Much has been made recently about the dislike, even hatred, of President Bush amongst the European elites. The Guardian of London was sending voters in Ohio demands to vote for John Kerry, in the hopes of educating the poor ignorant masses in America's heartland. Ohioans told them to get bent.

Is this perhaps a bit of jealousy? Could it be that with a more obsequious John Kerry in the White House, Europeans hope they will be made to feel relevant and powerful again? It must be difficult to go from being the center of the world's culture and military might to a washed up bunch of has-been nations, full of socialized medicine and lazy workers. The whole of Europe combined couldn't begin to challenge the U.S. militarily. Their impotence must be frustrating, given how they rail against the U.S. like a small child. The world has moved past Europe and they just don't see it. Europe is dying, and as Mark Steyn writes in the Chicago Sun-Times:

So this is no time to vote for Europhile delusions. The Continental health and welfare systems John Kerry so admires are, in fact, part of the reason those societies are dying.

He goes on to blast this notion that Canadians have such a great heath care system and we should get our drugs from them...

I'm Canadian, so I know a thing or two about prescription drugs from Canada. Specifically speaking, I know they're American; the only thing Canadian about them is the label in French and English. How can politicians from both parties think that Americans can get cheaper drugs simply by outsourcing (as John Kerry would say) their distribution through a Canadian mailing address? U.S. pharmaceutical companies put up with Ottawa's price controls because it's a peripheral market. But, if you attempt to extend the price controls from the peripheral market of 30 million people to the primary market of 300 million people, all that's going to happen is that after approximately a week and a half there aren't going to be any drugs in Canada, cheap or otherwise

After much stonewalling, the Province of Quebec's Health Department announced this week that in the last year some 600 Quebecers had died from C. difficile, a bacterium acquired in hospital. ... It's a bacterium caused by inattention to hygiene -- by unionized, unsackable cleaners who don't clean properly; by harassed overstretched hospital staff who don't bother washing their hands as often as they should. So 600 people have been killed by the filthy squalor of disease-ridden government hospitals. That's the official number.

One thousand Americans are killed in 18 months in Iraq, and it's a quagmire. One thousand Quebecers are killed by insufficient hand-washing in their filthy, decrepit health care system, and kindly progressive Americans can't wait to bring it south of the border. If one has to die for a cause, bringing liberty to the Middle East is a nobler venture and a better bet than government health care.

Why don't people get this?

Opinion Journal. com has an interesting quote from John Kerry in the Washington Post...

Kerry's belief in working with allies runs so deep that he has maintained that the loss of American life can be better justified if it occurs in the course of a mission with international support. In 1994, discussing the possibility of U.S. troops being killed in Bosnia, he said, "If you mean dying in the course of the United Nations effort, yes, it is worth that. If you mean dying American troops unilaterally going in with some false presumption that we can affect the outcome, the answer is unequivocally no."

As James Taranto asks, does that mean that the death of a U.S. soldier is more meaningful if it happens under the auspices of the UN? This is why it so important to listen not to what John Kerry says today but to look at what he has done in the past. He may say now that he will never surrender U.S. soveriegnity to the UN, but his actions and occasional slips say otherwise. The left wants to replace "One Nation Under God" with "One Nation Under Kofui Annan".

Even the liberal members of the media have noted Teresa Heinz Kerry's unbelievable remarks regarding First Lady Laura Bush, that is that she never had a real job in adulthood, which suggest that she is either completely unaware that Mrs. Bush was a teacher and librarian (which I think count as real jobs) or willfully taking a shot at her for staying home later to raise her children. Either way, it is insulting and says an awful lot about the Kerry's elitist attitudes. Johnnie Boy is hunting geese at a farm in Ohio today, I guess we should ignore his 20 year record of opposing gun rights because he allegedly shot a goose. Just like we are required to ignore twenty years of voting against every military system that has made out country's military the strongest in the world because he went to Vietnam for a whopping 4 months.

Susan Konig takes THK to task in an editorial on NationalReview Online. Every time she opens her mouth she says something stupid. It has to be hard, seriously, when you are that wealthy and never have to watch what you say to all of a sudden have to watch every little comment. She provides constant fodder, and no doubt constant headaches, for John Kerry's campaign team.

I loved the caller to Fox News this morning who stated that she stayed home to raise her children so they would grow up to be like Laura Bush, not like Teresa Heinz Kerry.

Thank you!

A brilliant piece by Catherine Seipp today, raising the question of whether low voter turnout is such a bad thing if those who don't turn out are uninformed morons...

But why should the lazy-idiot demographic be encouraged to influence society even more than it already does?

We spend so much time in handwringing over low turnout but honestly I would rather people who can't be bothered to learn even the rudiments of the issues stay home. Granted I spend more time looking at politics than the average person, but everyone should have at least a clue about what is going on. Ultimately, if you are too stupid to know the difference between Bush and Kerry, please stay home!

Where is the outrage?

I don't suppose we will hear from the ACLU and Americans United for the Seperation of Church and State on this. As usual, another Democratic presidential nominee is working the pulpit of black churches for votes when a conservative would be tarred and feathered for daring to do the same thing.

This is especially vulgar.

Speakers avoided criticizing President Bush by name, since they were in church, but he was indirectly vilified.
Former Rep. Carrie Meek said Kerry is "fighting against liars and demons. ... He challenges the man who walks with a jaunty step." She rocked her hips in an imitation of Bush's swagger as the congregation cheered and Kerry laughed from his high-backed seat behind the pulpit.

Suppose a white politican made fun of Jesse Jackson by imitating a black person's walk or speech mannerism? I expect the PC police would be all over them. Who are the "demons and liars" she is referring to? Is it OK to call Kerry a demon? Many in America cry out against Christians speaking their minds but are OK with outright character assasination and distortion behind the pulpit, as long as liberals benefit from it.

Kerry doesn't even try to hide what he is doing...

In Florida, Kerry, who is Catholic, also attended Mass at St. James Catholic Church. Aides said it was for his own personal worship rather than for any campaigning.

The report did note that Bush did not campaign today, rather than whoring for votes in churches he would never normally step foot in like Kerry. Black Christians deserve better than to be pandered to by the likes of Kerry and Jesse Jackson.

I ran across Mark Robert's blog based on someone else's blog posting. Still checking it out, but he has some interesting stuff. He is doing a series on how the church should react to homosexuals and I think he has a good blend of standing on biblical authority and it's utter condemnation of homosexuality as well as a Christian understanding that we all sin. This passage was one of the best I have read on how the church is seen by and sees homosexuals....

A common objection to what I’ve just goes like this: “So you’re telling me that I can come to your church, but I can’t be openly gay. And you’re telling me that you will love me, but not affirm me. And you’re telling me that I can be in your church, but that I cannot be an elder or a pastor. This is a double standard. It’s not loving and it’s not inclusive.” My response is to point out that we aren’t singling out gay and lesbian people for special treatment (or mistreatment, as they might claim). This is exactly how we deal with all sinners (and we all are sinners). We invite sinners to church, but don’t affirm their sin. We seek to love sinners, but not accept their sinfulness. We allow sinners to fill our pews – otherwise nobody would be in church, including pastors – yet we do not ordain those who say that they intend to keep on sinning. To this the gay person would object, “Yes, but I don’t think my behavior is wrong!” To which I would say, “Yes, that’s the rub. That is indeed the difference. But it’s a real difference, not something we can pretend doesn’t matter. If we believed that your sexual behavior was okay, then we’d be in a completely different position altogether. But my church and I have chosen to stand on the bedrock of biblical authority. So, here we stand, and we can do no other. I’m sorry this seems so unloving to you.”

Well said. We cannot turn away homosexuals who are hurting and seeking Christ, but on the other hand we must never seem to be affirming their choice of a homosexual lifestyle. Homosexuality is a sin, like many others, but it seems to be one where people want it both ways. I get angry or jealouos and recognize it as sin. Not that it is less sinful but I recognize it and seek to avoid it. Many homosexuals seem to demand that the church ignore their sinful behavior and refuse to even admit homosexuality IS a sin. To be a Christian, one needs to turn from sin not demand sin be accepted. We all sin and always will, but you can't be forgiven if you don't think you need forgiveness.

This is scary....

Fox News is reporting that a computer disk was found in Iraq containing detailed information on schools in the United States. If we don't keep this terrorist enemy in check, how soon can it be before we suffer the horror of a Beslan in the U.S.? I wonder where it came from, since according to Kerry we aren't really fighting terrorists in Iraq....

Simply an excellent piece in the National Review today. Paul Kengor looks at the hypocrisy of the Left when it comes to the so-called separation of church and state. As Kangor rightly points out, if Bush even walks near a church pulpit he is derided and attacked as a zealot seeking to turn America into a theocracy. Yet Democrats routinely show up in the pulpits of black churches making overtly political speeches and there isn't a peep from the media.

Al Gore was the worst perpetrator of this, but Kerry is starting to show up in predominately black church pulpits. The worst part abotu this is the fact that Kerry has little business speaking on matters of faith when he goes to such lengths to distance himself from his own faith. Look at his speeches in the northeast and see how many references to his "faith" you find. Some of rhetoric that Gore spewed included suggestions that Bush was responsible for the dragging death of James Byrd in Texas. Keep in mind these are the same Democrats who cried foul when Bush's father rightly pointed to the example of Willie Horton as proof that "Iron Mike" Dukakis was soft on crime.

Moving on to Pittsburgh, on November 4, Gore held a rally at the Wesley AME Zion Church. Reverend Gore ascended the pulpit, where he screamed: "Then they rose up like a mighty army and they went to the polls! Let us vote together on Tuesday!" As he had before other African-American audiences, Gore pointed to the murder of James Byrd Jr., a black Texan dragged to his death by three white men in 1998 during the governorship of George W. Bush. He warned of the strict-constructionist judges that a President Bush might appoint, judges of an earlier era when a black American was considered three-fifths of a person.

Gore also made this interesting observation....

From there, the vice president traveled south to address a congregation in Memphis, where he seemed to boil down the choice between him and Bush to one between good and evil. "Deep within us," he said, "we each have the capacity for good and evil. I am taught that good overcomes evil if we choose that outcome. I feel it coming. I feel a message from this gathering that on Tuesday we're going to carry Tennessee and Memphis is going to lead the way." (Remember: George W. Bush cannot describe Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as evil; but Bush himself can be described as evil by Democrats.)

Can you imagine the outcry if you replaced Gore with Bush as the speaker and Bush with Kerry as the target? Oh the hate speech, the evil jingoism, the simple minded black and white absolutism!

Bush is a theocractic Nazi who must be kept as far away from the pulpit as possible but Kerry is a man who should be heard in every pulpit in America? The hypocrisy is amazing! Even noted Christian Hillary Rodham Clinton got in the act...

It wasn't just Gore who had been prescient: According to the New York Times, senatorial candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton stumped in seven churches in seven hours on Election Day alone.

Double standard anyone?

ZOWIE!

I didn't see the VP debate last night but by most accounts Cheney kicked around Edwards, as I expected eh would, coming across as a serious and mature statemen to Edwards boyish looks and inexperience. Cheney slammed Edwards for not showing up to work in the Senate, for his work in driving OB/GYNs out of business through frivolous lawsuits and made a great point that Kerry changed course on Iraq when it seemed Howard Dean was gaining ground and he needed to look more dovish. I loved this quote from David Frum...

Yes it's true: The Bush administration has sometimes changed its mind about how to fight this war. Kerry can't make up his mind whether to fight it--or even whether there's a war on or not.

Edwards is the candidate of the future, but not now. He will be very tough when he runs for the nomination in 2008 and will give Hillary a run for her money. I hope President Bush takes his cue from Cheney and takes the gloves off a bit in the next debate.

Here is another doozie. This one is from mormon supreme leader Gordon Hinckley. Hinckley just lost his wife and this was his comment...

"There is no association richer than the companionship of husband and wife, and nothing more portentous for good or evil than the unending consequences of marriage," he said.

I love and revere my wife as much as any man, but the richest and most precious association in my life is the relationship I have with Christ. My wife is my companion, my best friend and the mother of my precious children, but Christ is my Lord and my Savior. When you think you are going to become gods in the next life, no wonder you place the relationship with your celestial spouse over Christ. After all, who will Christ be to you when you are a god with your own world full of your creations?

Egad!

I am reading over the Salt Lake Tribune's coverage of last weekend's mormon General Conference, and came across this gem of a quote...

" 'We are teaching a lady who is blind and nearly deaf. She wants to know if the Book of Mormon is true. What shall we do?' asked a zone leader in England [once]. . . . I said to the zone leader, 'Have this sister hold her copy of the Book of Mormon and turn its pages very slowly. When she has done this, have her ask if it is true.' Though she could not read nor hear the words, she felt the spirit and power of the Book of Mormon, and it changed her life." Elder H. Bryan Richards Second Quorum of the Seventy

So let me get this straight. So now we don't even have to read or hear the words of the Book of Mormon to know that it is "true"? She really could be flipping through a recipe book or Maxim magazine, and never know the difference. The Bible is God's Word, but it is not the book itself or the paper or the print, it is the Living Word that is Holy. This exemplifies the inane theology of mormonism. You are asking God to tell you the truth of a book that you cannot read and have not heard. I would never ask someone to tell me the Bible is true by thumbing through it's pages. You know the Bible is true by hearing the Word and by God changing your heart. This makes the paper and binding into some sort of magic talisman, replacing the Living Word with an inanimate object. If that is not idolatry I don't know what is!