Casey Luskin of the Discovery Instintute will be producing a 10 part response to Barbara Forrest’s take on Kitzmiller v Dover. She was an expert witness on the winning side of that case. He is the author of Traipsing Into Evolution, which exposes the fallacious reasoning employed by Judge Jones.
A Discovery Institute talk on the book was recently aired on C-SPAN, watch it here.
Conservative Christian Comedian Brad Stine was featured on Nightline just now. They treated him quite fairly. I’m going to have to tune back into NL now that Ted is gone…
Combs Spouts Off on Megan McArdle’s chastisement of dishonest pro-choice zealots of the NARAL stripe.
I may not agree with McArdle on much of anything, I don’t know, having read only a smatter, but she isn’t afraid of stating what appears obvious. To me, anyway. The villification of Operation Rescue as ‘terrorists’, nevermind the usual and ongoing tarring all anti-abortion-choice activists as Eric Rudolph’s brothers in arms, shows the kind of dangerous blinders keepers of The One True Faith can have. This is the mindset that tolerates persecution from the verbal level to re-education camps. That level of villification has preceded tryannies of all sizes and shapes.
rg concludes,
Sometimes I’m not sure who is more disturbing — the “save every zygote” zealots on the anti-abortion side or the “adopting proves he wants to oppress women” zealots on the abortion-as-sacrament side. Thank you, Megan, for reminding me that there are people on my side of this issue who I’m not embarrassed by.
This says a good thing about both bloggers and I plan to read them more often - it is good to know more people who are politically pro-choice, but not at the expense of decency and honesty.
I must say, however, that I’ve always had trouble understanding the intensity of zealotry on the pro-abortion-choice side.
With the anti crowd, I grok their zealotry, even though I fundamentally disagree on the role the state has to play in it. These people (rightly so, in my opinion) believe they are protecting blameless life. And they are correct - the lives ended in abortions are all unarguably human. As Clint Eastwood said in Palerider, “When you kill a man, you take away all he’s got, and all he’s ever gonna have.” Even at the zygote stage, these nascent humans are brimming with all the potential their DNA affords, facing an environment that will either rob that potency or nurture it. Each death in an abortion clinic is one future in the trash, an individual never allowed to know individuality.
Iraq the Model’s Omar points to this story (scroll to bottom of pg.6) in Centcom’s The Advisor weekly, billed as the “Official Weekly Command Information Report for the Multi-National Security Transition Command - Iraq”
Obviously, this weekly is the product of DOD Public Affairs officers, so expect it to be on the positive message the DOD wants told. However, it isn’t as if the Iraq ‘news’ product being delivered by MSM outlets is not the negative message editors and producers want told!
Regardless, it gives me hope for the people of Iraq.
An excerpt:
The students are continually struggling to understand a new language and different ways of doing things while simultaneously fighting for their lives and worrying about keeping their identities secret to protect themselves and their families from harm by insurgents.But for them, they say it is worth it because they no longer fight for just one man — they fight for their country.
For Iraqi Capt. S., who was also an officer during the previous regime, that shift in mentality is priceless.
“I recently went to visit an Iraqi soldier in the hospital,” he said. “He had lost both his legs, and we went there to comfort him. When we were leaving, we told him, ‘May God be with you.’ He called back out to me, ‘For Iraq, I would give up my whole life, not just my legs.’”
Most of the Iraqi airmen have businesses or farms and are relatively well off already. But when the opportunity came to return to the service they love, regardless of the risk, they jumped on it.
Since Jan. 14, when the squadron was officially formed, the airmen have been sneaking in the shadows and many have hid their allegiance to the Iraqi Air Force to family and friends, some even to their own wives.
Captain S’s wife, concerned for her family’s safety, continually pleads with him to quit and has also asked his father to pressure him. But the captain, whose own son does not know he is currently serving, said, “If I don’t do it, who will?
“I dream that Iraq will someday be safe,” he said. “We will be at peace, and at peace with our neighbors. I wish for a civilized country and a better place for my children.
“I try to teach my son to respect the armed forces when he sees them in the streets,” he said. “One day when he grows up, I want him to know his father sacrificed during the worst period in his country in order for his children to have a better Iraq.”
Iraqi Flight Engineer J. also fights for the same dream and a chance to build a new Iraqi Air Force. He has been a flight engineer for 10 years, but until now has never felt able to express concerns to his superiors because of his rank.
“I’m impressed at how Americans treat each other as far as rank,” Engineer J. said. “They treat each other equally. During the previous regime there was a huge difference between a flight engineer and pilot. Now, we work together.
“Because of the treatment we’ve experienced from our instructors firsthand and the friendship they’ve shown us, it’s made me change my views on all Americans,” he said. “We understand the true (meaning of) American kindness.”
A pilot in training with the 23rd Squadron (transport), Iraqi Air Force, loads his baggage April 18, 2005, in Talil, Iraq, before taking off in one of three C-130 aircraft that the United States provided to the Iraqi Air Force. U.S. airmen from the 23rd Advisory Support Team, 777th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron are teaching the Iraqi pilots to use their new aircraft. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. David Foley
Hat tip, Iraqi Bounty Hunter