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October 2004 Blog Archives

Thursday, October 14

10:32 AM Just took my sheltie for one last long walk before leaving for the Horn of Africa. While Shiloh chased squirrels I said goodbye to the goats, cows, and (especially) the horses. I'll have the privilege of preaching every Sunday (through an interrupter) and teaching (in English) in Addis Ababa (Evangelical Theological College), in Hosanna, and in Dilla (at various Bible Schools). Subjects? The Gospel of John, How to Study the Bible for All It's Worth, Forgotten Lessons from the Life of Christ, and Current Issues in New Testament studies. My wife, a nurse, will be working in two different clinics and practicing the fine art of healing. We will miss yall, but I will check my emails (when I can get to a pooter, which will be infrequently) and maybe even update my website. If you should ever get the urge to pray for us, we would be most grateful. Aloha, and God bless.

Wednesday, October 13

11:10 PM Can't let this busy day end without praising the Lord. Not only was I able to vote today (Go Michael and Chuck!) but we closed on our North Carolina ranch - one day before leaving for Africa. Tied up several loose ends on campus as well, and met with my good friend Jim Weaver of Kregel Books on my next book project (he likes it). The icing on the cake? Our Wednesday night prayer service - leaning on our "Lord Protector" (J. I. Packer's unforgettable expression) as we contemplate God's greatness and goodness on bright and cloudy days. Time to take Shiloh outside one last time, then hit the sack.

Tuesday, October 12

6:10 PM Jim Rudd is doing as much as anyone I know to defend the most defenseless in our society. I praise God for his ministry and his writings, to wit:

Having repented of helping to regulate the way people murder innocent human beings, then what do we do? There is only one type of legislation our lawmakers needed to be concerned about passing into law in the States and U.S. Congress: A law that establishes without any doubt or alternate interpretation the Unalienable Personhood of every human being from the moment of conception until natural death.

We must continue to press in at all cost to speak for those who have no voice until they have Equal Protection of the Law.

5:40 PM Whatever room I'm in he's always there, curled up at my feet. At the dinner table, whose plate does he await with eager eyes? On whose side of the bed does he sleep? Who does he expect to take him for walks? Who does he ask to rub his tummy?

Boy, will I miss my sheltie.

Smell the flower.

4:55 PM Sometimes it pays to read a blogger's archives. Here's an example - a very nice piece of prose -  from Gimmie Back My Bullets (dated June 15, 2004):

Thanking and welcoming

It occurs to me that the recent trend of saying "no problem" in lieu of "you're welcome" is a symptom of the prevailing self-centeredness of our culture. (Before I proceed, I should plead guilty of doing this frequently myself.) If you say "thank you", you are expressing your gratitude for a service rendered. If I respond that "you're welcome", I am saying something about you. In both instances, the emphasis is on the other person.

But if I say "no problem", what I'm really saying is "no problem for me. The focus is no longer on you, but rather on me and what a swell guy I am for helping you out. This flies in the face of the Christian notion of putting others first. It's essentially the same principle as the one behind saying "Bob and I" instead of "I and Bob".

4:04 PM As I sit here contemplating our mission to Africa my heart is full and overflowing with gratitude to God and my only thought is to live so fully in the Spirit that all my thoughts may be a sweet incense ascending to the Lord and my every deed an act of worship and my only desire that He be exalted over all my possessions, my reputation, my ambitions, my health, and even my life itself. I cannot but think of these words: "Give of thy sons to bear the message glorious, Give of thy wealth to speed them on their way. Pour out thy soul for them in prayer victorious, And all thou spendest Jesus will repay." The parents of my beloved wife, in a literal sense, fulfilled the words of this hymn, breathing the prayer of Jim Elliott: "Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on earth! I care not if I never raise my voice again for Him, if only I may love Him, please Him. Mayhap in mercy He shall give me a host of children that I may lead them through the vast star fields to explore His delicacies whose finger ends set them to burning. But if not, if only I may see Him, touch His garments, and smile into His eyes - ah then, not stars nor children shall matter, only Himself." I heartily thank each of you who have written to say you will be praying for Becky Lynn and me on our Abyssinian Odyssey, believing God for miracles in response to faith and claiming for ourselves, though unworthy to see it, the object of Moses' prayer: "Show my Thy glory!" To all of you we are eternally grateful.

9:14 AM Here's a website that merited a rare bookmark on my computer.

9:05 AM From the mailbag:

"I see a new breed of citizen who realizes that the intoxication of
public attention makes otherwise sane persons silly with delusions of
their capacity to speak the truth unerringly."

Good comment.  I had a similar thought from listening to some of the
debates and observing the strange behavior of the candidates.  I was
reading in Revelation 17:3 and was stunned with the verse "and those on
earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality".  I suspect part
of that wine is raw power.  The power of man over man which Satan
tempted the Lord with in Matthew 4 seem to be of the same blend of sin.

We don't handle a power well (political or otherwise).  It is strong
drink.

8:50 AM The latest pearls from Doug's Blog:

Home educators must resist the unbiblical practice of infiltration and assimilation with pagan institutions, whether those institutions be the government schools or the Hollywood establishment. Not surprisingly, the philosophy of infiltrating systems which are root and branch corrupted by paganism is quite popular with those who earn their living off these systems. But you can test this theory by throwing a clean pig into a pool of mud. Does the mud get clean or the pig get dirty?

8:45 AM With rounds getting more and more expensive (as we discovered again this past week), this essay makes a lot of sense.

8:41 AM Baghdad now has a blogger.

Salam Pax

8:36 AM Bekele does it again. Just what makes him such a good long distance runner?

8:25 AM Just stumbled across an interesting timeline of the Kale Heywet churches in Ethiopia, among whom my in-laws served from 1954-1964. The statement that impressed me the most:

1974. Communist revolution. 2,500 churches.

It corresponds perfectly with my morning devotions from Acts 4-5 where Peter and John and the other apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit, rejected any human authority that itself had rejected God's authority.  The result? The church grew tremendously, not only in numbers but spiritually as well (filling with the Spirit meant not only boldness in preaching but a willingness to share one's possessions with those in need, Acts 4:32-37).

8:10 AM We will have a brief stopover in Frankfurt am Main on the way to Addis Ababa. I well remember my last visit to Frankfurt a few years ago. I was lecturing at Tyndale Theological Seminary in Holland at the time and took the train south to meet up with a missionary friend in Giessen. I was "auf der Suche" - in search of a site near Frankfurt I had long wanted to visit. Being a fan of WW II escape stories, I knew that allied pilots were processed through a camp located in a suburb of Frankfurt called Oberursel but doubted whether any of the old facilities would still be standing or even if anybody knew where they were. We arranged to have the city planner meet us, and she took us to a site where she had heard rumors of an old army base. The base turned out to be a U.S. army installation that had been closed some ten years earlier. Yet as I looked at the barracks - many of them still had bars on their windows - I immediately recognized the place as Dulag Luft - the German POW processing camp and the site of the first mass escape of the war (18 British flyers escaped through a tunnel there in 1941, among them Roger Bushell, "Big X" of the Great Escape). It was an eerie feeling to stand on the exact site where that escape had taken place. Other sites near Frankfurt that always merit a visit are the Gutenburg Museum in Mainz and, of course, the Church in Worms where the famous Diet took place and where Luther courageously defied church tradition and upheld the authority of the Bible. Lord willing, we'll be visiting both places during our Reformation Tour next summer.

Luther auf dem Reichstag zu Worms

Monday, October 11

6:23 PM To those readers who misunderstood the intent of my essay, Why I'm Not Voting for Michael Peroutka, sorry for the confusion. I unequivocally support the Peroutka-Baldwin ticket.

8:46 AM Things in Washington are getting zanier by the day. Stanley Kubrick would feel right at home. "I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids... " (Base Commander Ripper).

slove07

8:32 AM The wisdom of J. Gresham Machen:

It is upon this brotherhood of twice-born sinners, this brotherhood of the redeemed, that the Christian founds the hope of society. He finds no solid hope in the improvement of earthly conditions, or the molding of human institutions under the influence of the Golden Rule. These things indeed are to be welcomed. They may so palliate the symptoms of sin that there may be time to apply the true remedy; they may serve to produce conditions upon the earth favorable to the propagation of the gospel message; they are even valuable for their own sake. But in themselves their value, to the Christian, is certainly small. A solid building cannot be constructed when all the materials are faulty; a blessed society cannot be formed out of men who are still under the curse of sin. Human institutions are really to be molded, not by Christian principles accepted by the unsaved, but by Christian men; the true transformation of society will come by the influence of those who have themselves been redeemed.

8:01 AM Tribute to a fellow horseman. Farewell, Mr. Reeve.

Christopher Reeve

7:57 AM It is coming, mark my words. Just look at Israel. Thanks to the Internet, however, the steady stream of insight into the coming draft will not allow it to go unchecked.

Sunday, October 10

7:47 AM Latest weather in Addis Ababa. Not bad at all.

7:45 AM One reason why learning German vocabulary is so easy.

7:36 AM Which do you prefer: Constitutional Government or Big Brother? Chuck Baldwin is surely right:

This administration is quickly turning what was once a constitutional republic into a federal police state. But what is worse is that the architect of this tyranny, President George W. Bush, seems to enjoy the support of the vast majority of Christian conservatives.

It is extremely difficult to imagine how willingly we forfeited the fundamental principle of limited government upon the altar of pseudo-conservatism and disarming Christian rhetoric. Yet, that is exactly what we seem to have done.

7:34 AM The putrefaction in America goes pretty deep. But this Nigerian Anglican leader is not loath to condemn Episcopal counterparts in U.S.

"Even if the rest of the world will say ... `That's all right,'" Akinola said, "Nigeria will not."

This is my kind of guy.

7:23 AM For your Sunday reading: Bill Einwechter's Biblical Standards for Choosing Civil Magistrates. Read it, study it, THEN decide who to vote for.

Saturday, October 9

3:23 PM Quote of the day (Robert L. Dabney):

There can be, therefore, no true education without moral culture, and no true moral culture without Christianity. The very power of the teacher in the school-room is either moral or it is a degrading force. But he can show the child no other moral basis for it than the Bible. Hence my argument is as perfect as clear. The teacher must be Christian. But the American Commonwealth has promised to have no religious character. Then it cannot be teacher.

3:05 PM This may surprise you, but language learning has never come easily for me. Being a complete linguistic nincompoop when I started learning my first foreign language (ancient Greek), I probably had to study longer than most students before the lights when on. (Yes, being from Oahu I knew Hawaiian Pidgin, but by my college years all I could remember was "Aloha" and "Book 'em Danno.") And now my father-in-law sends me an Ethiopian phrase book which can only be described as utterly impossible. To be sure, Amharic is a Semitic language like Hebrew (which I can read), but any other similarities are purely accidental (such as the script). If anyone knows of some simple Amharic audio files with basic phrases, I'd be eternally grateful to you if you'd email me the link pronto. (Below: The Amharic Syllabary.)

Amharic Syllabary

2:56 PM A new book discusses heroes. Here's one of mine.

Robert E. Lee

1:23 PM Just had an absolutely brilliant idea. If Tony Blair wants to help the Ethiopians so desperately, why not start by returning the artifacts looted by British troops over 130 years ago? Einstein would be proud of me, eh?

8:56 AM Why Christian Burns won't be voting for Bush.

8:50 AM Michael Spencer learned a lot from watching the presidential debates, such as:

Bush has a smirk and doesn't work very hard at sounding Presidential. Kerry has a paternalizing head shake and really works hard to sound serious.

Bush can't make a coherent sentence, has grammatical challenges and repeats prepared phrases to the point of irritation. Kerry is well spoken, well prepared and glib.

Bush believes it was necessary to go into Iraq. Kerry does, and doesn't, and can't explain either position in simple statements.

Bush believes the war in Iraq is going to yield many positive benefits in the war on terror. Kerry believes it was a mistake or not a mistake, can't explain either, and says both.

Want more? Go here.

8:32 AM This just in from Mark Dankof. I gladly pass it on.

My good friend, Daniel New, has written an article for today's Lew Rockwell.  I encourage you to read it and to pass it along to friends.  I have a tribute to Mr. New on my own site at http://www.MarkDankof.com.  His son, Michael New, was court-martialed by Bill Clinton for refusing to don UN insignia on his military uniform in Macedonia, minus the Constitutionally prescribed Act of Congress.  Daniel New is a most key figure on the Real American Right.  Enjoy and forward.

Mark (Dankof)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/new1.html

7:52 AM Mr. Bush has proven himself. (Yep, this is tongue in cheek.)

7:50 AM The young Mr. Friedrich has done it again. Check out his new blog here.

7:48 AM Mr. "No" is right again.

7:43 AM Farm Update: Last night at supper my wife made this comment: How many people do you know who are still eating fresh squash at this time of the year? Kudos to Nathan for his excellent garden this year, the fruit of which we are still enjoying (that goes for the juicy watermelon, too).

Yellow Squash

Friday, October 8

8:30 AM Check it out: Mid-South Regional Southern Baptist Founders Conference. Man, they even have a Greek prof speaking!

8:14 AM So utterly content is Jay Sekulow with his support of Bill Pryor that he does not even see fit to mention the Constitution. Sniff.

8:07 AM Election Update. Mark Dankof just sent me this good news:

PASADENA, Md., Oct. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Michael A. Peroutka and Dr. Chuck Baldwin -- the Constitution Party presidential and vice-presidential nominees -- are proud to announce the launch of their new television, radio and print ad campaign. The ads focus on the main themes of the campaign: honoring God, protecting the family and preserving the Republic. The campaign, which launched this week, includes 18 new television ads that will air in eight states now until Election Day, Nov. 2, 2004. Additionally, the campaign has released 18 new radio ads and several print ads.

Two of the TV ads are designed for the MTV generation and feature the animated character "Chad," which implores voters not to let their vote "get wasted" this November by voting for President George W. Bush or Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). Other ads address a range of topics vital to America's continued security, growth and success, including immigration, abortion, national sovereignty, Constitutional restoration and protecting the family.

Targeted states for the television ads include Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia and Washington, D.C. The campaign is currently reviewing several other states for possible media campaigns.

The radio ads are airing nationally on XM Satellite radio, on Stan Monteith's syndicated radio show and on the 50,000-watt, non-directional powerhouse WHO AM 1040 based in Des Moines, Iowa. Radio ads are also airing in Alabama and Colorado. Full-page print ads are running in several outlets including Business Reform Magazine, The American Conservative, Human Events and The Washington Times Weekly Edition.

"Many Americans are planning on voting for George Bush because they either truly believe, or at least hope, he is a conservative who will represent and defend those pro-life and pro-family values that comprise the moral fabric of our society," observed Peroutka. "Still others plan on voting for John Kerry because they no longer believe in our current leadership and think Kerry will bring real change to the White House.

"As our new ads will show, if Americans want a president who will take substantive action to end abortion, preserve the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman, defend our country from threats -- foreign and domestic -- and who will restore our Republic to its constitutional foundation, then Peroutka-Baldwin is the only choice that will not result in a wasted vote this November," concluded Peroutka.

7:47 AM It is a blessing and a joy to edit this website. Here's one of the reasons why (from yesterday's mailbag):

Dear Mr. Black,

I thank God for you daily as I read your blog. I don't even remember how I stumbled across your website. I started reading your blog about four months ago and am very challenged and encouraged each time I read. I regularly print your articles and read them to my children (16,14, 12 and 7). They have become a regular part of our home schooling political discussions.

God is using your articles and at least three families (including mine) are planning on voting for Peroutka this November. Thanks to your willingness to proclaim truth, we are no longer voting for one party out of fear that the other may win. You have consistently reminded us that God is in control. When thinking about the election, I often think of David and Goliath. Even David's brother mocked him and doubted. David trusted God and rejected mockery. And all the earth knew there is a God in Israel.

We have never met Mr. Peroutka and chances are slim that will occur in Illinois. If you know him, please let him know that we are earnestly asking God to put him in office.

May the United States wake on November 3, and know there is a God that works through a faithful remnant in America!

God richly bless your teaching the book of John in Ethiopia. May He give you, your wife and those traveling with you a safe return.

Thursday, October 7

5:01 PM Quote of the day (Vance Havner):

Too many church services start at eleven sharp and end at twelve dull.

7:14 AM I am no pacifist, but I will never be convinced that there was a casus belli. Question: Will our policrats ever own up to it?

Tony Blair, speaking in Sudan

7:12 AM Trivia, anyone? Here in rural Virginia, we're convinced that country living is just grand. Of course, we are about 100 years behind the times, too. My son stumbled upon these stats and shared them with me. The essay's called "In the Summer of 1900." Here's a selection: 

Only 14 percent of the homes in the United States had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone. A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.

There were only 8,000 cars in the US and only 144 miles of paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was ten mph.

Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million residents, California was only the twenty-first most populous state in the Union.

The average wage in the US was twenty-two cents an hour.

The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births in the United States took place at home.

Ninety percent of all US physicians had no college education. Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard."

Sugar cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen. Coffee cost fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.

Coca-Cola contained cocaine instead of caffeine.

7:05 AM Sitting in a waiting room yesterday I ran across a Time magazine report on the pilot of the ill-fated Concorde that crashed in Paris. Christian Marty was the first Frenchman to windsurf across the Atlantic (now that feat boggles the mind). He even refused to allow his support team to tow him while he slept. "I didn't want to gain a single mile unless my wrists and arms felt it," he said. But I like this quote the best: "For me, freedom is being able to choose my own challenges. I am not afraid of losing because there are honorable defeats." Remember that on November 3.

7:00 AM One hundred billion pounds of food go to waste every year in America. I am looking forward to eating whatever portions of food are placed before me in Ethiopia beginning next week, and eating it without any utensils. I am already a big fan of injera, the nation's staple.

6:50 AM By now most Americans think they can just about forget such "foolish" notions as nullification and state sovereignty. Thomas DiLorenzo, who thinks almost faster than he can write and doesn't suffer fools gladly, offers some insights on states' rights and the enemies of constitutional government:

Despots and tyrants have always been the enemies of states’ rights, as have all manner of power-hungry politicians and their intellectual supporters, such as modern-day neoconservatives, especially the nationalistic warmongers at the Claremont Institute. "9/11 proves more than ever that we need a strong federal government," Harry Jaffa declared during my May 2002 debate with him at the Independent Institute, apparently oblivious to the fact that it was the failure of our "strong federal government" that allowed 9/11 to happen in the first place.

Then there are the weak-willed or cowardly academics, who are intimidated by the statists’ tactic of falsely identifying states’ rights with racism or slavery as a means of censoring all discussion of it. These are people who are much more concerned with being "accepted" by the establishment than with discovering historical truths or defending the free society.

Read more on this vitally important but neglected topic.

Wednesday, October 6

8:50 AM Rusty Lee Thomas ably exposes our homosexual heresies:

The only thing about homosexuality that is inherent, however, is the sinful nature every human being has received because of the fall of Adam and the subsequent advent of original sin. Homosexuality is simply one of the many actual sins that flows from the polluted well of original sin that springs from within every human heart. Why do dogs bark? Because they are dogs. Why do people sin? Because they are sinners. Homosexuality is simply one of the many sinful expressions man chooses that reveals our depraved nature, alienation from God and our need to know God’s great salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

8:40 AM Michael Moore bribing students to vote? Has it come to that? (By the way, last night I read one of the dumbest books I've ever held in my non-nicotine stained hands: Michael Moore Is a Big Fat Stupid White Man.)

8:30 AM WMD Update: Before and after quotes. Of course, that there was never an Iraq - al-Qaeda link or that WMD have never been found doesn't matter to supporters of Bush-Cheney. If it did, Kerry would be up at least 10 percent in the polls.

Saddam Hussein had plans to start producing weapons

Tuesday, October 5

8:33 AM Wales Update: Mike Tuggle over at the LOS website links to an interesting story on Welsh independence.

8:28 AM Here's a book I've got to read this year!

8:19 AM Quote of the day (Tip: Charles Porter):

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order
to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for
patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both
emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And
when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and
the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the
leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the
citizenry.
Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded
by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto
the leader and gladly so.

How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am
Caesar.

-- Julius Caesar

8:06 AM A "Wale-sized" mistake?

Eurostat yearbook 2004

8:05 AM U.S. Empire: Greatly overextended.

Most of this spending could be eliminated if the United States returned to the foreign policy ideas of the Founders. Current U.S. foreign policy can only be described as reckless, interventionist, militaristic, and belligerent.

8:03 AM We all knew it: too few troops early on.

7:24 AM Words can be funny things (kepi tip: Connie Ball):

DORMITORY:
When you rearrange the letters:
DIRTY ROOM

PRESBYTERIAN:
When you rearrange the letters:
BEST IN PRAYER

DESPERATION:
When you rearrange the letters:
A ROPE ENDS IT

GEORGE BUSH:
When you rearrange the letters:
HE BUGS GORE

THE MORSE CODE:
When you rearrange the letters:
HERE COME DOTS

SLOT MACHINES:
When you rearrange the letters:
CASH LOST IN ME

ANIMOSITY:
When you rearrange the letters:
IS NO AMITY

MOTHER-IN-LAW:
When you rearrange the letters:
WOMAN HITLER

SNOOZE ALARMS:
When you rearrange the letters:
ALAS! NO MORE Z'S

A DECIMAL POINT:
When you rearrange the letters:
IM A DOT IN PLACE

THE EARTHQUAKES:
When you rearrange the letters:
THAT QUEER SHAKE

ELEVEN PLUS TWO:
When you rearrange the letters:
TWELVE PLUS ONE

7:20 AM The weekend's reenactment is still fresh in my mind. I thought the battle scenarios were executed almost flawlessly, and the Yankees (many of whom are my good friends who had galvanized) looked superb in their sky blue uniforms. During Sunday's battle I noticed about 10 of them aiming at me (!), and after they got off their crisp volley I figured I would look even more foolish than I normally do not to take a hit, so down I went. It's amazing to contemplate that thousands of Southern boys actually fought and died on soil not too far from the event site. If you are a person who still thinks these farmers were fighting to defend slavery, you might take The Civil War Quiz. As my son put it at the supper table last night, the war was essentially between two opposing world views - one that saw man as basically good and considered government solutions to societal problems to be workable and desirable; the other that affirmed total depravity and the tendency of concentrated political power to corrupt (hence limited government). If you think this is an over-simplification, it is; if you want to read more of what I think about the war, see my book Why I Stopped Listening to Rush.

We just downloaded our photos of the reenactment. Here are three. Below: The Black clan reliving the 1860s. 

A nice shot of my wife with a real daughter of the Confederacy. You don't know just how rare a find this is!

The three warriors after Sunday's battle. The young Jeremy Enquist fell in with us and did a fantastic job of shouldering his musket. 

Monday, October 4

8:29 AM The weekend's Jeb Stuart reenactment went off splendidly. No injuries, either on or off the field, and great weather (the only exception being a brief downpour just before the last battle). Congratulations to Jeremy Enquist who fell in with us as a "fresh fish" and "saw the elephant." You did a great job, young man, and I hope this was only the first of many events you can attend. I met up with long-time DBO reader Edwin Sineath and his friend Steve, up from Winston-Salem. Edwin had seen me "mortally wounded" during Sunday's battle and stopped by to check on my condition. The music was spectacular, and we enjoyed the period worship service on Sunday. At our campsite a number of people joined me (guitar) and Nathan (gut bucket) with various instruments, including fiddle, mandolin, banjo, and spoons. I think the music is my favorite part of these events. We'll be looking for yall at next year's big event: the 140th anniversary of the Battle of Bentonville, NC.

Friday, October 1

8:29 AM How we're failing in Iraq.

8:24 AM Pat Buchanan on the Bush legacy:

Those of us who were called unpatriotic for opposing an invasion of Iraq and who warned we would inherit our own Lebanon of 25 million Iraqis were proved right. Now our nation is tied down and our army is being daily bled in a war to create a democracy in a country where it has never before existed.

With the guerrilla war, US prestige has plummeted. The hatred of President Bush is pandemic from Marrakesh to Mosul. Volunteers to fight the Americans have been trickling into Iraq from Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran. In the spring of this year revelations of the sadistic abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison sent US prestige sinking to its lowest levels ever in the Arab world. We may have ignited the war of civilisations that it was in our vital interest to avoid. Never has America been more resented and reviled in an Islamic world of one billion people.

8:20 AM Why not vote for the best?

There are unwritten alliances in the two party system for status quo conformity while retaining power via non-term limits with unending perpetuity. Democrats and Republicans have betrayed us, seeking primarily to accumulate wealth thru authoritative control of power. One is a clone to the other and the lesser of two evils is still evil. But why choose either evil when you can vote for the best of the best.

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