Wisdom For The Ages

1. The world is a dangerous place to live — not because of the people who are evil but because of the people who don't do anything about it. — Albert Einstein

2. The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it. — George Orwell

3. History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap. — Ronald Reagan

4. The terror most people are concerned with is the IRS. — Malcolm Forbes

5. There is nothing so incompetent, ineffective, arrogant, expensive, and wasteful as an unreasonable, unaccountable, and unrepentant government monopoly. — A Patriot

6. Visualize World Peace — Through Firepower!

7. Nothing says sincerity like a Carrier Strike Group and a U.S. Marine Air-Ground Task Force.

8. One cannot be reasoned out of a position that he has not first been reasoned into.

2007-11-27

Saudi Arabia --- No. 1 Killer of U.S. Troops !

Continued U.S. support of Saudi Arabia, the No. 1 killer of U.S. troops in Iraq, is one of the Bush Administration’s most cataclysmic blunders! IT IS OUTRAGIOUS! See below and read more -- Let's Be Clear --- Saudi Arabia IS The Enemy !

AND THIS JUST IN: Saudi Arabia Frees 1,500 al-Qaeda Terrorists

Saudi Insurgency

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
November 26, 2007

War On Terror: New U.S. military data show, conclusively, that Saudi Arabia more than any other foreign state (Iran included) has fed the insurgency in Iraq. The double cross goes on.

Related Topics: Middle East & North Africa | Iran | Global War On Terror

Over the past 12 months, Saudi Arabia accounted for the largest number of foreign fighters joining al-Qaida in Iraq. The kingdom supplied 305 jihadists and suicide bombers in that period, according to a trove of documents U.S. forces recovered in a recent border raid.

Only 11 Iranian nationals, in contrast, are in U.S. custody. This fits with earlier reporting that 61% of the suicide bombers in Iraq are Saudi nationals.

The confiscated documents list the hometowns of the jihadists. The lion's share hail from Riyadh, where the Saudi government insists sending fighters next door to join the insurgency is not official kingdom policy.

Yet Saudi clerics have freely exhorted the faithful to go to Iraq to kill the "infidels" and resist the "American occupation." The most famous fatwah was signed by 26 senior Saudi clerics in November 2004.

Perhaps all this is being done behind the king's back. More likely it was with a wink and a nod from him, for it was King Abdullah who earlier this year in a speech to fellow Arabs hit on the "illegitimate foreign occupation" of Iraq.

Saudi also has trucked in millions in cash to Iraq to fund the insurgency, a role confirmed by the Iraq Study Group in a throw-away line buried deep inside its report. "Funding for the Sunni insurgency comes from private individuals within Saudi Arabia," the report said.

Meanwhile, Riyadh just released some 1,500 jailed terrorist suspects after they "repented." That's on top of the dozens of al-Qaida detainees the Saudi government freed after we agreed to return them to Saudi custody from Gitmo. Some of them have rejoined the jihad against the West. No doubt the 1,500 supposed repenters will soon see action in Iraq, as well.

Again, besides the Baathists and other Iraqi nationalists, the No. 1 killer of U.S. soldiers in Iraq are Saudi nationals.

More than Iran, more than Syria, more than any other outside enemy, our supposed "ally" Saudi Arabia is responsible for destabilizing Iraq.

So why hasn't the administration held a press conference to denounce Saudi?

Why aren't we threatening sanctions, or at least canceling the additional 20,000 student visas we promised Riyadh for allegedly helping us "crack down" on terrorism. Forget about Iraq, those thousands of young Saudi men could just as easily infiltrate the U.S. homeland as jihadi fighters.

2007-11-12

al-Qaida Fundraisers for Hillary

Hillary's Jihadist Donors

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
November 09, 2007

Election 2008: Looks like Hillary Clinton's vetting of campaign donations still needs work. FEC records show she's taken cash from Islamists so tainted that past Democrat candidates have returned their money.

Why You Don't Know the Facts !

The main-stream news media is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the hard-left as are U.S. universities and the leadership of the Democratic party. If you’re not outraged, you’re just not paying attention !!!

Is Media Bias An Established Fact Now That Even Harvard Sees It?

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
November 09, 2007

A new study finding the media give far more favorable coverage to Democrats than Republicans could have settled once and for all the debate over whether the news we get has a liberal bias.

After all, it was done by the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government — hardly a bastion of conservative orthodoxy.

But given the study's reception in the mainstream media, it's doubtful the issue has been put to rest. Like similar studies in the past, Harvard's went largely uncovered. A Nexis search found 20 news mentions of the report, with only a handful highlighting the revelation of extreme bias.

This, of course, backs the presumption of many news consumers that bias plays a key role in what media put out and hold back. In this case, a bias in favor of their own industry resulted in the burying of a study that places the industry in a bad light.

But one of the study's main findings — that political coverage is colored with a distinctly liberal bias — has been documented for years, if not decades. As such, the Harvard findings aren't nearly as surprising as the source.

Perhaps it's time, then, to stop debating whether the press is biased and move on to greater questions of how the bias is manifested and what effect it might be having on public discourse and opinion. In this series, IBD will examine these issues.

The Harvard study — conducted with the Project for Excellence in Journalism, part of the Pew Research Center for People and the Press — examined 1,742 presidential campaign stories appearing from January through May in 48 print, online, network TV, cable and radio news outlets.

Among many findings, it determined that Democrats got more coverage than Republicans (49% of the stories vs. 31%). It also found the "tone" of the coverage was more positive for Democrats (35% to 26% for Republicans).

"In other words," the authors say, "not only did the Republicans receive less coverage overall, the attention they did get tended to be more negative than that of Democrats. And in some specific media genres, the difference is particularly striking."

Those "genres" include the most mainstream of media — newspapers and TV. Fully 59% of front-page stories about Democrats in 11 newspapers had a "clear, positive message vs. 11% that carried a negative tone."

For "top-tier" candidates, the difference was even more apparent: Barack Obama's coverage was 70% positive and 9% negative, and Hillary Clinton's was 61% positive and 13% negative.

By contrast, 40% of the stories on Republican candidates were negative and 26% positive.

On TV, evening network newscasts gave 49% of their campaign coverage to the Democrats and 28% to Republicans. As for tone, 39.5% of the Democratic coverage was positive vs. 17.1%, while 18.6% of the Republican coverage was positive and 37.2% negative.

These findings are in line with a number of other studies that date back to the early 1970s:

• In 1972, "The News Twisters" by Edith Efron analyzed every prime-time network news show before the 1968 election and found coverage tilted 8 to 1 against Nixon on ABC, 10 to 1 on NBC and 16 to 1 on CBS.

• In 1984, Public Opinion magazine found that Reagan got 7,230 seconds of negative coverage and just 730 seconds of positive; Mondale's positive press totaled 1,330 seconds, vs. 1,050 negative.

• In 1986, "The Media Elite" surveyed 240 journalists at virtually every major media outlet and found that in presidential elections from 1964 to 1976, 86% of top journalists voted Democratic. A 2001 update found 76% voted for Dukakis in 1988 and 91% went for Clinton in 1992.

• A 1992 Freedom Forum poll showed 89% of Washington reporters and bureau chiefs voting for Clinton in '92 and only 7% for George H.W. Bush.

• A 2003 Pew survey found 34% of national journalists called themselves liberal and 7% conservative. By 7 to 1, they also felt they weren't critical enough of President Bush.

• In 2005, a study of bias by professors at UCLA, Stanford and the University of Chicago determined that only one media outlet — Fox News Special Report — could be tagged "right of center."

2007-11-09

"Government IS the problem!" Ronald Reagan

Private Sector Versus Public: No Comparison

By LARRY ELDER
November 08, 2007

The story you are about to read is true. The names have been changed to protect the bureaucrats.

A few months ago, I met a contractor in a bar. He told me about his business, and I asked him how many people he employed. He said, "Forty-nine. If I have one more, then the federal Family Medical Leave Act and the California Family Rights Act kick in. Then if somebody goes out, I have to hold his job open for months, whether I can afford to keep him or not. That's bull----."

So here we are. A man that wants to hire more people refuses to do so, because an additional hire takes a hammer to his profit margins.

I recently visited a friend who lives in the Bay Area. I got through security at Los Angeles International Airport, even though my carry-on toiletry bag included hair paste, toothpaste and deodorant. All went through the security screening, no problem.

On my return flight through San Francisco Airport, however, security made me open my toiletry bag, and I received stern instructions to — in the future — place stuff like shampoo, hair paste, toothpaste, sunblock and deodorant in a zip-lock plastic bag.

"No one told me to do that on the way up here," I said. The security screener said, "Those are the rules. Somebody simply didn't follow them."

Not long ago the government released results of a test run last year to determine the efficiency of airport security at detecting fake bombs.

The Transportation Security Administration report reveals that screeners at LAX failed to find fake bombs in 75% of tests. Chicago O'Hare screeners failed more than 60%.

But only 20% of the bombs made it through security at the five U.S. airports allowed to use private firms to run their security screenings.

Contractors for those five airports are reimbursed for their actual costs, with profit from awards based on performance. San Francisco, coincidentally, uses private screeners, while Los Angeles uses government employees.

So which screeners were more efficient — government employees or private ones?

Now consider health care. Great Britain's taxpayer-funded National Health Service (NHS) covers the medical needs of every British citizen in the country's population of 61 million. Yet 60,000 Britons traveled abroad for medical care in 2006. Another 70,000 are expected to do so this year. By 2010, experts estimate the number to increase to 200,000.

Credit the frustration of interminably long wait-lists and inadequate care. According to the London Times, the NHS "is in deep trouble, mired in scandal and incompetence, despite the injection of billions of pounds of taxpayers' money."

What about government "disaster" relief? After the 9/11 attacks, the Small Business Administration lent $1.2 billion dollars to more than 10,000 companies claiming to be hurt as a result of the terrorist hijackings. Four years later, $245 million — or 20% of the loan money — was in default.

The loans written off by the government included $992,000 to an Atlanta hotel, $620,000 to a Maine broccoli farm, $985,000 to a Florida boat dealer, and $38,900 to a Lubbock, Texas, computer store.

By contrast, the typical private sector nonperforming loans percentage is 1.5% for FDIC-insured bank loans and 4.3% for credit card loans. If a bank CEO delivered a nonpayment rate over 20% to his board of directors, well, can you say, "You're fired"?

Government agencies like FEMA go from inefficient overaction to inefficient under-action. After California's 1994 Northridge earthquake, FEMA sent thousands of homeowners unsolicited checks up to $3,450 because they lived in zip codes supposedly hard-hit by the quake.

When criticized, FEMA defended their generosity and denied making mistakes in the giveaway, because they "received very, very few calls from people who felt they didn't need the aid." You think?!

Why the reluctance to rely on private charity?

Before Hurricane Katrina struck, Home Depot's "war room" transferred high-need emergency items like batteries, lumber, flashlights and generators to distribution centers around the strike area. Afterward, Home Depot teamed up with the Red Cross and handed out much-needed items, including pet supplies.

Wal-Mart handed out $30 coupons to Katrina evacuees, and refilled medication for patients with containers from valid prescriptions. Using its huge database of consumers' past purchases, Wal-Mart determined which goods people needed most after a hurricane.

Because of its advance logistics planning, the retail giant quickly moved in to hard-hit areas with mini Wal-Marts, handing out goods. The hurricane shut down 126 Wal-Mart facilities. A little over a week later, the company re-opened all but 14.

More government or more private sector — you choose.

2007-11-07

Why We Fight

APPENDIX No. 1

Introduction

The Iraq War Resolution was the Joint Resolution of Congress, passed on October 11, 2002, that allowed George W.
Bush to invade Iraq. Initiated as H.J.RES.114, it was signed by Bush and became Public Law 107-243 on 10/16/2002.

The resolution numbers are H.J.RES.114 (House) and S.J.RES.46 (Senate).

107th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. J. RES. 46
To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
October 2, 2002

Mr. LIEBERMAN (for himself, Mr. WARNER, Mr. BAYH, Mr. MCCAIN, Mr. MCCONNELL, Mr. DOMENICI, Mr. HUTCHINSON, Ms. LANDRIEU, Mr. ALLARD, Mr. HELMS, and Mr. MILLER) introduced the following joint resolution; which was read the first time

Editorial Comment: No where in the joint resolution does it state, affirm, or suggest that Iraq had active nuclear weapons.

JOINT RESOLUTION

To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.

Whereas in 1990 in response to Iraq's war of aggression against and illegal occupation of Kuwait, the United States forged a coalition of nations to liberate Kuwait and its people in order to defend the national security of the United States and enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq;

Whereas after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into a United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement pursuant to which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for international terrorism;

Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to

Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998;

Whereas in 1998 Congress concluded that Iraq's continuing weapons of mass destruction programs threatened vital United States interests and international peace and security, declared Iraq to be in `material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations' and urged the President `to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations' (Public Law 105-235); Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolutions of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace and security in the region, by refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait;

Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people;

Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its continuing hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush and by firing on many thousands of occasions on United States and Coalition Armed Forces engaged in enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council;

Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of American citizens;

Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations;

Whereas Iraq's demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by the United States to defend itself;

Whereas Congress in the Authorization of Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1) has authorized the President `to use United States Armed Forces pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) in order to achieve implementation of Security Council Resolutions 660, 661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, and 677';

Whereas in December 1991, Congress expressed its sense that it `supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 as being consistent with the Authorization of Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1),' that Iraq's repression of its civilian population violates United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 and `constitutes a continuing threat to the peace, security, and stability of the Persian Gulf region,' and that Congress, `supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688';

Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime;

Whereas on September 12, 2002, President Bush committed the United States to `work with the United Nations Security Council to meet our common challenge' posed by Iraq and to `work for the necessary resolutions,' while also making clear that `the Security Council resolutions will be enforced, and the just demands of peace and security will be met, or action will be unavoidable'; Whereas the United States is determined to prosecute the war on terrorism and Iraq's ongoing support for international terrorist groups combined with its development of weapons of mass destruction in direct violation of its obligations under the 1991 cease-fire and other United Nations Security Council resolutions make clear that it is in the national security interests of the United States and in furtherance of the war on terrorism that all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions be enforced, including through the use of force if necessary;

Whereas Congress has taken steps to pursue vigorously the war on terrorism through the provision of authorities and funding requested by the President to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;

Whereas the President and Congress are determined to continue to take all appropriate actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;

Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States, as Congress recognized in the joint resolution on Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40); and

Whereas it is in the national security of the United States to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This joint resolution may be cited as the `Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq'. SEC. 2. SUPPORT FOR UNITED STATES DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS.

The Congress of the United States supports the efforts by the President to--

(1) strictly enforce through the United Nations Security Council all relevant Security Council resolutions applicable to Iraq and encourages him in those efforts; and

(2) obtain prompt and decisive action by the Security Council to ensure that Iraq abandons its strategy of delay, evasion and noncompliance and promptly and strictly complies with all relevant Security Council resolutions.

SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.

(a) AUTHORIZATION- The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to--

(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and

(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq.

(b) PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION- In connection with the exercise of the authority granted in subsection (a) to use force the President shall, prior to such exercise or as soon there after as may be feasible, but not later than 48 hours after exercising such authority, make available to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his determination that--

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq or (B) is not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

(2) acting pursuant to this resolution is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorists attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION- Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.

(2) APPLICABILITY OF OTHER REQUIREMENTS- Nothing in this resolution supersedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.

SEC. 4. REPORTS TO CONGRESS.

(a) The President shall, at least once every 60 days, submit to the Congress a report on matters relevant to this joint resolution, including actions taken pursuant to the exercise of authority granted in section 2 and the status of planning for efforts that are expected to be required after such actions are completed, including those actions described in section 7 of Public Law 105-338 (the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998).

(b) To the extent that the submission of any report described in subsection (a) coincides with the submission of any other report on matters relevant to this joint resolution otherwise required to be submitted to Congress pursuant to the reporting requirements of Public Law 93-148 (the War Powers Resolution), all such reports may be submitted as a single consolidated report to the Congress.

(c) To the extent that this information required by section 3 of Public Law 102-1 is included in the report required by this section, such report shall be considered as meeting the requirements of section 3 of Public Law 102-1.

2007-11-06

Abortion Isn't a Religious Issue.

Abortion Isn't a Religious Issue

Evangelicals are adamant, but religion really has nothing to say about the issue.

By Garry Wills
November 4, 2007, LA Times

What makes opposition to abortion the issue it is for each of the GOP presidential candidates is the fact that it is the ultimate "wedge issue" -- it is nonnegotiable. The right-to-life people hold that it is as strong a point of religion as any can be. It is religious because the Sixth Commandment (or the Fifth by Catholic count) says, "Thou shalt not kill." For evangelical Christians, in general, abortion is murder. That is why what others think, what polls say, what looks practical does not matter for them. One must oppose murder, however much rancor or controversy may ensue.

But is abortion murder? Most people think not. Evangelicals may argue that most people in Germany thought it was all right to kill Jews. But the parallel is not valid. Killing Jews was killing persons. It is not demonstrable that killing fetuses is killing persons. Not even evangelicals act as if it were. If so, a woman seeking an abortion would be the most culpable person. She is killing her own child. But the evangelical community does not call for her execution.

About 10% of evangelicals, according to polls, allow for abortion in the case of rape or incest. But the circumstances of conception should not change the nature of the thing conceived. If it is a human person, killing it is punishing it for something it had nothing to do with. We do not kill people because they had a criminal parent.

Nor did the Catholic Church treat abortion as murder in the past. If it had, late-term abortions and miscarriages would have called for treatment of the well-formed fetus as a person, which would require baptism and a Christian burial. That was never the practice. And no wonder. The subject of abortion is not scriptural. For those who make it so central to religion, this seems an odd omission. Abortion is not treated in the Ten Commandments -- or anywhere in Jewish Scripture. It is not treated in the Sermon on the Mount -- or anywhere in the New Testament. It is not treated in the early creeds. It is not treated in the early ecumenical councils.

Lacking scriptural guidance, St. Thomas Aquinas worked from Aristotle's view of the different kinds of animation -- the nutritive (vegetable) soul, the sensing (animal) soul and the intellectual soul. Some people used Aristotle to say that humans therefore have three souls. Others said that the intellectual soul is created by human semen.

Aquinas denied both positions. He said that a material cause (semen) cannot cause a spiritual product. The intellectual soul (personhood) is directly created by God "at the end of human generation." This intellectual soul supplants what had preceded it (nutritive and sensory animation). So Aquinas denied that personhood arose at fertilization by the semen. God directly infuses the soul at the completion of human formation.

Much of the debate over abortion is based on a misconception -- that it is a religious issue, that the pro-life advocates are acting out of religious conviction. It is not a theological matter at all. There is no theological basis for defending or condemning abortion. Even popes have said that the question of abortion is a matter of natural law, to be decided by natural reason. Well, the pope is not the arbiter of natural law. Natural reason is.

John Henry Newman, a 19th century Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism, once wrote that "the pope, who comes of revelation, has no jurisdiction over nature." The matter must be decided by individual conscience, not by religious fiat. As Newman said: "I shall drink to the pope, if you please -- still, to conscience first, and to the pope afterward."

If we are to decide the matter of abortion by natural law, that means we must turn to reason and science, the realm of Enlightened religion. But that is just what evangelicals want to avoid. Who are the relevant experts here? They are philosophers, neurobiologists, embryologists. Evangelicals want to exclude them because most give answers they do not want to hear. The experts have only secular expertise, not religious conviction. They, admittedly, do not give one answer -- they differ among themselves, they are tentative, they qualify. They do not have the certitude that the religious right accepts as the sign of truth.

So evangelicals take shortcuts. They pin everything on being pro-life. But one cannot be indiscriminately pro-life.

If one claimed, in the manner of Albert Schweitzer, that all life deserved moral respect, then plants have rights, and it might turn out that we would have little if anything to eat. And if one were consistently pro-life, one would have to show moral respect for paramecia, insects, tissue excised during a medical operation, cancer cells, asparagus and so on. Harvesting carrots, on a consistent pro-life hypothesis, would constitute something of a massacre.

Opponents of abortion will say that they are defending only human life. It is certainly true that the fetus is human life. But so is the semen before it fertilizes; so is the ovum before it is fertilized. They are both human products, and both are living things. But not even evangelicals say that the destruction of one or the other would be murder.

Defenders of the fetus say that life begins only after the semen fertilizes the egg, producing an embryo. But, in fact, two-thirds of the embryos produced this way fail to live on because they do not embed in the womb wall. Nature is like fertilization clinics -- it produces more embryos than are actually used. Are all the millions of embryos that fail to be embedded human persons?

The universal mandate to preserve "human life" makes no sense. My hair is human life -- it is not canine hair, and it is living. It grows. When it grows too long, I have it cut. Is that aborting human life? The same with my growing human fingernails. An evangelical might respond that my hair does not have the potential to become a person. True. But semen has the potential to become a person, and we do not preserve every bit of semen that is ejaculated but never fertilizes an egg.

The question is not whether the fetus is human life but whether it is a human person, and when it becomes one. Is it when it is capable of thought, of speech, of recognizing itself as a person, or of assuming the responsibilities of a person? Is it when it has a functioning brain? Aquinas said that the fetus did not become a person until God infused the intellectual soul. A functioning brain is not present in the fetus until the end of the sixth month at the earliest.

Not surprisingly, that is the earliest point of viability, the time when a fetus can successfully survive outside the womb.

Whether through serendipity or through some sort of causal connection, it now seems that the onset of a functioning central nervous system with a functioning cerebral cortex and the onset of viability occur around the same time -- the end of the second trimester, a time by which 99% of all abortions have already occurred.

Opponents of abortion like to show sonograms of the fetus reacting to stimuli. But all living cells have electric and automatic reactions. These are like the reactions of Terri Schiavo when she was in a permanent vegetative state. Aquinas, following Aristotle, called the early stage of fetal development vegetative life. The fetus has a face long before it has a brain. It has animation before it has a command center to be aware of its movements or to experience any reaction as pain.

These are difficult matters, on which qualified people differ. It is not enough to say that whatever the woman wants should go. She has a responsibility to consider whether and when she may have a child inside her, not just a fetus. Certainly by the late stages of her pregnancy, a child is ready to respond with miraculous celerity to all the personal interchanges with the mother that show a brain in great working order.

Given these uncertainties, who is to make the individual decision to have an abortion? Religious leaders? They have no special authority in the matter, which is not subject to theological norms or guidance. The state? Its authority is given by the people it represents, and the people are divided on this. Doctors? They too differ. The woman is the one closest to the decision. Under Roe vs. Wade, no woman is forced to have an abortion. But those who have decided to have one are able to.

Some objected to Karl Rove's use of abortion to cement his ecumenical coalition, on the grounds that this was injecting religion into politics. The supreme irony is that, properly understood, abortion is not even a religious issue. But that did not matter to Rove. All he cared about was that it worked. For a while.

Garry Wills is the author of numerous books, most recently "Head and Heart: American Christianities," from which this article is adapted.

US Tax Code --- Root of All Evil

Tax Code Is Big Reason For Weak Dollar

By ERNEST S. CHRISTIAN AND GARY A. ROBBINS
November 05, 2007

The inherent strength of the peculiarly American version of free enterprise is shown by how long and how well the U.S. economy has been able to withstand the constant battering by wrong-headed government policies — but the bulwarks are starting to weaken.

Once upon a time the "greenback" was the world's premier currency. Now the dollar is cheaper in value than both the Euro and the British pound.

In recent months, it has twice hit record lows. Every time our currency cheapens, the dollar price of oil and everything we import goes up.

With less purchasing power in the global marketplace, we Americans are poorer than we were before. We lose confidence in ourselves and stature in the eyes of others.

Currencies rise and fall against one another in international exchange markets on an almost daily basis and for a variety of reasons — including the recent expansion of the money supply by the Federal Reserve.

But the long-term weakness of the dollar is fundamentally the result of two failings.

First, we Americans do not save enough to meet the economy's requirements for capital investments.

We must, therefore, each year acquire from other countries about $700 billion of capital to fill the hole left by our profligacy. Second, and corollary to our lack of saving and investment, we consume more than we produce.

We must, therefore, acquire from other countries not only large amounts of their savings but also large amounts of their goods and services.

Because our exports (dollars flowing in, goods flowing out) are much less than our imports (dollars flowing out, goods flowing in), there is an oversupply of dollars in the international market that drives down the price.

The federal government is strongly implicated in America's spendthrift status, its enormous trade deficit, the weak dollar and the fact that most Americans are less well-off than they should be.

More than a hundred years ago, Henry David Thoreau (hardly a right-wing ideologue) had already tumbled to the sad truth about government.

He wrote: "The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in the way."

Insofar as profligacy is concerned, the federal government leads by example. For 24 of the past 30 years, it has run a substantial budget deficit, having spent more than it takes in in revenue — and when it does so, it reduces national savings.

Federal budget deficits are dissaving by the government in the same way that individuals dissave when they spend more than they earn. Most Americans follow the government's example.

Those who rebel and who do save and invest are punished with extra taxes. The government has for decades deliberately taxed income that is saved and invested far more heavily than income that is immediately consumed.

Gross private savings has been less than gross private investment for 26 of the past 30 years.

Not only do taxes on savings and investment weaken the dollar, they slow the growth of the private economy — often costing Americans $3 billion in lost incomes and jobs for every $1 billion of revenue yield to the government. The total cost of tax-induced collateral damage to the economy is about $2.5 trillion per year.

Now the Democrats in control of Congress, led by New York Rep. Charles Rangel, are preparing to kick up the deadweight loss to the economy by another $2.9 trillion.

That's a $2,600 annual whack for every family in America for the next 10 years — and that's only for starters.

To make matters worse — especially insofar as concerns the trade deficit — the government heavily taxes the export of American-made goods, making it hard for companies to compete in the global markets from their home base in America.

But when American companies flee this country and operate abroad — because of the penalties on exports or for other reasons — they get a tax holiday from the U.S. government, provided they reinvest their foreign-source profits abroad to the benefit of some other country's economy.

Woe be unto them, however, if they bring the money home to reinvest in America. The government will tax them.

No wonder the annual U.S. trade deficit is about $0.7 trillion and is equal to nearly 6% of America's entire gross domestic product. And no wonder those in other countries are downgrading their view of the American economy and downgrading the dollar.

Christian, an attorney, was a deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury in the Ford administration. Robbins, an economist, served at the Treasury Department in the Reagan administration. Both are adjunct scholars at the Heritage Foundation.