Happy New Year everyone!

Here are two views of Higbee's Beach, on the West Coast of Cape May, New Jersey at sunset.

That's all for this year, and thanks for coming!

If there's one thing I can't stand, it's to think something that you think is a new, original thought only to discover that some equally original (in this case, more original) asshole has thought it first!

The other day, I was thinking along the lines of original intent behind the original intent of the original philosophy behind the original philosophy of the founders and VOILA! I thought I had an original thought!

Not a thought really; just a new word. It occurred to me while thinking about matters which go to the heart of the increasingly tired argument that the Declaration of Independence trumps the Constitution (or is allowed to rewrite it). According to this thinking, modernistic judges have so mangled the "original meaning" of the Constitution, (meaning not the words but the original "philosophy" of the Constitution, as expressed by the founders in the Declaration of Independence) that it is necessary to "save" the Constitution by rewriting it according to this "Original Philosophy." Contrary to what many might believe, this philosophy is not what was actually written in the Declaration, but rather, what certain phraseology, as interpreted by certain scholars, reveals about the actual philosophy of the founding fathers. This philosophy, it is argued, should control not merely the meaning of the Declaration, but should be allowed to override and control the meaning of the Constitution -- whenever Those Who Know Most About These Things see fit.

But I stray from my un-original thought, and what I thought was a new word. It occurred to me that to simplify thought, and to help spread the meme faster, the convoluted argument -- that Unpopular Interpretations Of The Constitution Can Be Nullified At Any Time By Resorting To Our Interpretations Of The Declaration -- might best be reduced to a single word:

UNDECLARATIONAL!

Lest I forget (and be accused of stealing people's thoughts), here's a disappearing Google cache link to the guy who stole anticipated my new word back in March:

The people on the forum who are against controlled dangerous substance laws (CDC laws) are making two separate arguments.

First, both Smrtepnts and Sam both are arguing that there is no reason for CDC laws. They argue that they are arbitrary and allow people to profit off of the fact that the trade is illegal. Furthermore they seem to believe that there is nothing inherently wrong with CDCs. The conclusion being drawn appears to be "CDC laws should be repealed."

The second point, which is mostly argued by Sam and that guy who lost his CAPSLOCK KEY, is that CDC laws are unconstitutional. Sam believes that the government has no power to enact the laws, and they violate the Declaration of Independence. The fact that the laws appear on the books is a good enough reason for a revolution, because they are much worse than anything the colonists had to endure at the hands of the British. Sam started with the assertion that the laws were bills of attainder, but has moved on to other arguments that the laws are undeclarational (Yes, I just made that one up), and other equally weak arguments that they violate the Constitution. [Emphasis added.]

Bah!

We now know, thanks to many years of research, that Jefferson really wanted to impose the law of the Old Testament on Americans, and that while he might not have said so, he cleverly crafted a trap door in the future Constitution when he wrote the Declaration to allow learned Men of God future powers of veto and nullification.

"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" actually means the freedom to obey the laws of God as interpreted by those who best know about these things.

Anyway, while I must give the anti-drug law kids credit for the word, my point in using it was to make it easier to understand the point being made by the philosophical scholars who contend that the Constitution, or any interpretations thereof, even any laws which are unpopular, may be declared Undeclarational!

It has been argued, strenuously, that even certain human behaviors might be said to be Undeclarational.

Especially sodomy!

Did you know, for example, that in the very first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, sodomy itself is condemned? I didn't either, but I'm here to tell you that there are men alive today who know more about the thoughts which were really inside the mind of Thomas Jefferson than did Jefferson himself!

Tough as it is to grapple with these concepts, I've done my best at a rewrite of the Declaration. Here's the text of what we normally consider the first paragraph (with the revisions in red):

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God -- meaning the laws of the Old Testament, especially the Levitical prohibition against sodomy -- entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- which means the right to do only what one is told to do by one's Creator, to be interpreted in the future by men well versed in religious revelation and Old Testament Law. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.....

OK. I hope readers will indulge me a little if I sounded overly insolent. Perhaps satire is not the best way to deal with issues which ought to be taken seriously. If this is too satirical, I'm sorry. It's getting close to the New Year, and I've been partying a little, and in general I've been wearing myself out.

So I may be having trouble separating reality from fantasy.

I don't want readers falling into the same trap, but it's obvious that some of my readers don't appreciate satire. I have seen a recurrent pattern that when I write what I hope are original, playful utterances (qualifying them as I must when I discover someone else uttered them first), some angry commenter will come along and complain that I haven't done my homework or provided any "proof!" No documentation! No "statistics!" It might not be held to be a self evident truth, for example, that there are people who claim the Constitution is Undeclarational, and I haven't given a single example.

Well, my nitpicky leftist commenters, fear not! There are so many examples that I don't know where to start. As a meme, the Undeclarational Constitution has spread far and wide on the Internet. While the phrase "Undeclarational Constitution" might not yet be called what it is, the groundwork has at least been laid for undeclarational sodomy -- meaning that the Declaration of Independence was specifically meant to be anti-sodomy in its Original Intent. Simply google "laws of nature and of nature's God" and "sodomy" and you'll get 406 hits.

Google "laws of nature and of nature's God" and "homosexuality" and you'll get 1080 hits.

At least one judge has stated how this principle should apply as a matter of law:

"Homosexual conduct is, and has been, considered abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature, and a violation of the laws of nature and of nature's God upon which this Nation and our laws are predicated." Chief Justice Roy Moore, of the Alabama State Supreme Court

Well, whose view should control? Shouldn't author Thomas Jefferson be heard from? According to most conventional scholars (and according to his own writings) Jefferson would not have approved of using the Old Testament as a basis for law. Not only did he rewrite the Bible (omitting the Old Testament entirely), but late in life he expressed the hope that Unitarianism might eventually come to be the majority religion in America.

So how did this meme happen?

Why is it spreading by leaps and bounds?

At the risk of sounding a bit paranoid, I worry that even highly respected bloggers defer to the idea of an Undeclarational Constitution. (Meaning that much of what we assume the Constitution means is "Undeclarational.")

I say "paranoid" because some of my fears were generated by Nick Coleman's invective-filled attack on Power Line which has justifiably been much condemned in the blogosphere. I can't stand ad hominem attacks, and I think it's a very poor piece of journalism.

Here's what the writer said about Power Line's "affiliations."

Johnson and Hinderaker are fellows at the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank that seems to be obsessed with gays and guns and wants to return us to the principles of our founders, although I can't determine if that includes Ben Franklin's skirt chasing.

Mainstream or Extreme? We report, you decide: Last month, Claremont gave its Winston Churchill Award to that visionary statesman and recovering drug addict, Rush Limbaugh!

Time magazine's "Blog of the Year" is not run by Boy Scouts. It is the spear of a campaign aimed at making Minnesota into a state most of us won't recognize. Unless you came from Alabama with a keyboard on your knee.

The attempt to smear Power Line with resort to a claim that its bloggers are "affiliated" with the Claremont Institute is utterly baseless -- first of all because the Claremont Institute is a fine think tank composed of leading scholars, including some wonderful people I feel privileged to have known, and second because affiliation has nothing to do with the validity or invalidity of one's thoughts or writings. Might as well say they're "affiliated" with the Republican Party! For that matter, it could be claimed that because I know people there and have attended lectures, that I too am "affiliated" with the Claremont Institute.

Fine. I'm also affiliated with the ACLU, the NRA, pit bulls, and the Grateful Dead!

None of that has anything to do with the truth of what I'm saying, and the affiliations of Power Line are irrelevant to the blog's accuracy. As the blog which did more to expose Dan Rather and RatherGate than any other, we are all indebted to them. They performed a major service for the country, and more than earned Time Magazine's Blog of the Year designation.

However, just as I do not agree with everything the Claremont Institute says, with all respect to the blog I cannot agree some of Power Line's ideas about the Declaration of Independence.

Most importantly, I hope they don't believe in the idea that the Declaration's "philosophy" should be interpreted as making the very founding of this country anti-homosexual in nature.

I'll use this post as a starting point:

Absent knowledge of American history, one would never know that the United States is founded on the basis of a creed, rather than on tribal or blood lines, in which God plays a prominent part. Absent knowledge of history generally, one would never know that this fact makes America unique.

What is the American creed? Few know it as such, but as it happens it is of course closely related to the story of Washington's crossing the Delaware. The American creed is expressed with inspired concision in the words of the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

But does the Declaration have any legal status such that these words can be truly deemed to state the "American creed? It does, although virtually no one seems to know it. In 1878 Congress enacted a revised version of the United States Code that included a new first section entitled "The Organic Laws of the United States."

Here's Power Line on Lawrence v. Texas:

[Lawrence v. Texas] ...is an amazing disgrace. The United States alone in the world is a country founded on the proposition that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and that government is instituted among men to secure these rights. These rights exist under what the Declaration of Indepence -- the first of the organic laws of the United States -- refers to as the laws of nature and Nature's God.

Among the founders, sodomy was universally condemned as a crime against nature. It was illegal in each of the thirteen states existing at the time the Constitution was ratified and the Bill of Rights was adopted. In Thomas Jefferson's Virginia, it was a crime punishable by death. When Jefferson wrote an amendment to the criminal code lessening the penalty for sodomy, he nevertheless classed it as a crime with rape, polygamy, and incest.

Today the Supreme Court declares that homosexual sodomy constitutes "a form of liberty of the person in both its spatial and more transcendent dimensions." Justice Kennedy, the author of this nauseating palaver, is obviously so in love with what he thinks is his own eloquent rhetoric that he fails to notice his laughable double entendre. What is not funny, however, is the destruction of the recognition of the laws of nature and nature's God on which our true rights depend. The Supreme Court's opinion today is an act of political destruction that should be recognized as such.

I'm genuinely worried that the following three steps (of what I consider bad logic) are deliberately introducing anti-homosexual prejudice into the founding:

Notwithstanding the fact that a very legitimate states' rights argument can be made in favor of sodomy laws, I think it is illogical (and wrong) to bootstrap into the Constitution something which simply is not there.

Power Line has another analysis here:

Alone in the world, the United States is founded on the "self-evident truths" that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that government is instituted among men to secure these rights. These rights exist under what the Declaration of Indepence -- the first of the founding laws of the United States -- refers to as the laws of nature and Nature's God.

The founders of the United States never spoke of "values"; the concept was foreign to their political discourse. The concept of "values" derives from the thought of the German intellectual Max Weber. Weber maintained that the fundamental distinction of social science was that between "facts" and "values." Regarding "values" -- the deeply held beliefs that shaped the lives of citizens -- social science could render no judgment.

"Values" are by definition relative. They have no objective status or connection to a commonly shared nature. The supplanting of nature and self-evident truths by "values" is more or less the great project of modern liberalism, whose home is in the Democratic Party. It is but a short distance from the orthodoxy of "values" to the related dogmas of "multiculturalism" and "diversity" that permeate liberal thought. In this sense the Democratic Party is the party of "values."

On the other hand, the Republican Party has its roots in the founders' thought. Recall, for example, that in its first platform the Republican Party condemned slavery and polygamy together as "the twin relics of barbarism." Can anyone today explain why? Or how "homosexual marriage," for example, should be viewed in light of such an explanation?

Among the founders, sodomy was universally condemned as a crime against nature. It was illegal in each of the thirteen states existing at the time the Constitution was ratified and the Bill of Rights was adopted. In Thomas Jefferson's Virginia, it was a crime punishable by death. When Jefferson wrote an amendment to the criminal code lessening the penalty for sodomy, he nevertheless classed it as a crime with rape, polygamy, and incest.

Today the Supreme Court declares that homosexual sodomy constitutes "a form of liberty of the person in both its spatial and more transcendent dimensions." Missing in the Court's grandiloquence is any recognition of the laws of nature and nature's God on which our true rights depend.

And why aren't Jefferson's views on the "separation of church and state" considered at least as relevant as his views on (what he considered more humane) punishments for "sodomy"?

The argument is often made that homosexuality is the moral equivalent of slavery. Originally articulated by Harry Jaffa (see Why Sodomy Is Not Gay), it is a concept with which I am quite familiar. I publicly disagreed with Harry Jaffa about it years ago, and without getting sidetracked or boring the readers, I think that slavery and homosexuality can easily be distinguished for any number of reasons. (For starters, there's a thing called consent.....)

But whether slavery and polygamy were "twin relics of barbarism" is about as relevant to sodomy as the branding of cattle with hot irons or the use of the ducking stool by American colonists to discipline sharp-tongued women. What is so self evident about the apparent analogy of homosexuality to "barbarism" that I am missing?

The slavery argument aside, I think that the attempt to instill anti-homosexual prejudice into the Constitution is more than just wrong. In the Machiavellian sense, I think it's a political miscalculation, and it's proponents would do well to reconsider their position.

As to why it is logically wrong, Jefferson's "Nature's God" dicta, while admittedly catchy as a soundbyte, doesn't withstand analysis as a founding indictment of homosexuality. Let's look again at the entire phrase as a piece of rhetoric:

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Resort is sometimes made to the writings of John Locke, who, it is argued, was the father of the Natural Law which Jefferson believed in as well as a firm believer in Biblical Law. Therefore, if Jefferson utilized a Natural Law phrase (which he clearly did), that means he must also subscribe to all of the views of John Locke, which means the Bible must be read into the Declaration accordingly. This thinking is neither reasonable nor logical. Suppose I quote from the Bible, and say, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's." Does that mean I believe in Leviticus? I don't see how. And even if you could show that Jefferson did think this thought or that pronouncement of John Locke, how does that breathe Locke into the Declaration, much less the Constitution? Jefferson loved cock fighting too. Does that mean the Declaration declared a sovereign right to pit fighting chickens against each other, and that said right came from God?

I also think bootstrapping such a "Natural Law veto" into the Constitution is a political miscalculation, and here's why:

In the latter regard, I wouldn't want to see what would happen if the deconstructionist followers of Michel Foucault get hold of the "Undeclarational" meme, for if they started in on the Declaration, I shudder to think how they might run with some of the phrases . . .

(Perhaps it should be borne in mind that the Declaration was quite popular in certain camps in the 1960s, and, well, it's still popular today.)

A final thought. Not that anyone asked me what I think of the Declaration, but I think it's a pretty fine document. I admit, I'm a bit partial to that "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" stuff. At times in my personal life, I've stretched the meaning of the latter a bit far. But, whether in theory or in practice, I still prefer an excess of freedom to the alternative of restrictions on freedom -- especially when the latter are based upon a document I think was clearly intended to expand -- not restrict -- what has become the envy of the world.

UPDATE: In the comments below, Ironbear reminded me of penguins. (Which reminded me of bonobos, and the need to add these links.)

UPDATE: Respected legal scholar Timothy Sandefur applies Natural Law (and the laws of nature and of nature's God) to Lawrence v. Texas -- with a very different result:

If you believe that such natural law is the objective Truth, we could say that just as Einstein’s “discovery” of the Truth superseded what Newton knew, our Founders discovered a “Truth” that slavery violated the law of nature, of which Aquinas was not aware.

And we, in building upon the shoulders of our founders, and applying their objective, timeless principles, can similarly discover Truths of which our founders may not have been aware. See Lawrence v. Texas.

CORRECTION: The author of the last quote I cited was not Mr. Sandefur, but Jon Rowe, who was guest blogging. My mistake! Not only does Mr. Rowe has his own blog, but he has done a fine job of refuting the moral analogy between slavery and homosexuality.

Finally, at the Claremont Institute's web site, Mr. Rowe, Mr. Sandefur, and others debate the "Natural Law and homosexuality" issue at great length.

MORE: For what it's worth, I'd like to make a grammatical analogy to the Second Amendment. The following is from a Wall Street Journal analysis of the Justice Department's current Second Amendment position:

The Second Amendment states that "a well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

The memo's authors, Justice Department lawyers Steven Bradbury, Howard Nielson Jr. and C. Kevin Marshall, dissect the amendment's language, arguing that under 18th century legal conventions, the clause concerning "a well-regulated militia" was "prefatory language" without binding force. "Thus, the amendment's declaratory preface could not overcome the unambiguously individual 'right of the people to keep and bear arms' conferred by the operative text," they write.

(Via Glenn Reynolds.)

There are no jokes or set-ups to this one. This week's idiot is just offensive:

"Poor Phuket got a tsunami, and we got Paris Hilton," ever-insensitive Taki Theodoracopulos quipped. "It's an outrage."

I caught a lot of flak for my last post, but now we hear the faithful crying out:

Traditionalists of diverse faiths described the destruction as part of god's plan, proof of his power and punishment for human sins.

"This is an expression of God's great ire with the world," Israeli chief rabbi Shlomo Amar told Reuters. "The world is being punished for wrongdoing -- be it people's needless hatred of each other, lack of charity, moral turpitude."

Pandit Harikrishna Shastri, a priest of New Delhi's huge marble and sandstone Birla Hindu temple, told Reuters the disaster was caused by a "huge amount of pent-up man-made evil on earth" and driven by the positions of the planets.

Azizan Abdul Razak, a Muslim cleric and vice president of Malaysia's Islamic opposition party, Parti Islam se-Malaysia, said the disaster was a reminder from god that "he created the world and can destroy the world."

Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra, a leading British Muslim cleric from Leicester in England said: "We believe that God has ultimate controlling power over his entire creation. We have a responsibility to try and attract god's kindness and mercy and not do anything that would attract his anger."

It seems we're not far from swords and sandals afterall.

It's hard to believe, but it appears that the tsunami toll is much higher than previously expected -- 400,000 or more from Indonesia alone:

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 30 (Bernama) -- The death toll in Acheh, the region worst hit by last Sunday's tsunami, may exceed 400,000 as many affected areas could still not be reached for search and rescue operations, Indonesia's Ambassador to Malaysia Drs H. Rusdihardjo said Thursday.

He said the estimate was based on air surveillance by Indonesian authorities who found no signs of life in places like Meulaboh, Pulau Simeulue and Tapak Tuan while several islands off the west coast of Sumatera had "disappeared".

He said the latest death toll of more than 40,000 in Acheh and northern Sumatera did not take into account the figures from the other areas, especially in the west of the region.

"Aerial surveillance found the town of Meulaboh completely destroyed with only one buiding standing. The building, which belonged to the military, happens to be on a hill," he told reporters after receiving RM1 million in aid for Indonesia's Tsunami Disaster Relief Fund here Thursday.

Rusdihardjo said there were about 150,000 residents in Meulaboh, which was located 150km from the epicentre of the earthquake while Pulau Simeuleu had a population of 76,000.

Numbers like that supply perspective often lacking among people who take things like survival for granted. AIDS did that for me back in the 1980s. I'd been raised to believe (and always thought) that I lived in the wonderful, everything's-possible world of modern science. Suddenly, I found myself catapulted back to the Middle Ages. People just died and died and died.

They still do, and I wish I could do something to help.

I read comments like these all too often -- when a tornado tears the roof off of a church, or a manaic opens fire on schoolchildren -- but it never fails to stick in my craw:

As Riza was drifting, she saw her neighbors, two girls -- twins -- and their mother.

Riza, who can swim, managed to help the girls. She saw that their mother was badly injured.

"The mother shouted, 'please help save my children. Let me be, but please save my children,'" Riza recounted, in tears.

As she struggled for her own life and that of the twins, she said a large snake as long as a telephone pole approached her. She and the nine-year-olds rested on the reptile, which was drifting along with the current.

"Thank God, we landed on higher ground where the water level was only about a meter deep. The twins, who were badly injured, were safe." Riza then slapped her face to make sure she wasn't dreaming.

Riza, who is currently taking refuge in the Bandar Blang Bintang area, plans to go to her relatives' house in Medan, North Sumatra.

"God still loves me," she said, adding that she would never forget the tragedy.

It's the same reaction I have when I hear the expression, 'there but for the grace of God go I.' The sentiment suggests that those who suffer deserve what they get because they're not holy enough.

It's a good thing for Riza that god still loves her and only hates those miserable SOBs who died. Like the mother of those twins. She really must have done something to lose god's love. Perhaps it was selfless concern for her children?

While this may often be a careless statement without deep religious significance, there are unfortunately many out there who think that people suffer because they're being punished by 'God.'

I just returned from a funeral of a lifelong friend who died suddenly on Christmas Eve. A hell of a time to die, especially for such a good man, who happened to be a devoutly religious man. I've been to a lot of funerals, but the suffering of this man's family was very painful to see. I couldn't help think how much easier it would have been for them had he died in November. Or June. I'm not religious in the churchgoing sense, but it strikes me that religious considerations shouldn't be adding to the family's burden, and that they were. People look for meaning, for reasons, for explanations, and it only adds to the pain and confusion when death strikes at a seemingly "bad" time. If an aorta is going to explode, when it explodes has nothing to do with what day of the month it is.

Obviously, it isn't my place to offer the family such thoughts, which might only be misinterpreted and cause even greater pain. My prayers are with the family, and they would be regardless of the season.

We'll all be there. I took advantage of the drive to visit my mom's grave (and my future one, although I don't know the date of the move)....

MORE: The important thing is to enjoy life as much as you can while you have it, and pray for (and help) those you love while they're living.

The 119th Carnival of the Vanities is up at The Radical Centrist. First of all, I love the blog name, and it would have been an excellent name for this blog but I went with "Classical Values" because I'm a sort of political dropout "loser" type -- only in the center by a process of elimination as opposed to genuine political belief in something called "The Center." Disgust with ideology and "isms" (especially disgust with joining) places me so far off the map that to call myself a "centrist" -- even a radical one -- seems a stretch. But I'm glad to see the name's taken, because someone needs to be in the center, and it sure is a radical idea these days. The best way to be hated is to simply think what you think, and to not be swayed by personal entreaties, tears, threats, ridicule, ad hominem attacks, or opportunistic labeling. A perfect example can be found in this Culture War post at Bird's Eye View (another blog by The Radical Centrist) -- involving "Intelligent Design." Very thoughtful, fair, and sure to infuriate both sides -- especially those who live to "win" debates.

Anyway, he does a great job with the Carnival's many excellent posts. Here are a few which stood out:

Read 'em all!

Straight from Aljazeera, Ramsey Clark is up to his old tricks: he's joined Saddam's legal team.

And you thought representing Slobodan Milosevic or the PLO was questionable.

Classicist David Larsen (UC Extension) has a piece on the year in classical cinema:

THE "sword-and-sandals" film comes in three generic flavors: barbarian, biblical, and Greco-Roman, each envisioning the martial values of a bygone "time before gunpowder" in its own fashion.

While the first category may be counted on to support a heavy admixture of sorcery and fabulous monsters, the prevailing conceit in the biblical and Greco-Roman epics is one of historical realism. Costumes and manners are based on the soundest classical scholarship Hollywood can buy, and intelligible modern motives are supplied for the most outlandish deeds of history and legend.

It's a short and entertaining read.

Beware the beast man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, for he is the harbinger of death.

--Dr. Zaius, Minister of Science and Chief Defender of the Faith.

Bearing in mind these eternal warnings (from science!), what is the proper reaction to a story like this?

WHEN THE EARTH MOVES
Coincidence! Major quake exactly 1 year ago
Asia killer tops 26,000 death toll of Bam shaker also on Dec. 26
Posted: December 29, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

Is it just a striking coincidence?

The 9.0 killer earthquake in Asia that unleashed tsunamis killing tens of thousands followed exactly one year to the hour after the Bam, Iran, earthquake that killed 26,000.

On Dec. 26, 2003, a 6.6 quake hit the ancient city of Bam in Iran. While the quake was much smaller than the one that struck near the island of Sumatra Sunday, its epicenter was directly under the city.

On Dec. 26, 2004, the 9.0 quake struck in South Asia. While the death toll will be much higher, most of the destructiveness was the result of the giant waves triggered by the earth's movement under the India Ocean.

The 2003 quake hit at 01:56:52 UTC, while the 2004 quake struck at 00:58:55 UTC – exactly one year, 58 minutes apart.

Special offer:

EXTORTION! How the ACLU is destroying America using your money

The ancients would not have thought so at all. Entrails of animals were routinely examined for omens and portents, and all sorts of magical causes were sought for the most mundane of events. The extraordinary events (what we now call "catastrophes") were invariably ascribed to actions by major deities, usually extremely pissed off by whatever human conduct the analysts of the time concluded had enraged them. Obviously, if the catastrophe struck your enemy, this meant the gods favored your side -- and vice versa.

I have no idea how many people might read the WorldNetDaily report and wonder in awe about which favorite or most feared deity might have deliberately done this (or for which specific reason), but I have no doubt there are some. (And, irreverent bigot that I am, I can't help wondering what motivation might have been ascribed had a similar gigantic quake and tsunami hit San Francisco.)

While many Americans might laugh at this thinking, how many of them laugh when environmentalists blame mankind for catastrophes caused by the forces of nature? Might there be a deep-seated, collectivist yearning to blame humanity as a whole instead of accepting the fact that catastrophes simply happen? From some of the statements I see, I worry that there are people who think this way, but who are in denial about the primitive, magical origins of their thinking.

Man is evil, man is bad. When evil happens, man is to blame. "Nature" (or "The Environment") is merely the latest punishing god which will teach us much-needed lessons when we are bad.

When men are out of line, the forces of nature are there to speak for God or gods. When the evil Caligula tried to move one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the Olympian statue of Zeus, he was prevented:

In 40 AD, the emperor Caligula decided that he liked the statue so much, his men would kidnap the god and bring him back to Rome. Fortune (perhaps something more?) kept the Olympian Zeus in Elis, as a lighting struck the ship sent to transport him and workmen claimed to have heard the god emit a sinister, haunting laugh.

Later historians have claimed that because the inside of the gold and ivory covered statue was wood, it had become home to rodents which squealed when Caligula's workmen tried to move their "habitat." But in both cases, man is at fault. Those who assign blame know best.

All superstition is not equal. Some superstitions are to be discarded as "religion" while others must be respected -- and called science!

Science says that man is bad. And nature is good.

For a better explanation, you'd have to ask Dr. Zaius.

UPDATE: If Dr. Zaius does not answer, one might try the famous Mother Nature's Fist of Fury©^TM science site.

UPDATE (12/30/04): The count is now at a sickening 125,000, and even Mother Nature's Fist of Fury Hurricane Rooter James Wolcott is calling the tsunami "catastrophic." (From Tim Blair, via Glenn Reynolds.) Well, there is a difference between a Hurricane and a Tsunami. I'm sure "Hurricane Wolcott" is aware of the differences, so I don't see why I have to supply them here.

Oh what the hell.

Via Rhetorica (who finds wrap-ups annoying), I found an interesting WaPo take on 2004:

In 2004, the New Republic ran a cover story called "God Bless Atheism." Rolling Stone ran an editorial that proclaimed: "Janet Jackson's breast is the 9/11 of the new culture war." Archaeology Odyssey published an article titled "Roman Latrines: How the Ancients Did Their Business." And Details, the metrosexual men's mag, revealed a hitherto undetected social trend: "Marrying a relative isn't just for the trailer park anymore."

Was it, as Washington Post critic Tom Shales asked, the "nipple that inflamed a thousand nut cases?" Or "the 9/11 of the new culture war," as Rolling Stone editorialized?

Or was it something else - the dawning of a massive citizens movement?

That's Jeff Jarvis' view.

"I think the theme [of 2004] is about control," said Jarvis, a former TV Guide critic who writes the Buzzmachine blog. "The people are getting control and the big guys are losing control. If you believe in democracy, that is a good thing."

Days after "Nipplegate," FCC Chairman Michael Powell spoke of an unprecedented leap in indecency complaints, from roughly 14,000 in 2002 to more than 240,000 in 2003. More than four times that many have landed this year, according to the FCC.

But those numbers are misleading. Jarvis gained attention in the fall by filing a Freedom of Information Act request that revealed a suspicious pattern in the FCC complaints. Fox's $1.2 million fine for sexual content in Married by America was based on 90 complaints from 23 people - all but two of them using a form letter produced by the conservative Parents Television Council.

What bothers me is that I failed to keep abreast of what these people are all calling the biggest "offensive" yet in the Culture War. Another 9/11, no less! And I didn't see it! (Although I suspect I still wouldn't get it if I had.)

Shame on me! I'll have to get caught up somehow, folks. But I'd been all caught up in RatherGate, which I thought was a much dirtier affair than NippleGate. Wrong again (at least according to conventional wisdom).

I always miss the breast best parts.

(Sheesh! Some Culture War blog this is turning out to be . . . )

. . . it only seems fair that nature get some of its own back and teach us that there are forces greater than our own . . . -- James Wolcott

24,000 dead and counting is pretty damned horrible to contemplate. There's nothing I can report about the quake and tsunami that hasn't been reported, and nothing I can say that hasn't been said, but that doesn't mean I feel nothing. Justin wrote a damned good post on tsunamis last night, and the blogosphere has been covering this every step of the way. Michele Catalano notes that the U.S. media gave the Michael Jackson trial about as much coverage (and that was when the figure was at 11,000). Twenty times the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq ought to count for something, even if they're not Americans.

The numbers will only get larger.

I wrote more about the Florida hurricane than I did about this -- and what set me off was hearing people say that people shouldn't have been living there. One leftist (James Wolcott, quoted above) actually said he was rooting for the hurricane, but I'll bet he's not sounding that meme now. (And not because he doesn't like to quote himself!) Anyway, I don't call this an act of God, nor am I rooting for "nature." We should all help the victims to the extent we can, and do a better job of preparing for future disasters. It could happen almost anywhere.

UPDATE: James Wolcott has indeed remained silent about nature's lessons this time. Don't ask me why.

UPDATE: Charles G. Hill speculates that Wolcott's "champing at the bit for that killer asteroid to show up." Does that mean Wolcott wants a greater impact than he's already had?

MORE (12/28/04): It now looks like the numbers will reach 45,000.

AND MORE: Kevin Aylward has a link to this amateur video of the tsunami. (If that doesn't work, Kevin has alternate links.)

EVEN MORE: Via InstaPundit, I see that according to science, Wolcott may be right:

"Wheels of thunder-wagons wake up Big Earth Spirit-Mother, make to crazy tingle in hairy child-place. She now go to water lair of Tai-Waku, make big angry love on tectonic plate," said Novak. "Big Earth Spirit-Mother say, 'if ocean rocking, don't come a-knocking.'"

Although they disagree on the precise causes of the wrathful spirit world, scientists were largely unanimous in recommending immediate global regulatory action. Remedial steps suggested in the report include ratification of the Kyoto treaty, elimination of automobiles, volcanic altars for virgin sacrifices, creation of a sustainable urine-based economy, and improved faculty dental benefits.

"If not act now, it too late," said report editor Paul Erlich of Stanford University.

MORE: I'm busy tonight, but the stuff in these links from Glenn Reynolds is absolutely appalling, and show how utterly corrupt (if not evil) science has become. Claims Jeff McNeely, chief scientist of the Swiss-based World Conservation Union (IUCN):

....people have started to occupy part of the landscape that they shouldn't have occupied.... (via Powerline.)

Seriously. Move over McNeely. (And why not? He's about as qualified as Wolcott anyway.)

Back in the 80s, I heard equally intelligent (and equally compassionate) remarks when gay men were dying from AIDS by the tens of thousands....

AND MORE: The death toll is now 68,000 and counting. Factoring in disease and the fact that many are still unaccounted for, it could reach 100,000.

UPDATE (12/29/04): It didn't take long to reach 100,000.

UPDATE (12/30/04): The count is now at a sickening 125,000, and even Hurricane Rooter James Wolcott is calling the tsunami "catastrophic." (From Tim Blair, via Glenn Reynolds.) Well, there is a difference between a Hurricane and a Tsunami. I'm sure "Hurricane Wolcott" is aware of the differences, so I don't see why I have to supply them here.

Oh what the hell.

Ebenezer Scrooge is lucky he's not alive today, because things are so complicated that once he'd reformed and decided to do good, he'd never be able to figure out which form of altruism is the truest and the purest.

I'll give a couple of examples which have been simultaneously thrown at me, (although seemingly in random fashion) and have caused enough Christmas confusion to make me thankful I'm not Ebenezer Scrooge.

Let's start with Nigeria. Most of us only know the place as the source of poignant emails beginning with urgent reassurances that the sender is an honest-but-long-suffering widow of General Obacha who needs assistance depositing a gigantic sum into an American bank account. The unfortunate reality is that very few Nigerians have millions to share with kindly American beneficiaries. While it's true that the country is rich in oil, most of the money goes into the hands of government kleptocrats who refuse to share it with ordinary citizens -- even when the oil is pumped directly from their land.

A recent example of this is the ongoing protest (a series of sieges, really) at Nigerian oil platforms:

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) -- Protesters seized oil platforms run by Royal Dutch/Shell Group Cos. and ChevronTexaco Corp for a second day Monday, shutting down 90,000 barrels a day in oil production, company officials said.

On Sunday, hundreds of protesting villagers from Kula community, including women and children, invaded two oil pumping facilities owned by Shell in the Ekulama oilfields and another belonging to ChevronTexaco at Robert-Kiri island in the swamps of the oil-rich delta, demanding to see top officials of both companies.

Shell pumps 70,000 barrels daily from the two stations, while ChevronTexaco pumps 20,000 barrels daily from its own station.

Nigeria, at 2.5 million barrels a day, is Africa's leading oil exporter, the world's seventh-largest exporter, and the fifth-biggest source of U.S. oil imports.

A Shell spokesman in Lagos said protesters have not made known their grievances but are blocking dozens of oil workers from leaving the platforms. Representatives have been sent to the villages for negotiations, the spokesman said, on condition of anonymity.

For nearly 40 years, oil giants like Shell, Mobil and Chevron have worked in joint ventures with Nigeria's dictatorships to exploit the country's vast petroleum resources, often against the wishes of the local communities of the oil rich Niger delta. Protest against these oil giants has often resulted in a bloody response from their military business partners. Again pro-Democracy activist Chima Ubani.

Chima Ubani: "it is the same kind of relationship that the slave masters had with those traditional rulers and local chiefs of that period who actually sold our people into slavery to the European and American slave masters. That is exactly what has happened all over. What we find is that the Nigerian military creates the conducive environment for these multinational companies to come and exploit our people. They impose laws that favor such an exploitation and disempower our people. And most importantly, when our people rise to fight against this exploitation, it is the Nigerian government that uses its own troops to suppress and kill our people for fighting against exploitation by foreign companies"

Far be it from me to defend Big Oil, or kleptocrat governments which enable their profits while socking away the money in foreign bank accounts.

In the spirit of the Ghost of Christmas Present (and for the sake of this argument), I'll even concede (confess, even!) that oil is evil, oil is all our fault -- for being alive and for needing it and consuming it. We who live in the cold Northeast are the evilest and greediest of all, but all of us should allow "the people" all the oil profits they want.

But there's something troubling my soul, even as I confess. At the same time I was researching this issue (and trying to think altruistic thoughts about things like oil drilling), I had another "drill" thrown at me on the front page of day-after-Christmas Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer: the plight of the Drill monkey. Native to several West African countries, it is endangered in Equatorial Guinea, and I was shocked to see that the reason is not poverty, but oil-rich affluence:

"If we don't act soon, this animal could be extinct in a few years, and there will be nothing left to study," she said.

"We're just duty-bound to try to prevent the extinction of these animals; that's it in a nutshell," said Wayne A. Morra, 55, an Arcadia economics professor who joined the Bioko project in 1998.

This year's expedition has taken on a greater degree of urgency.

Chronically underdeveloped, Equatorial Guinea is suddenly awash in income from new offshore petroleum discoveries. And with new wealth, the demand for wild game, or "bush meat," is soaring. Monkey meat - much like venison in this country - is part of the traditional hunting culture of much of Africa and is eaten on special occasions.

Since 2002, the average daily number of monkey carcasses sold at the public market in the capital, Malabo, has nearly doubled to more than six, according to a daily count that Hearn organized in 1997.

Eating bushmeat (yes, "bushmeat" is a word!) is a sort of status symbol for the wealthy, and thus, the more money people have, the more likely they are to buy it:

Not eaten for its flavour, bushmeat is a sign of affluence - the more expensive the meat the more it enhances status.

Poaching and export laws in central Africa and West Africa are largely ineffective. The Ghana Wildlife Society estimates that barely one-in-10 people caught with bushmeat are convicted. While the fine for killing a pangolin is L1, the animal can be sold for L6 - big money in villages where a household may have an annual income of L300.

The World Society for the Protection of Animals said in a recent report: "Governments have been slow to respond to this crisis and action has been piecemeal and largely ineffectual. Unless more is achieved, entire populations of wildlife will be eradicated within the next few decades."

This week the United Nations launched a L1 million pound campaign to co-ordinate conservation efforts for apes around the world after it became clear that gorillas, chimps, and pygmy chimps face extinction within five years due to bushmeat and logging.

Jane Goodall, one of the world's foremost experts on chimpanzees, said: "The growing, grisly demand for bushmeat threatens to deliver the coup de grace to these critically endangered animals. Bushmeat is being sold at markets across the tropics. It is increasingly turning up in markets and restaurants all over the world, from London to New York, the demand fuelled by wealthy African expatriates."

I find it more than ironic that in Nigeria, where humans are denied the oil profits, the drill monkey appears to be doing better than in Equatorial Guinea:

We now have over twice as many captive bred drills, including second generation, than wild born. This year, we will begin contraception- I never thought I’d see that day! We are working with the AZA’s Population Management Centre at Lincoln Park Zoo on deciding who to breed, so as to maximize diversity of the wild genes in our population. They’re also helping us select the first release group.

As an organisation, Pandrillus has been able to step back a bit from Afi Mountain. Our successful invitation to FFI in 1998 to join us has resulted in a partnership that is actually working past my expectations. WCS and the Nigerian Conservation Foundation are the other NGO partners with the Cross River State Commission.

Which "drill" would he favor?

AFTERTHOUGHT: Is collusion the answer? I can't help but notice that the oil companies are heavily funding the environmentalists mentioned in the Inquirer. As an idea, funding one's opposition appeals to my Machiavellian side, of course. But what would Scrooge do?

MORE: To the extent that the ideas expressed in this post are unoriginal, I should credit Douglas Kern's wonderful essay, A TCS Christmas Carol, which I found via InstaPundit.

Woke up this morning and turned on the tv. Saw the horror in coastal Asia. Richter 8.9. Dear sweet Jesus.

What could people have done? Can we ever hope to forestall this kind of catastrophe? Today, sadly, no. It would take a lot more technological moxie than we can muster to tsunami-proof a coast. Twenty third century super science may be up to the task, but we here today have a ways to go yet. Avoid seaside living? Nobody will listen. It’s nice by the sea.

I can think of at least one geologist, an Australian named Edward Bryant, who has been warning about the danger posed by tsunamis for several years now, and specifically in the area of Southeast Asia. Interestingly, it turns out that giant, inundating waves leave particular geological signatures, and Dr. Bryant has compiled an interesting file of data regarding them. According to him, Australia and parts surrounding would seem to have been hit fairly often in the last few millennia. He warns that, based on past evidence, they may be due for another. Oh, and the evidence, such as it is, shows that these waves were big.

How big? Really, really big. Like, one hundred and thirty meters big. Of course, that’s just when they come ashore. In deep water, that might translate to a three meter swell, with over a mile from peak to trough. You could ride it out in a rowboat.

Playing the role of Jor-El is, by definition, a thankless task. Dr. Bryant’s theories have gained him little love among his fellow geologists, who consider them controversial and wrong. Sadly, most of their criticisms seem to boil down to “He’s controversial…and wrong!”

I love science.

Let’s be real here. Could a wave really get that big? I mean, honestly. One hundred and thirty freaking meters? Well, yeah. Easily, if you cheat a little. The biggest wave on record was at a place called Lituya Bay, in Alaska. A massive, earthquake triggered rockfall at the head of the bay displaced an equally massive volume of water, which having nowhere else to go, promptly headed out to sea.

Lituya Bay is a long narrow body of water, much like a Norwegian fjord, and this constraining topography provided a focusing and amplifying effect. Afterwards, the wave’s peak local height was confirmed at seventeen hundred feet. They know this because only the trees above seventeen hundred feet didn’t get scraped off the mountainside. The wave diminished considerably on its way down the bay. Surprisingly, there were surviving witnesses, some sport fishermen, whose account can be found here.

But surely this is an exceptional case? Well yes, what with the topography and all, but other circumstances can lead to somewhat less spectacular waves that are still big and scary and deadly.

Bryant wrote a book a few years ago, “Tsunami: The Underrated Hazard”.
If any of you find this sort of thing at all compelling, you could do worse than to order the book. In it, he makes the point that not all tsunamis are created equal. They are generated by several quite different phenomena, with different energy levels, which can lead to quite different effects.

Most of us have a passing familiarity with the notion of earthquake generated tsunamis, such as the one that devastated Lisbon in 1755, or Port Royal in 1692.

There are also rockslide generated tsunamis such as the one at Lituya Bay, or the Storegga Slide. Storegga was a quite horrific event some seven or eight thousand years ago, a sudden slippage induced displacement of over one thousand cubic kilometers of rock and mud. Lacking the channeling effect of a narrow inlet, the resulting wave was “only” ten meters high when it finally came ashore in Scotland. But it made up in breadth and speed what it lacked in height, tearing into two hundred or more miles of coastline, and penetrating miles inland.

I’m sure the locals thought it was spectacular enough.

Still, neither of these phenomena pack enough power to generate the wave heights that Bryant is claiming. He therefore believes that “his” waves, hundred meter plus monsters, are the result of impact events. Given the right mass and velocity, a falling extra-terrestrial body could certainly provide sufficient energy for a monster wave. So we can know that such waves are at least possible. But is there enough evidence to show that they actually occurred?

Frankly, I don’t know. I’m not a geologist, and I don’t know enough to evaluate his claims properly. However, speaking as an interested layman, I’d have to say he sounds pretty plausible.

For instance, when he talks about what he calls imbrication.

You take a big seaside cliff with a notch cut in it, running from top to bottom. And you notice that the aforesaid notch, well, it’s full of boulders, great blocks of stone stacked higgledy-piggledy all the way to the top.

And you notice that those blocks of stone are not the same kind of stone that the cliff is made of. And you wonder how in the world those multi-ton blocks of foreign stone got up there.

When you’ve climbed to the top, you stroll inland across the gently rolling tableland, and you notice more of those damn stones, scattered here and there. And it gives you pause for thought.

If you’re Ted Bryant, your thought is going to be “That was one big wave”.

The book has plenty more of that. How about a ship’s bell, quite old by the look of it, found by rock climbers way the hell up a seaside cliff in western Australia? Could be a practical joke, I suppose, but an odd one if so. Who drags a corroded brass bell up a couple hundred feet of cliff, WEDGES IT INTO A CREVICE, and then just walks away? Aussies are a humorous folk, but are they THAT humorous?

Or what about vast piles of seashells and beach gravel, buried under more typical inland dirt, kilometers away from the seaside. Anthropologists assert that they are aboriginal shell middens, but Bryant says no way.

I do love a good mystery, and the mystery here is why sensible Aborigines would haul tons of beach gravel kilometers inland, just to throw it away.

At Jervis Bay, Dr. Bryant estimates a big one hit several centuries ago, and that it overtopped the headland there, making it at least four hundred feet high. That’s not of Lituya Bay magnitude, but we’re getting there, we’re getting there.

Bryant also notes (though he is enough of a sport to emphasize that this is hearsay evidence) that Aboriginal Folk Tradition has a few really rip-roaring tales of, wouldn’t you just know it, giant killer waves from the sea.

“The Last Wave”, indeed.

Dr. Bryant has done yeoman service trying to warn people of what he calls “the underrated hazard”. Coastal fortifications would be impossibly expensive and don’t work. Ideally, people should recognize the danger and move inland. Be where the danger isn’t. He acknowledges that such a move is unlikely, and so suggests a number of modest, practical steps that could reduce, though never totally eliminate the danger from tsunamis. Boring civil defense and emergency planning type stuff. Coordinated communication and timely alarm type stuff. Bureaucratic solutions. I’m glad he tried. It really is the way to go.

Given that we can’t fortify vulnerable coastlines, and that people will continue to live in coastal areas, the modest, practical solutions are the only solutions we’ve got.

Which brings us to the (modest, practical) “running away really fast” option. If we disallow the Really Big ones, that actually looks doable with just a few more years of business as usual.

I have complained before about the impending wave of innovative electronic surveillance and communications tech, but that doesn’t mean I’m not aware of its potential benefits. Since these developments seem more or less inevitable to me, I suppose I’m just indulging my inner curmudgeon when I do so. Ubiquitous computing and video, localizer nets, transparent society, all connected, all the time, bah humbug.

There will come a day, and not in the twenty third century either, when even the meanest, most impecunious beachcomber will have access to a global comweb. And that fifty cent link will connect him with capabilities that make our current internet look like Western Union. Seriously. As Jim Bennett observed in “The Anglosphere Challenge”, what we’ve seen of the internet so far is just the warm-up act. The wheels haven’t even left the runway.

I can imagine radar satellites scanning the ocean surface for fast moving two meter swells, integrating their data with a network of triangulating seismometers and hydrophones. I can imagine such a network notifying whatever area was threatened, giving the ETA and predicted height and run-up of the wave. I can even imagine being able to reach the people in that area, as individuals, to warn them.

Someday, our hypothetical beachcomber may be screamed awake by his custom earbud, relaying a warning from the local node of Tsunami Watch.

It wouldn’t be much, but it would still be better than drowning. The downside, of course, might be that who you are and where you are is no longer ever in question. Ever.

Welcome to the modern Panopticon. It needn’t be all bad.

UPDATE: If you would like to contribute to the relief effort, the following blogs can put you in touch with people trying to help...

A Voyage to Arcturus

vichaar.org

The Command Post

UPDATE: After procrastinating for days, I finally trudged across town and retrieved my copy of "Tsunami" from storage. I'm mortified to report that my memory has played me false yet again. While a tsunami in deep water COULD have a three meter swell, its wavelength from peak to peak could range anywhere from six to three hundred miles. Typically, an earthquake generated wave in deep water will seldom top one meter in height. More geekery to follow, so stay tuned.

I saw this lion roaring as if in protest from an otherwise neglected Philadelphia wall, in the freezing cold today:

My hands froze while I took the picture, and my friends looked at me while rolling their eyes indulgently as if I was a bit of a kook, but I couldn't ignore the opportunity. The lion might not be there (or look the same) tomorrow.

Brrrr.... and Grrrr.....

Blogging is subject to my limited time right now, but there's one important event today which I hope everyone keeps in mind, and that is the Ukrainian election. Yushchenko (his face scarred by an attempt to kill him by poison) is favored to win, and I'm hoping the Ukrainian people hand him a decisive victory this time -- not just to reject Russian hegemony but to protest the kind of political machinations which many thought had died with Stalinism. I think it's fair to call attempted assassination by poison political terrorism -- and the allies of the KGB deserve to lose this election resoundingly.

In the spirit of victory, here are some photos I found at Yahoo.

"Santas" in a show of solidarity for Yushchenko (after all, it's the day after Christmas):

Here's candidate Yushchenko at the polls:

Yushchenko's supporters have been living in tents like these for the past five weeks:

And finally, a child raises an orange balloon of hope:

UPDATE: As of 21:30 GMT, Yushchenko appears to be winning big. Glenn Reynolds thinks Putin miscalculated.

Yeah; Stalinist tactics don't work too well if people have the vote.

UPDATE (12/27/04): It's now official that Yushchenko won, although he's contesting the results. For some reason, a lot of leftists seem to be yawning. (Via InstaPundit.)

I'm busy with festivities.....

And Puff hasn't opened his gifts.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL !

UPDATE: I have been having fun with the most useful gift anyone has given me in years: a heavy duty paper shredder! All these years, I never had one. Worse yet, I have problems throwing away paper, and I allow it to pile up.

This thing takes CD's credit cards, and up to 24 sheets at a time, and it's fun to use -- just like flushing guilt down the toilet.

MORE: Here's Puff, the mysterious Christmas elf:

He also wishes everyone a Merry Christmas, and refuses to take the blame for his master's failure to blog today.

Not much time at home today (on the road, so I couldn't blog) but I tried out the camera built into my new cell phone (a Sidekick II).

This is a view of sunset on the Delaware River, looking upstream while standing on the middle of the bridge between New Hope, Pennsylvania, and Lambertville, New Jersey. (Obviously in no state to blog.)

The detail leaves much to be desired, but it was a good backup, because I forget to bring a real camera (and almost forgot there was a camera in the cell phone). Cameras need memory in order to work; you have to remember to bring 'em.

An Islamic scholar (the elusive Misha'al Ibn Abdullah Al-Kadhi) believes that Christianity is pagan.

Christmas:

Let us now move on to the "birthday of Jesus," Christmas. Jesus (pbuh) is commonly considered to have been born on the 25th of December. However, it is common knowledge among Christian scholars that he was not born on this day. It is well known that the first Christian churches held their festival in May, April, or January. Scholars of the first two centuries C.E. even differ in which year he was born. Some believing that he was born fully twenty years before the current accepted date. So how was the 25th of December selected as the birthday of Jesus (pbuh)?

Grolier's encyclopedia says:

"Christmas is the feast of the birth of Jesus Christ, celebrated on December 25.... Despite the beliefs about Christ that the birth stories expressed, the church did not observe a festival for the celebration of the event until the 4th century.... since 274, under the emperor Aurelian, Rome had celebrated the feast of the "Invincible Sun" on December 25. In the Eastern Church, January 6, a day also associated with the winter solstice, was initially preferred. In course of time, however, the West added the Eastern date as the feast of the Epiphany, and the East added the Western date of Christmas."

So who else celebrated the 25th of December as the birth day of their gods before it was agreed upon as the birth day of Jesus (pbuh)? Well, there are the people of India who rejoice, decorate their houses with garlands, and give presents to their friends on this day. The people of China also celebrate this day and close their shops. The pagan god Buddha is believed to have been born on this day when the "Holy Ghost" descended on his virgin mother Maya. The great savior and god of the Persians, Mithras, is also believed to have been born on the 25th of December long before the coming of Jesus (pbuh). The Egyptians celebrated this day as the birth day of their great savior Horus, the Egyptian god of light and the son of the "virgin mother" and "queen of the heavens" Isis. Osiris, god of the dead and the underworld in Egypt, the son of "the holy virgin," again was believed to have been born on the 25th of December.

The Greeks celebrated the 25th of December as the birthday of Hercules, the son of the supreme god of the Greeks, Zeus, through the mortal woman Alcmene. Bacchus, the god of wine and revelry among the Romans (known among the Greeks as Dionysus) was also born on this day.

Adonis, revered as a "dying-and-rising god" among the Greeks, miraculously was also born on the 25th of December. His worshipers held him a yearly festival representing his death and resurrection, in midsummer. The ceremonies of his birth day are recorded to have taken place in the same cave in Bethlehem which is claimed to have been the birth place of Jesus (pbuh).

The Scandinavians celebrated the 25th of December as the birth day of their god Freyr, the son of their supreme god of the heavens, Odin.

The Romans observed this day as the birth day of the god of the sun, Natalis Solis Invicti ("Birthday of Sol the invincible"). There was great rejoicing and all shops were closed. There was illumination and public games. Presents were exchanged, and the slaves were indulged in great liberties. Remember, these are the same Romans who would later preside over the council of Nicea (325 C.E.) which lead to the official Christian recognition of the "Trinity" as the "true" nature of God, and the "fact" that Jesus (pbuh) was born on the 25th of December too. The pagan emperor Constantine, who presided over the council of Nicea, was popularly considered the "embodiment" or "incarnation" of the this supreme Roman "Sun" god. Neither was Constantine the first Roman emperor to be given this title, rather, many or his predecessors before him were also promoted to the status of the "incarnation" of the god of the sun.

Edward Gibbon says:

"The Roman Christians, ignorant of his (Christ's) birth, fixed the solemn festival to the 25th of December, the Brumalia, or Winter Solstice, when the Pagans annually celebrated the birth of Sol"

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. ii, Gibbon, p. 383.

Christmas festivals today incorporate many other pagan customs, such as the use of holly, mistletoe, Yule logs, and wassail bowls. The Christmas tree itself is the most obvious aspect of ancient pagan celebrations which were later incorporated into church rites. Scholars believe that the Christian celebration was originally derived in part from rites held by pre-Christian Germanic and Celtic peoples to celebrate the winter solstice. The Christmas tree, an evergreen trimmed with lights and other decorations, because it keeps its green needles throughout the winter months, was believed by pre-Christian pagans to have special powers of protection against the forces of nature and evil spirits. The end of December marked the onset of a visible lengthening of daylight hours - the return of warmth and light and defeat of those evil forces of cold and darkness. The Christmas tree is derived from the so-called paradise tree, symbolizing Eden, of German mystery plays. The use of a Christmas tree began early in the 17th century, in Strasbourg, France, spreading from there through Germany, into northern Europe and Great Britain, and then on to the United States.

Christmas is not the only Christian festival which was borrowed from ancient paganism and foisted upon the religion of Jesus (pbuh). There is also Easter (see details in chapter one), the Feast of St. John, the Holy communion, the Annunciation of the virgin, the assumption of the virgin, and many others have their roots in ancient pagan worship. Since we can not get into the details here, therefore, the interested reader is encouraged to consult the above books.

Many people object to people who advise them not to introduce new and innovative practices into their religion, even if they were only to be festivals and celebrations. They object "what could it hurt if I were to worship God and thank Him for his blessings on this day when pagans performed their worship? I am not worshipping idols." For this we only need to read the very explicit prohibition of God in this regard which He Himself emphatically declared in the Bible:

"Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them (pagans), after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise."

Deuteronomy 12:30

There is a good reason why God commands us to do things. Just because we do not know the wisdom behind a prohibition does not give us the freedom to disregard it. Indeed, it is exactly such willingness to "adapt" and "compromise" which eventually lead to the loss of the message of Jesus, as seen chapter one.

General similarities with paganism:

As we have seen, the common thread among most of these pagan sects is their worship of the sun as their deity and their selection of the winter solstice (25th of December) as the time of the birth of their supreme god. The winter solstice is the time of year when the sun would reach its last stage of decline and once again begin to rise and become "re-born." This rise would continue until day and night bec