Well, the VP debate is over. Whew! I can breathe again. From where I sit, Palin came, she saw, and she conquered. Flat out, she rocked. Biden was able to avoid putting his foot in his mouth verbally, but he did set a record for smirking, and another for forced smiles. Advantage: Palin.
If we were to use the mainstream media standard, Palin made no mistakes (they would have judged her survival on the basis her not making more than one or two gaffes), and therefore “survived.” So if you’re a conservative, you’re going to say “Palin Won.” If you are a liberal, you’ll probably say something like “Palin acquitted herself adequately [sniff], but Biden enunciated his positions, where Palin made a base appeal to middle America.” [Read more…] about Palin Rocks!
As I write this, the American Friends Service Committee, Mennonite Central Committee, World Council of Churches, Quaker United Nations Office and Religions for Peace are set to host an “international dialogue” on the topic “Has Not One God Created Us? The Significance of Religious Contributions to Peace” at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan. Their Very Special Guest? Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you, Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
It’s been seven years. As we approach the anniversary of 9/11, that’s the first thing that sticks in my head. I can’t believe it’s been seven years. Back when we ushered in the new millennium, I really thought that the most momentous milestone in time that I’d live through would be the change from the 20th century to the 21st. Turns out, I was wrong. We don’t really measure time today as in “before the millennium” and “after the millennium.” We live in a post-9/11 world, and long for the way things used to be, before that fateful day in September. 
I’ve always loved to read. It’s relaxing. I read a lot – mostly tech books, but I try to read some recreationally, both to relax and to expand my horizons. I was watching Glenn Beck on Headline News a couple of weeks ago, and he had author Andrew Klavan on, pitching his latest, Empire of Lies. Sounded interesting, so I filed it away to a slot on my list of “books I want to read.” This past week, I thought about the book, but had a hard time remembering the name or the author. It finally dawned on me that I could use Amazon’s “if you like this book you might also like” feature to find it. Sure enough, I was able to remember the general look of the cover. I’m not always into instant gratification, but for some reason, I really wanted to read this, and I had some time on my hands, so… 
Like many Americans, I went through school trying to pay as little attention to geography as possible. It was, frankly, my least favorite subject. I found it dry and boring. Unlike many Americans, however, in my years since high school, I had the opportunity to travel abroad. It almost instantly gave me an appreciation for a knowledge of geography, as well as a perspective on America and Americans you simply can’t get by staying here. I quickly acquired an appreciation for just how amazing The USA is, and gained a newfound respect for our Constitution, capitalism, and our way of life.
I love to read. I read just about everything I can get my hands on – from mysteries to histories, tech books to cook books. My favorite for light reading are in the techo-thriller genre…books about heroic Americans fighting the spies and soliders of other countries or terrorists. Glenn Beck (one of my favorite radio/TV guys) had author Christopher Reich on his show recently, to plug the book Rules of Deception. Beck mentioned that he’d not yet read the book (never a good idea to plug something you haven’t read, Glenn), but he was amazed that, as the story revolved around Iran’s attempts to enrich uranium for the express purpose of building nuclear weapons, that the New York Times had given the book a glowing review. Little did I know when I bought it that there was a good reason the NY Times loved it. 
I’m a conservative. (Note I didn’t say “I’m a Republican.” In today’s world of RINOs – Republicans In Name Only – running the show, I can’t claim kinship…the word “Republican” has no real meaning any more.)
Whoo, boy, am I opening a can o’ worms on THIS one. Exhibit A to the left here is one of the cartoons the Danish papers had the courage to print. Now, it’s not that the cartoon is really in bad taste – not when we Christians have to content with the ‘art’ of Robert Maplethorpe, and countless other depections in the media of Christians as narrow-minded, biggoted simpletons – but it is not the cartoon itself (nor what it implies) that I want to talk about tonight. No, campers, it is the reaction to the cartoons – not by the radical Islamists, but by everyone else.