning the New Testatment. Why should I believe a word this man Hitchens has to say regarding the Old Testament?
In the next few posts, am going to attempt to address Chapters 6, 7 and 8, which deal with (respectively) intelligent design and the Old and New Testaments.
In this, Hitchens has painted himself into a corner with such blatant obviousness that I feel like the stupid one for bringing it up (were you ever in a class where the whole group was asked a question with such a ridiculously apparent answer that you hesitated to raise your hand because you thought there must be some catch?): If we are here as a result of evolution, which weeds out the weak and allows (through random mutation) the strong and best species to survive, then how can anything about the human race be said to be "too" anything or "not enough" of something else? If I accept the theory which Hitchens believes, I have to accept that the human race has been endowed by its blind, unguided "maker" with those attributes that are just right for survival and reproduction (until chaos throws us another curveball and some of us adapt and others die, of course).
Indeed, Hitchen's offers this quote: "evolution is smarter than you are." So why is he second guessing the smarter process? On the one hand, he wants to say how "smart" and magnificent evolution is, and offers up creation as testimony too it; on the other, he wants to point to flaws and say an intelligent creator would have done better. Which is it, sir?
Hitchens is so busy with "drive by" ad hominem against religion that he has very little time to dwell on scientific fact. And when he does mention science, it's usually to say something like (this is a specific, albeit paraphrased, example) 'scientists have recently demonstrated that gene expression can account for what appears to be irreducible complexity. So there.' And that's it. No delving into the facts of the matter.
I will not pretend that I have any idea beyond a most basic understanding of how cells and genes work, but if Mr. Hitchens may want to think twice before taking the ID movement on in this arena. New discoveries are being made every day that elucidate the mind-blowing complexity of the cells in the simplest of organisms. In regard to the multitude of functions, quality control mechanisms and infrastructure, the cell has been likened to a miniature city. Here's a recent study that shows just one of many examples of how cells function with what appears to be eerily intelligent engineering.
There's a fundamental question to cell function that Hitchens doesn't (dare not?) touch upon: what is it that makes all of that tiny molecular machinery within the cell work? What is it that animates the "stuff" of the cell? Data. Information. Code. Language.
Where did that come from? It's one thing to have a bunch molecules structured together in the right manner to form amino acids and nucleotides. How is it that these molecules became alive? How is it that they became programmed?
The Georgians started this conflict with what has been termed an "ill advised" offensive. It may have been more than that, it may have been outright aggression in which many innocents were killed. I haven't been able to glean that level of detail from the stories.
But regardless, the Russian response (which continues to this minute, despite whatever "cease fires" exist on paper) has been of several magnitudes more brutal.
Putin is a thug who murders political adversaries. We knew this already. But now he has clarified that he is of the same ilk as the ignominious thugs before him who attempted to annex adjoining territories to expand their empires.
Rush Limbaugh's "Undeniable Truth" number 26 reads: "The only difference between Mikhail Gorbachev and previous Soviet leaders, is that Gorbachev is alive." You can substitute Putin for Gorbachev in the above quote. Yes, I realize it says "Soviet leaders." Your point?
As the opening ceremonies unfold in China, they call to mind the acrobatics that 'Da Mayor' Richard Daley is currently going through to bring the games to Chicago in 2016.
Daley has been breaking his butt (and the butts of all city employees) to impress the IOC. The campaign for 2016 has been ongoing for a few years now. There have been major efforts to beautify, greenify and generally improvify the city to better Chicago's chances. In light of this I find myself asking, how the heck did the PRC get selected for this year's summer olympics?
It seems to me that there is something for everybody to hate about the government of the PRC. The right naturally despises this tyranny for its human rights abuses and prohibition on political and religious freedom. People of faith mourn and pray for their persecuted brethren. (I frequently receive updates from Voice of the Martyrs about the plight of Christians in China who are routinely imprisoned, tortured and subjected to other persecution for their faith.)
Normally the left doesn't get too worked up about such things. However, China also has the ignominious distinction of being a mega, mega, mega polluter. (To wit: SMOG!) The PRC doesn't give two hoots about the Kyoto protocol, global warming or anything of the sort. All of the libs' precious curlique lightbulbs are made in filthy, polluting coal burning plants in China. Plus, they keep buying all of that nasty, nasty, putrid, filthy OIL. It seems to me this should be all that's needed to crucify them in the court of lefty public opinion.
I haven't finished my current chapter of Hitchens' GING, which attempts to pick apart arguments for intelligent design. But I was reminded of one of the chapter's arguments by something I saw in the media today.
Hitchens attempts to use the (apparently) backwards and indirect structure of the human eye to suggest that it couldn't have been designed--because a designer would have done a better job. (Hitchens floats a few such examples. I'll keep from editorials until I rebut the whole chapter).
Do you know what's the most despicable form of "entertainment" on television today, IMHO?
It's not Jerry Springer, WWE professional wrestling, or even NOW with Bill Moyers.
It's court TV shows.
Whenever I have the misfortune of being trapped in some sort of waiting room with the unchangeable TV trained on one of these open sores of broadcasting, my mind hearkens back to this immortal scene in the movie Billy Madison:
There's a station here in Chicago, WCIU, that broadcasts not one, not two, but three of these pieces of doodoo: The People's Court with Judge Marian Milian; Judge Maria Lopez; and Judge Greg Mathis. Unfortunately, WCIU is also the only game in town if you want to see reruns of Frasier (yes I am a loser, thanks for asking), which means I'm frequently subjected to commercials proudly heralding this lineup of jurisprudential bottom feeders. Which means my wife is frequently subjected to my derisive outbursts at the tele.
My problems with this form of entertainment are threefold. First of all, it disturbs me to know that this this garbage is in sufficient demand to actually put three such shows on the air on one station. If you simply cannot make it through the day without your 90 minute fix of small claims court, you need prayer.
Second, the judges on these shows tend to strike me as...oh, searching for a word...bimbos. Including Greg Mathis. There I said it. Milian looks and acts like the fiftysomething-trying-to-act-twentysomething at the end of the bar who keeps sending you jello shots. Greg "I finna throw you fools out my courtroom" Mathis seems to live for altercation, ready to pounce on a plaintiff or defendant who gets on his bad side. Lopez... possibly just suffers by comparison with these other two. I find myself asking, who gets into this line of work? Someone who wants to be taken seriously in their profession, or someone who sneaks into paparazzi photographs of famous people in the hopes of seeing themselves in People?
Finally, and this is the thing that bugs me most of all, these shows feed the hyper-litigious nature of our society and generally provide a great example of how to be petty. The People's Court with Judge Wapner first came on the air when I was a kid. The show's ubiquitous closing tagline encouraged watchers that if they were ever wronged by someone else, "don't take the law into your own hands. You take 'em to court." The first part of that slogan is right as rain, but it's the second part that Americans seem to have taken to heart. Americans will now take anybody to court over anything. I once had the misfortune of having my lunch in a McDonalds (that's not necessarily the unfortunate part) when one of these shows was on.
The plaintiff in the first case was a man who was taking his ex girlfriend to court over a thirty dollar shirt.
I was offended at the stupidity of it all. I was offended that there wasn't some way to keep this from making it on the air. There is no common sense. There is court. If I had to choose, I would almost rather let my kids watch Jackass than to watch this garbage.
I still can't believe we swept the Brewers in four. The Cubs are like Muddy Waters. GOT THEY MOJO WORKIN!!
Jim Edmonds for President. That's all I've got to say. I still shake my head in embarassment at the idiot fans who were in an uproar when his acquisition was announced. They're all bleacher freaks anyway. Have another Old Style and shut up. Morons.
Edmonds would have won the game himself with his five runs if the Cubbies hadn't tacked on another six, thanks in part to Kosuke and Alpo each knocking longballs. Which is why that amateur hack Eric Gagne tried to bean Edmonds in the ninth. Thanks Eric. Before it was just a friendly rivalry. Now you've given us a depth of hatred for your team normally reserved for the likes of St. Louis and the Palehosiery. You may have just given us the extra spark we needed to grind your team into hamburger and win this division.
Ron Santo was hysterically funny in trashing Gagne. "That's just the kind of guy he is. He can't pitch like he used to any more... that's just bush [league]!" You could tell there were a few more colorful words on the tip of his tongue that he just barely managed to restrain.
