I get interviewed on Blog Talk Radio!

Our friends over at Team Sarah asked if one of us at C4P would like to be a guest on their Blog Talk Radio show, and yours truly took the plunge. Irma, from Prayer Warriors for Sarah Palin, also called in.

It was a really great show! We discussed the Going Rogue book tour, Governor Palin's recent interviews and much, much more, including some troll callers!

You can listen here. FYI, the only reason I said "uh" so much was because I was doing my best Obama impression.

YET ANOTHER C4P POST! I CAN HARDLY CONTAIN MYSELF!!! (EXPLODES)

Here it is. Go to C4P now. I command you!

Off-year election predictions are fun!

Hey, everyone. I'm going to be adding to this post later, but I wanted to get this part posted before the polls close in Virginia at 7 p.m. EST.

I predict that Bob McDonnell will win the Virginia Governor's race by 15 points or more. The Deeds campaign has failed to get out the vote in any reasonable sense, and reports are he will even lose the liberal-leaning northeastern portion of the State. In fact, McDonnell wins by nearly 20 points, I would be unsurprised. This electorate is far more conservative, older and whiter than last year's. More McCain voters are coming out. Many Obama voters in this State would never have even registered if Obama's team were not as ruthlessly efficient as it was. That is why this longtime GOP stronghold went Blue last year, in addition to shifting demographics. I doubt Hillary Clinton would have won Virginia (although she could very well have won West Virginia, but that's for another day).

I predict that Chris Christie will win the New Jersey Governor's race narrowly. Corzine and the Democratic machine may have good get-out-the-vote infrastructure, but independents do not like Corzine. And Obama is not on the ticket. Again, angry McCain voters are far more motivated to vote than Obama voters, and some Obama voters are fed up with Corzine, too. Also, Daggett will not play a major factor. This is not a Perot situation. In fact, more Daggett supporters consider Corzine their second choice than Christie. This will be a nail-biter, but last-minute polling shows Christie has the momentum.

NY-23 will not just be a Conservative victory but a decisive one. Scozzafava voters will stay home or move towards Hoffman. Or they'll just vote for her anyway. Independents and conservatives - both Republican and unaffiliated - will move towards Hoffman in this traditionally GOP district.

Mike Bloomberg will win easily - I live in the shadow of New York City. Even people who think Bloomberg shouldn't have extended his term are voting for him. Voter surveys from the pollsters I trust are sparse, but Bloomberg's vast wealth and high approval ratings should propel him to a solid win. I can't give exact figures because there are so many third parties, and again, polling is sparse. Bloomberg could get over 60% and sweep, or he could get a fair 10-point win. Hell, there's even a "Rent Is Too Damn High Party". "Damn" has since been removed from the ballot.

The "everything-but-marriage" initiative will pass in Washington. The anti-same-sex marriage initiative will narrowly pass in Maine.

UPDATE: I was right on everything except NY-23, and I have more to say on New York City in a moment.

NY-23 proves that all politics is (are?) local. The Conservative candidate, Hoffman, did not live in the district and had little grasp of local issues. His opponent, despite being a Democrat in a Republican-heavy district, won because he had neither of these issues. This is still a partial victory, however, because after this debacle of an election, the RNC has pledged not to fund candidates in contested primaries. I feel strongly that there must be a place for moderates in the GOP, but you don't waste them on conservative-leaning districts. Run moderates in areas where they are absolutely needed, like Connecticut - and actual moderates, not Snowe/Collins types who betray conservatism on important fiscal matters.

I was very unsure of the NYC race. I figured Bloomberg would win by less because his opponent was black and drawing heavily from that part of the Democratic base. Also, there were indeed those who liked Bloomberg but thought his term extension was wrong - as evidenced by exit polling showing his approval rating was 20 points higher than the percentage who voted for him. SurveyUSA had a poll showing Bloomberg ahead of Thompson by just nine points, but I figured enough undecideds would break for Bloomberg to give him more than a 10-point lead. As I said in my original analysis - which was far closer to the actual result and I feel stupid for deleting - money can't buy you everything.

Dick's Army Marches Along...

Last time, on Conservathink...

SCENE: The roof of Canterbury Cathedral. A large group of people, many of whom are clad in clerical garb, are frantically boarding a helicopter bearing the Vatican coat of arms and the words, "German Shepherd One".

A biplane bearing a "Coexist" bumper sticker is flying off in the distance, piloted by a rather mannish woman wearing a United Nations T-shirt.

Sensing that the biplane is about to strafe the crowd, the pilot of the helicopter shouts in a thick, Bavarian accent, "GET TO ZE CHOPPER! DO IT, NOW!!!"

***

Our special friends over at RichardDawkins.net apparently didn't take too kindly to our rather blunt criticisms of their Dear Leader's assessment of the Pope's overtures to Anglo-Catholics.

Well, it appears that through the miracle of Google, one of Dick's dowdy denizens stumbled upon my humble blog:

I couldn't help but go out and look at the reaction to this article on Catholic and other religious blogs (I guess because I'm a masochist, or something). It's about what you'd expect-- the Telegraph article mentioned above ("Richard Dawkins's latest attack on the Catholic Church is vicious and crazy. The man needs help") is typical of the tone. Some of these people are truly deranged, though.

I don't know whether one should be offended and hurt at these kinds of remarks, or proud to be hated by such people (and amused at their utter inanity). Honestly, the emotion I felt most often was pity, when I wasn't tittering over the sheer stupidity of remarks like "I won't even get into Dick's 'pimp' reference, since he is, for all intents and purposes, a whore himself, but I find it delightfully twisted that he modified the immortal words of Emma Lazarus in 'The New Colossus', perhaps the greatest poem in defence of liberty, to mock those who are indeed denied their liberty within the confines of the dying, failed experiment that is the Anglican Church." (Real quote, in a post titled "Richard Dawkins, kiss my misogynistic, bigoted, Anglo-Catholic arse." I hoped this was a Poe or at least a joke...no such luck.)

Oh, Lisa. What am I to do with you? You're so offended by my reference to Dick as a "whore", but Dick's own name-calling warrants nary a peep. Convenient, that.

See, name-calling is only name-calling if it's actually slander. If you say someone is a racist because he opposes President Obama's policies, that's slander. If you say someone is a racist because he burns crosses and effigies of his melanin-rich brethren, that's a rather fair assessment of his character.

Now, when I say Richard Dawkins is a "whore", I don't mean that he walks the mean streets of Oxford in a halter top and fishnets, offering a Cleveland steamer to any John who opposes teaching Creationism in classrooms.

No, I am referring to the Alan Grayson definition of the word. That is, "A person considered as having compromised principles for personal gain."

Dick is a scientist. Scientists are supposed to use the evidence before them to draw a conclusion. Science is a process involving logic and reason as opposed to emotion and, well, faith.

So, when Dick says "dotty" things like how Catholics are sexist, homophobic, cannibalistic paederasts, who kill Africans with AIDS and abstinence and whose women are self-hating, it leads me to wonder,

Who the diddly-f*ck does Richard Dawkins think he is?

Seriously! Dick has claimed that, even after he began his murderous rampage which specifically targeted Roman Catholic clergy and nuns (amongst millions of others), was opposed by most German Catholics (who were by no means the originators of German anti-Semitism) and wished that Germany were Islamic because Christianity was an impediment to his plans, Adolf Hitler was, in fact, a Roman Catholic!

There are only two possible reasons Dick says the things he says: He's an idiot, which is highly unlikely, given his academic credentials, or he's lying. And since we are only left with that option, we must confront why he lies about history as well as theology - such as the idea that Anglicans don't believe in Divine Eucharist (he glosses over what transubstantiation is - it's NOT synonymous with the transformation of the bread and wine; it is a philosophy about the change itself), and the Church does not lie about condoms' efficacy, which have up to a 15% failure rate, as opposed to abstinence, which has a 100% success rate - and his twisting of Benedict's call to personal responsibility during his African visit this year - which at no point mentioned condoms' efficacy - follows the anti-Catholic Left's repeated misrepresentation of the Holy Father's comments.

The only other part of this sad atheist's screed I will parse is this: I don't know whether one should be offended and hurt at these kinds of remarks, or proud to be hated by such people (and amused at their utter inanity). Honestly, the emotion I felt most often was pity, when I wasn't tittering over the sheer stupidity....

First off, hate isn't how we operate, dear. Per Luke.

I certainly don't have to like you, but for some reason, I have to love my enemies. Who was it again Who said, "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven"?

Having said all that, I wonder: Who should be pitying whom here? We have the promise of Eternal Life and subscribe to a philosophy of love and forgiveness. You look forward to eternal nothingness, an utterly empty non-existence, preceded by your philosophy of intolerance and hate.

Yes, militant atheists, you are the intolerant ones. Religious people do horrible, atrocious things in the name of their faith, they believe some silly things and yes, they do sometimes halt legitimate discussion over seemingly common-sense notions like an Earth that's older than several thousand years.

But, as a whole, they are not bad people.

Your inability to fathom a voluntary system of rules and regulations which runs contrary to your own beliefs has led you to conclude that religion is inherently evil. You're almost, pardon the term, dogmatic on the issue.

I'm not about to throw Pascal's Wager at you because, frankly, someone of strong intellectual fortitude who has determined that there is no God or gods should not feel coerced to believe in God out of fear of eternal damnation, contrary to his own rational conclusion.

So, I have my own wager.

Any atheist who can make a convincing case that an atrocity committed in the name of Christianity was possible only because of religious conviction will get me to renounce my faith as based on a faulty, indefensible system, whose very foundations are suspect, if not outright fraudulent.

Since you can't, I'm declaring victory now.

Oh, wait, am I being arrogant? Does my surety that I am correct flabbergast you? That is exactly how we feel when you do not merely proselytise for atheism but seek to - using your own word - poach converts from the faithful by tearing down their beliefs, rather than presenting a positive case for atheism.

I guess you could say that being an atheist means never having to say you're sorry.

Funny, isn't it, that the doing the exact opposite is the most important part of being a Christian?

Richard Dawkins, kiss my misogynistic, bigoted, Anglo-Catholic arse.

You know who needs a serious fisking? Richard Dawkins. Let's get started, shall we?

What major institution most deserves the title of greatest force for evil in the world? In a field of stiff competition, the Roman Catholic Church is surely up there among the leaders.

Let me congratulate Richard Dawkins for acknowledging the closed-minded, outdated notion of the binary system of Good and Evil. Nietzsche would be scandalised.

The Anglican church has at least a few shreds of decency, traces of kindness and humanity with which Jesus himself might have connected, however tenuously: a generosity of spirit, of respect for women, and of Christ-like compassion for the less fortunate.

Right, like how the Episcopal Church is now transferring funds from their charitable causes to funds dedicated to suing orthodox believers out of their houses of worship.

The Anglican church does not cleave to the dotty idea that a priest, by blessing bread and wine, can transform it literally into a cannibal feast;

If you mean we don't believe that Eucharist is literally the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, then you're just a tad off, Dick. And while you're at it, you might wish to have a word with the J-Man himself, as He didn't find His "cannibal feast" all that "dotty" in Mark 14:22-25, Matthew 26:26-29 or Luke 22:13-20.

nor to the nastier idea that possession of testicles is an essential qualification to perform the rite.

Since when have British men ever possessed testicles?

It does not send its missionaries out to tell deliberate lies to AIDS-weakened Africans, about the alleged ineffectiveness of condoms in protecting against HIV.

Dick? Condoms are indeed ineffective when HIV is widespread throughout society. Even the United Nations admits that. God (or no God, in your case) forbid the Church promote "distort[ed]" moral values, like abstinence.

Whether one agrees with him or not, there is a saintly quality in the Archbishop of Canterbury, a benignity of countenance, a well-meaning sincerity. How does Pope Ratzinger measure up? The comparison is almost embarrassing.

I'm afraid you've got it all backwards, Dick. It's Rowan who's an embarrassment, what with his kowtowing to the Brits' Islamic overlords, as opposed to Pope B-Unit (my nickname is better), who actually takes a damned stance on things, rather than simply letting society redefine Truth in the name of "tolerance".

Poaching? Of course it is poaching. What else could you call it? Maybe it will succeed.

If by "poaching", you mean "welcoming" then, yes, you're absolutely right. After all, who would want to stay in a Church where if you tell the Truth, you get called names?

If estimates are right that 1,000 Anglican clergymen will take the bait (no women, of course: they will swiftly be shown the door), what could be their motive?

See above.

For some it will be a deep-seated misogyny (although they'll re-label it with a mendacious euphemism of some kind, which they'll call 'an important point of theological principle'). They just can't stomach the idea of women priests.

I don't believe men can give birth because it's biologically impossible. Is that deep-seated sexism re-labelled with a mendacious euphemism, such as "an important point of medical principle"?

One wonders how their wives can stomach a husband whose contempt for women is so visceral that he considers them incapable even of the humble and unexacting duties of a priest.

Right. They're all unenlightened, backwards broads, you see, so they must be either ignorant or self-hating. Dick? My mother would like a word with you.

For some, the motive will be homophobic bigotry, and a consequent dislike of the efforts of decent church leaders such as the Archbishop of Canterbury to accept those whose sexual orientation happens to deviate from majority taste. Never mind that they will be joining an institution where buggering altar boys pervades the culture.

Never mind what Jesus said about marriage. Never mind what the Bible says - in the New Testament mind you! - about improper sexual relations. Never mind the fact that the Catholic Church is hardly alone in the abuse of minors (not to condone their poor handling of it but Dick is wrong to single them out as somehow exclusively and rampantly abusive).

Turning to the motives of the poachers, here we find cause for real encouragement. The Roman Catholic Church is fast running out of priests. In Ireland in 2007, 160 Catholic priests died, while only nine new recruits were ordained. To say the least, those figures don't point towards sustainability. No wonder that disgusting institution, the Roman Catholic Church, is dragging its flowing skirts in the dirt and touting for business like a common pimp: "Give me your homophobes, misogynists and pederasts. Send me your bigots yearning to be free of the shackles of humanity."

Well, you're right about one thing, Dick. Catholicism is hurting badly in the West, where your special brand of anything-goes morality and secularism is gaining "converts", shall we say. But your math is off. If 1,000 new priests were to join the ranks of the Church, that would be a rather paltry addition to the over 400,000 priests worldwide. I won't even get into Dick's "pimp" reference, since he is, for all intents and purposes, a whore himself, but I find it delightfully twisted that he modified the immortal words of Emma Lazarus in "The New Colossus", perhaps the greatest poem in defence of liberty, to mock those who are indeed denied their liberty within the confines of the dying, failed experiment that is the Anglican Church. Oh, and fun fact: Being a super-liberal, happily heretical "church" doesn't win you many new members.

Archbishop Rowan Williams is too nice for his own good. Instead of meekly sharing that ignominious platform with the poachers, he should have issued a counter-challenge: "Send us your women, yearning to be priests, who could make a strong case for being the better-qualified fifty percent of humanity; send us your decent priests, sick of trying to defend the indefensible; send them all, in exchange for our woman-haters and gay-bashers." Sounds like a good trade to me.

If by "nice", you mean "weak, indecisive and duplicitous", then right on. Anyone who disagrees with the Roman Catholic Church is free to leave. Unlike some denominations, they have held true to the Faith as instructed by Christ to the Apostles and carried on by the Church Fathers and their posterity. Anyone who dissents from Scripture and Sacred Tradition as held by Catholic doctrine really has no case, insofar as Church policy has remained largely unchanged for over 2,000 years. Anglicans, however, have seen their Faith hijacked by revisionists, heretics and other malcontents of the worst sort. They have been marginalised, scolded, robbed and otherwise abused, all in the name of "tolerance" and "equality", contrary to any semblance of either.

Damian Thompson - I don't know him, I swear - is right. Dawkins needs help. But then again, so do we. And that is why we must turn to Christ, whose Cross is our only true Help, our only hope for Salvation. Would that the revisionists, in all of their progressive "wisdom", could look at that very Cross and feel just a touch of humility, rather than engaging in the self-aggrandising, destructive behaviour which has rendered their once-respectable Church a religious chimaera, hating, rather than loving, the Faithful; enabling, rather than ameliorating, sin; damning, rather than saving, souls.

New C4P post!

Hey, y'all might want to skedaddle over to C4P, if'n y'all wanna read my latest post, I reckon.

Dr. Changelove or: How I Learned to Stop Racism and Love the ’Bama

[It's time for another episode of, "Stuff That I'm Printing in My College Newspaper at the Risk of My Life and Academic Career"!]

There is no charge more powerful or damaging in American politics than the accusation of racism. Though sometimes warranted, allegations of racism are far too common and serve little more than to shut down all civil debate.

When such an assertion is false, it becomes the equivalent of asking a man whether he still beats his wife and demanding a yes-or-no answer. The accused is forced either to ignore the charge, which will be seen as an implicit admission of guilt, or to rebut his accuser, veering the current discussion off-course into an unrelated matter – which was the exact intent of the one who made the racism declaration.

That having been said, it stands to reason that the election of the first black President would infuriate those who harbour serious malice towards minorities, and it also stands to reason that those people would oppose him and his agenda every step of the way. But there are far more Americans who have serious disagreements with the President’s policies and would be just as opposed to those policies were he white. In fact, it would be a form of racism for those opponents to support Obama’s agenda, since making an exception to their own ideology merely to celebrate the milestone of the first black President would amount to affirmative-action politics.

The opposing-Obama-is-racist line has most recently been levelled by former President Jimmy Carter, who said that the “overwhelming” portion of animosity towards Obama is racist.

This is the same Jimmy Carter whose Democratic Party primary for Georgia Governor, as noted in Stephen F. Hayward’s book, The Real Jimmy Carter, was marked with Carter’s anti-black race-baiting, including distributing grainy photographs of his opponent standing arm-in-arm with two black men in order to depress his share of the white vote; producing a leaflet noting his opponent had paid tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr.; declaring that he had “no trouble pitching” for votes of both supporters of segregationist George Wallace as well as black votes, only to later boast, “I can win this election without a single black vote”; and releasing a radio commercial in which he said he would never be the tool of any “block” vote, slurring over the word “block” so that it could be mistaken for “black.”

And this is the same Jimmy Carter whose anti-Israel best seller, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, recently received a ringing endorsement by… Osama bin Laden.

Carter’s behaviour speaks to the Left’s own insecurity on the issue of race. Many – but certainly not all – liberals feel an undeserved guilt for the sins of the past and feel an obligation not merely to defend the oppressed but to make themselves the chief – if not exclusive – defenders of those oppressed people, to the point of lambasting their detractors as illogical and bigoted.

Their guilt manifests itself in the form of a modern-day White Man’s Burden, an obligation to use government as a means of achieving some semblance of equality, even if that means sacrificing the liberty of those with the misfortune to be born into the dominant group, regardless of any lack of bigotry on those individuals’ part.

Janeane Garofalo – who once said, “If I don’t have my self-loathing, what do I have?” and whose production company is aptly called I Hate Myself – engaged in even more of her own projection when she said that Michael Steele, the current and first black Chairman of the Republican Party, “suffers from Stockholm Syndrome, which means you try and curry favour with the oppressor…. Any female or person of colour in the Republican Party is struggling with Stockholm Syndrome.”

That served as cover for her next assertion that the anti-government, anti-tax Tea Party protests are “about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of tea bagging rednecks.” Garofalo’s proof of her allegation was supposedly a single sign reading, “Whatchyoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?”

To be fair, there were multiple signs at Tea Party rallies with racial overtones – if not outright racist sentiments – in reference to the President. But that is the downside of any protest, especially one as grassroots as the Tea Party protests: You always run the risk of having a small but vocal minority who say things that make your movement look bad. By Garofalo’s logic, every anti-war protestor is an avowed Communist who believes that 9/11 was an inside job, George Bush is Hitler and Israelis and Jews are Nazi, Zionist devil pigs Hell-bent on controlling the world. And those are some the milder extremists on the extreme Left and Right.

And yes, most Tea Partiers are white, but since most political conservatives are white – for reasons there is not space to get into here – it makes sense that most of the protestors are, in fact, white. It is because of this that the notion of a black conservative, or a female conservative, or an Hispanic conservative, or an Asian conservative, or – GASP! – a gay conservative runs contrary to the Leftist narrative, for their ideology is the pinnacle of tolerance and societal equity.

Garofalo also said that “there is almost no liberal outlet for news commentary or editorialising.” Right, just like when MSNBC, being the far-Right propaganda outlet that it is, showed footage of an armed Tea Party-goer as evidence that racist white people want to do harm to the President. There was just one problem: The protestor in question was black. But MSNBC, desperate to prevent the shattering of the Leftist narrative, cut away from the footage so viewers could not see the race of the man in question.

But now, I’m belabouring the point. The fact is, not all opposition to the President is racist, and perhaps more important, not all support of him isn’t racist. By framing a non-racial debate, be it over taxes, health care or the size of government, in racial terms, the Left is engaging in both hyperbole and logical fallacy, which is precisely what racism is.

Racism – or any other form of bigotry, for that matter – is the ultimate societal hyperbole because it attempts to make all members of a group into one faceless, homogeneous mass. There has always and will always be bigots, and often, the accuser doth protest too much, revealing his own deep-seated hatred towards those different from himself, as well as his deficient intellectual capacity.

I would be remiss to point out that despite my many qualms with this President, I do believe that we can find common ground. Obama’s recent off-the-record comment that rapper/fish stick lover Kanye West is a “jackass” is probably one of the smartest things he has ever said.

Of course, I am loath to say that the pot called the kettle black, lest I be labelled a racist.