Finally!

Reports coming in this morning that London police (with guns) chased down a suspect from yesterday's bombing attempts and shot him dead. One down...you Limeys keep it up.


UPDATE: Evidently the guy was a Brazilian that didn't understand English and is not apparently connected to the terrorists in any way. Now the British Police are saying "sorry". Wrong move. The language thing is no excuse. At least some British civil rights groups are saying not to rush to judgement on the police action, considering the environment London is operating under. On the other hand, Muslim spokesmen are whining about how their young Muslim men are 'feeling', that they're afraid. Good. Maybe they'll finally figure out that if they don't want Islam hijacked by extremist thugs and ultimately have Islam outlawed as a religion in the West, they better get cracking.

Like my new hot tub?

Ya' gotta love CNN...

(CNN) -- Nearly 25,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq since the start of the Iraq war, according to a group that tracks such statistics from media reports.

The Iraq Body Count -- a London-based group comprised of academics, human rights and anti-war activists -- said on Tuesday that 24,865 civilians had died between March 20, 2003 and March 19, 2005.

The group said 42,500 injuries were recorded as well.

Academics....human rights activists...anti-war activists. Now there's some folks with no axe to grind. Surely all those media reports are accurate, right? Besides that...anti-war activists? Can't that be considered some type of oxymoron? I mean, anybody out there a "pro-war" activist? Anybody? Just raise your hand...anybody...oh Saddam, put your hand down...we know you're a pro.

When are we going to wake up out there? Islamic extremists are out to kill anybody thats not an Islamic extremist, a supporter, or in the case of too many other Muslims, enablers. I'm not sure the last two groups are neccesarily safe, either.

Can it be any more blatant? Watch this video...

Some five years ago, the mainstream media had made the connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam. Check this video out from ABC News . Somehow it was OK for the media to connect the dots back in 2000, but if its George Bush's administration, all of a sudden the connection is non existent, and he 'lied'. BTW, if you don't have Realplayer, you'll need it.

Hat tip to Powerline on posting this one

How many wake-up calls do we need?

The most recent attack in London bears out one of the big problems facing us in the war on terror. No one else seems to know there is one, and if they do, they don't want to fight in it. By and large, the war in Iraq has been unpopular in England. Tony Blair has taken a considerable amount of flack and lost some political mojo in his unwavering support of our position before and during the current action in Iraq. At home, Brits have allowed their country to become a crossroads and sanctuary for Islamic Extremists to operate and grow unfettered in their midst. It will be interesting to see how they ultimately react and if they'll clean up the mess they made for the sake of 'tolerance'. Lets hope this doesn't become another Spain.

Bright Eyes? So where's the light coming from?

As a way to take the pulse of what's going on out there in popular culture, I will periodically swing by Ifilm.com. For those of you not familiar, Ifilm maintains a burgeoning collection of film clips, commercials, movie trailers, and the like for the public's edification and enjoyment. A cautionary note: there is some vulgar material on this site. I give Ifilm.com credit for flagging those clips as "mature". This morning, I watched a clip of the Tonite Show. There was a singer/songwriter, Conor Oberst, otherwise known as Bright Eyes. It was just him and his guitar, singing "When the President talks to God". Two things I picked up on during the performance was that Mr. Oberst certainly doesn't like President Bush, or the idea that he prays to God. Conversely, it would appear that Mr. Oberst doesn't buy into talking to God. Evidently, its a waste of time and a sham, especially if you're the President. Mr. Oberst has every right to sing that song on national television (even if it at the end of the show, way past the time I normally would be snoring out). What was the audience's reaction? It sounded like Mr. Oberst had a small contingent from his fanclub in the audience that cheered him on between verses, and of course, the applause light surely came on as the show ended, pushing the applause needle somewhere past 'medium'. Lastly, Jay Leno came over to Mr. Oberst clapping and congratulating him on a good job. I know I felt uplifted by the lyrics (not). Perhaps I should talk to God about Mr. Oberst. I know Mr. Oberst could use a little interaction with Him.
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In whose hands?

As a non-Catholic, I hesitate to comment too directly on Pope John Paul II. One could certainly jump on the 'What about all those pedophile priests he didn't deal with?' bandwagon, but that's not my issue here. I find it interesting that two Catholics, John Paul II and Terri Schiavo, wound up with two different paths out of this life. The juxtaposition is striking. On the one hand, we have Ms. Schiavo. She ultimately fell victim to the culture of Death that is ever growing in terms of groups whose lives are deemed unworthy of living. We started with fetuses and we're continually pushing the envelope to include anyone we feel uncomfortable being around because of their age, medical condition, state of mind, or maybe even their looks. On the other hand, John Paul II made a conscious decision to forego any further treatments to prolong his life. At least he got to participate in the final decision

Better deal than 4 out of 5 Dentists!

From 'best of the web' at the Wall Street Journal, an article here telling us that 5 out of 5 scientists think our solar system is unique. You know, stuff like having a planet with water that is in a circular orbit as it spins on its axis positioned in such a way that it supports life. You know, unique, like one-of-a-kind, special...waitaminnit....maybe ummmm, created that way for a particular reason or purpose. OK, that part might be a stretch for the logical minded, but perhaps we can suspend secular reasoning for just a moment to reflect...maybe, just maybe God did it. Ooops, I said it again. Hope I didn't offend the secular minded amongst you...:-)

A passion for pulling the plug, or tube, or trigger.

Peggy Noonan gives us her take on the Schiavo situation. Along with the politics surrounding this and other events, she's 'dead on' on a most basic issue: you either believe you are a creation of God, or the end result of a myriad combination of circumstances. That perspective defines for us how people are looking at Ms. Schiavo. Now, I'm not for any branch or individual overstepping the Constitution, but whether one believes...or not, we all answer to a Higher Power. Disbelief won't negate our requirement to answer to that Higher Power. It simply puts the answering off until we are individually or collectively called into account. If you don't think that you're knee will bow or your tongue confess...the Constitution gives you that right to think so. It just doesn't change the facts. It does, however, change what your idea of Right and Wrong and Life and Death are. That's why people are going way beyond simply allowing someone to starve to death and taking a more direct route with with guns (which is my argument for making it a law to require and/or to provide all citizens with firearms to protect themselves from people that think life is worthless). As I saw on a bumper sticker the other day, "If you don't believe in God, you'd better be right". Some would consider my position dogmatic. It most certainly is. Hey, its my blog, afterall... :-)

Its not like its a matter of Life or Death, is it?

I'm not the first to make this observation, but recent events really are highlighting this 'culture of death' phenomenon our country is experiencing as the Easter holiday is upon us. The first thing that comes to mind is Terri Schiavo. We have a person that is not on life support, whose ability to function beyond a 'persistent vegetative state' is still subject to debate amongst medical experts, and it seems that our judicial system is Hell-bent on killing her. This in spite of Congress and the President of the United States doing their collective best to give her another chance at Life. We have a young man, Jeff Weise, up in Minnesota that killed 10 people, including his grandparents, and even himself. It was found out later he was deep into 'neo-nazism'. Jessica Lunsford, a mere 9 years old, is murdered by a convicted sex-offender. Here locally a bar fight that in the past would have resulted in some fist fight in the parking lot, winds up with a 'drive by' type of shooting with four people dead. A high school football player simply attending a party is gunned down by another teenager, all because he was asked to leave.

The common thread? In all these cases, Life has lost its value to the people that are taking it. If we are to believe the polls concerning Terry Schiavo (which I don't), Life has lost its value to most of the rest of us as passive bystanders. Its no longer important whether anyone lives. There is no such thing as Eternity, only a blank space where we used to exist. The thing taking its place is Death. Literally, Life and Death have become equivalent in value to many people, and in some cases Death is actually preferable, the first choice. How ironic it is that the Holiday that celebrates Life in the form of the Resurrection falls on the heels of all this death, death, and more death.

Assuming a belief in a God of any kind, our mere existence is in and of itself a miraculous occurance. The culture we're living in now doesn't acknowledge God or the miraculous nature of our existence as the result of His own existence. How short a step it is to Oblivion when our lives are assumed to end there.