Many on the far left are beside themselves because Barack Obama selected well-known pastor Rick Warren to give his inaugural invocation.  But they’re not the only ones howling at the moon – Southern Baptist Pastor Wiley Drake took a swipe at Warren this week, saying that God is going to punish the author of The Purpose Driven Life, among other books, for speaking at President-elect Obama’s inauguration.

Sigh.  It’s kooks like this Wiley character that give Christianity – and Christians – a bad name.  Judge not, Mr.| MORE ›

Nowadays, people everywhere greatly enjoy playing the “the worst” or “greatest” in history. TV stations worldwide present the public with a couple of choices, say 10, of “the greatest” in this or that field, the public thinks about the subject for 20 seconds or so, votes, and in the end, “the greatest” or “worst” are generally individuals who lived recently or who still live: the people’s ‘memory’ is limited, it seems.| MORE ›

Long the natural home to trendy lefty causes, Seattle has embraced a new level of environmentalist insanity by refusing to use salt to melt iced-over roads.  The claimed reason is the protection of Puget Sound, though water quality experts insist that there is little chance of this single application of road salt (in response to a truly unusual snow event) damaging that body of water:| MORE ›

Stratfor.com founder George Friedman gives an interesting take on how the Washington Post covered Watergate in the early 1970s and the role ‘Deep Throat’ played in destroying Nixon. Food for thought.

By George Friedman

Mark Felt died last week at the age of 95. For those who don’t recognize that name, Felt was the “Deep Throat” of Watergate fame.| MORE ›

More sanity on Warren:

It’s unfortunate that some gay activists (and their allies on the left) have let their disagreement with the prominent pastor on this one issue color their reaction to the president-elect’s choice. To be sure, had Warren expressed his support of Proposition 8 in the hateful tones of some of the proposition’s proponents, these activists would have a point.

But, in coming out against gay marriage, Warren didn’t attack gay people.| MORE ›

America’s War on Drugs is a known failure and it’s south-of-the-border derivative is literally the cause of blood – and decapitated heads – in the streets of Mexico.  Drug lords there regularly defy the government’s efforts to stop narco-terrorism and Sunday dumped twelve headless, tortured bodies in Chilpancingo along with a love note to police reading, “For every one of mine that you kill, I will kill 10.”  When will enough be enough in the failed attempt to prohibit drug use in this country by force of arms?

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When the U.S. government announced weeks ago that it would bail out banks in trouble, many commentators, including yours truly, welcomed it arguing that if banks would collapse they would take the entire U.S. economy with them.

At the end of 2008 we can see that the bailout of banks has done what it meant to do: it has prevented major banks from collapsing, first and foremost, and it has prevented the entire economy from falling in one sudden move.| MORE ›

Anthony Dick, writing for National Review Online, argues that pragmatism is in style these days, following the election of Barack Obama.  But he also says that some of those claiming to be pragmatic do so by simply ignoring the ideological viewpoints they already have and claim to have thrown them out completely.

I think it’s a good article, and I agree with some of its points, but it misses others.

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Newt Gingrich is a strange fellow:| MORE ›

Al Jazeera reports that the United States will send between 20,000 and 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan in order to fight and, hopefully defeat the Taliban.

Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said the troops would be in place by the summer of 2009.

General David McKiernan asked for 20,000 more troops earlier this month. After some debate, the Pentagon approved his request. (more…)