The Pendragon's Hall

Did you not know that we're missing a created generation,
A multitude of faces, never more to be revealed?
Sons and daughters, created by the One who had a plan
But because of our own choices, they were handed down to man.

Please wake up, O church of God, see the battle:
Hear the countless little voices crying out for victory;
It is they who cannot speak, the innocent, the weak,
As we're fighting for their rights, their lives, their liberties.
It is time to hear their pleas...wake up, O church of God!

Do you not see the horror and the sin of what we've done?
Silent voices, silent shame, as we call ourselves His Name.
Now is the time we must boldly stand and say,
"Count me in the number to stop this evil way."

Forgive us for the silence, forgive us for our part,
For turning our heads, for hardening our hearts:
Motivate our lives as long as it remains:
The greatest of all evil--unborn children being slain.
--Dawn Pate.

The NYT says Democrats take money from the very special interest groups they claim to oppose.

Well, no kidding, Sherlock. It is nice, however, that they are admitting it at last.

This guy's right.

Well, with all the hype over the "confession" of Dr. Kay and the egg on the face of the Bush administration, it is nice to see someone thinking clearly (read above linked article). Do the Democrats really think Saddam just had piles of weapons lying out in plain sight? Even a Swedish inspector couldn't have missed that. Of course, during the six months that France, Germany and Russia tied us up in knots over diplomatic technicalities, did they think Saddam was thinking the French, of all people, would be able to restrain the United States for long? What exactly is the media and their erstwhile friends in the Democratic nomination fight looking for? WMD are not necessarily missiles. In a country the size of California mostly covered by sand and with free rein to do whatever you want, I'm sure Saddam had plenty of hiding places, to say nothing of friendly neighboring countries like Syria and Iran who almost refused to turn over fugitive terrorists to us.

Oh, and by the way, does anyone remember that on the eve of war Saddam began destroying the U.N.-banned weapons? How could he do that if he didn't have them? The truth will out. Saddam may not have had nuclear missiles stockpiled in his backyard (I sort of doubt he did). But he was trying to get them. Just like Cuba did about forty years ago. The thing is, Cuba's still there; Saddam is not. We have made sure Saddam can never get weapons of mass destruction...ever.

Incidentally, the Democrats weren't so ethically particular when we went to war with a wannabe dictator in the backwoods of the Balkans for no reason at all...except to save the presidency of an anti-America convict.

And Kerry does it again: derailing frontrunner Howard Dean in New Hampshire, a state famous for tripping up frontrunners was quite a feat. I must say, as a partisan Republican, I am rather hoping Kerry begins to stumble a bit now. While I would never want Howard Dean to actually be the nominee, it would be nice if he would win South Carolina just to shake things up a bit. Or better yet have Lieberman or Edwards take South Carolina and Dean bow out. Anything to shake things up so uniting beyond the eventual nominee John Kerry will be difficult.

That said, I don't think there is any doubt left that Kerry is in the strongest position and Dean is what people first suspected he was: a left-wing lunatic from a tiny state where liberals try all their experiments out and then twist media coverage to make it look like it works. To be fair, John Kerry is also a left-wing lunatic but he at least has some kind of mental stability, albeit hard to find at times, especially when he is working the crowd. But given my observations of the last Democratic primary, I predict Kerry will continue to win and win big. Bill Bradley was supposed to give Al Gore a run for his money in 2000, but when Gore carried Iowa and New Hampshire easily, all the other states (including Bradley's home state of NJ) lined up behind Gore. I suspect the same thing will happen here, and would not be at all surprised if Howard Dean is making a concession speech sometime in the next week or so.

In order to clear the "related searches" of all items relating to the Green Bay Packers who have not featured much in this blog, but who apparently have taken over, I offer my take on next week's Super Bowl.

It is the Carolina Panthers vs. the New England Patriots. As a more-or-less NFC fan, I am hoping the Panthers will win. Nevertheless, if pressed, I must say I think the Patriots will win a squeaker...on the order of 4 points or less. As for last week's pathetic showing of both Philadelphia and Indianapolis, I have only this to say: Donovan McNabb proved Rush Limbaugh was right and Peyton Manning blew it again.

This is sort of heartwarming.

In America, they would have told her to abort him.

Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark refused to distance himself from controversial documentary filmmaker Michael Moore's characterization of Bush as a "deserter" during a recent Clark rally.

Clark was asked why he didn't contradict Moore after the filmmaker made the remark in Clark's presence and if he had checked whether the facts supported Moore's comment, an allusion to Bush's Air National Guard service in the early 1970s.

"Well, I think Michael Moore has the right to say whatever he feels about this," Clark responded. "I don't know whether this is supported by the facts or not. I've never looked at it. I've seen this charge bandied about a lot. But to me, it wasn't material."
--CNN

A liberal demagogue makes a blatantly false statement and a liberal presidential candidate doesn't care whether or not it is true. That certainly warms the cockles of the heart. Hopefully Democrats in New Hampshire will give this lousiest of lousy candidates a heave out of the door. Hopefully, he'll land right next to Howard Dean.

When the previous blog entry hits my school's newspaper, which it is supposed to in the next edition, people will no doubt be accusing me of having written it after the President's State of the Union Address last night. But no, I wrote it long before this, back while I was still on Christmas Break actually. He says it too because it is true. Speaking of gay marriage, the President said,

A strong America must also value the institution of marriage. I believe we should respect individuals as we take a principled stand for one of the most fundamental, enduring institutions of our civilization. Congress has already taken a stand on this issue by passing the Defense of Marriage Act, signed in 1996 by President Clinton. That statute protects marriage under Federal law as the union of a man and a woman, and declares that one state may not redefine marriage for other states. Activist judges, however, have begun redefining marriage by court order, without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives. On an issue of such great consequence, the people's voice must be heard. If judges insist on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people, the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process. Our Nation must defend the sanctity of marriage.

Yes! On this and so many other issues where rule by the people is being subverted, it is time for those people and their elected representatives to refuse to be cowed by a few activist judges who think their word is law. Strangely, although the President was putting power back into the hands of Congress, you didn't see Congressional Democrats cheering. They must be getting used to having judges tell them what to do.

This week is Sanctity of Human Life Week. 31 years ago this week, the US Supreme Court handed down its fateful Roe v. Wade decision, legalizing abortion in the United States. The 7-2 decision centered on the supposed unconstitutionality of a Texas law outlawing abortion except in instances where the mother’s life was endangered. The Court decided the US Constitution protected a woman’s right to kill her unborn baby for any reason. At least, that is how it has been interpreted. This would eventually include the gruesome procedure of aborting half-born babies. President Bush signed a law outlawing this procedure last fall but it was immediately challenged by the courts.

The moral issue should be obvious. As a Christian, I believe all life is sacred because people are made in the image of God. But there is another issue here. In handing down this ruling, the Supreme Court violated the principles of the Constitution. By constitutional law, courts were only intended to interpret laws; the legislatures (whether Congress or individual state legislatures) were supposed to actually make them. Yet in this ruling Justice Harry Blackmun took it upon himself to instruct state legislatures on what laws they were to make in regards to abortion. But the Constitution gives justices no such authority. The people of America are supposed to be allowed, through their elected representatives, to make their own laws. But the Supreme Court in 1973 denied them this right and, in essence, made their laws for them. It has set a disturbing trend for the last 31 years. Contrary to what the media may say, the American people have never voted to make abortion legal, nor indeed did Congress until forced to by the US Supreme Court. You will never see a better example of one branch of our government lording it over the others.

Many today worry about the supposed powers the President has been granted to combat terrorism. This could well be a problem down the road. But the problem of judges overstepping the bounds of their lawful authority is here and now. It has been happening for 31 years and even again, only recently, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ordered the state legislature to rewrite their Constitution, allowing for gay marriages in the state. Again, the State Supreme Court has no such power to demand that. But the State Legislature does have the power to cut the justices’ salaries and, in fact, to impeach them. It wouldn’t hurt for judges to remember this little fact.

Despite what we’ve been told, court rulings, even Supreme Court rulings, are not sacrosanct. In 1853, they decided the Constitution protected slavery and no northern state governments were to be allowed to interfere with the rights of the southern states to own slaves. If Abraham Lincoln and people like him had believed the Supreme Court was the final authority, we wouldn't have to worry about Al Sharpton running for President--he would still be picking cotton for free somewhere in the Deep South.

President Bush and other prominent law-makers have suggested they may be open to the possibility of overturning Roe v. Wade. Like slavery, abortion is a black stain on our society and it deserves all our efforts to defeat it, just as slavery did. I urge you this week to write your representatives, your senators, and your President and ask them to fight back against this attempt by the US Supreme Court to dictate to our country what laws we will make. Proponents of abortion on demand will try to tell you that when the gavel falls, the argument is over. This is simply untrue. The argument is far from over and Christians should be in the forefront of pressing for the courts to retract their long war on the innocent unborn and in their voting and activities to demand those in power do so. Rather than lie down and play dead, the church must rise up and fight!

You know, it is really about time. President Bush finally sidestepped the mindless Democratic filibuster on his judicial nominee, Charles Pickering, and appointed him to the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, the NYT reported this morning. Of course, the Times is fuming about this appointment claiming it to be an "evasion." Well, of course it is. And yes, while we're at it, this too is an election year proposal. The American people aren't likely to think much of a President who, with the power to act at his disposal, let a bickering Congress make him a lame-duck President in an election year. Liberals think any constitutional means of blocking their stranglehold on our government is "unfair" (the word an op-ed article in the Times used this morning) because they have some strange notion the Constitution guarantees them free reign for whatever they want. I'm glad our President showed them we still do have a two-party system and that politically-motivated obstruction of the functions of our government will be stopped whatever way is open to him.

More proof the Demoratic candidates are mindless demagogues (from this morning's New York Times):

"Do you like the surge?" (Kerry) asked 160 people packed into a small auditorium in Sioux City, as they whooped in response. "Are you ready to add more surge? Are you ready to make more surge more surge? And are you ready to make more and more surge a surprise on Monday?"

Good grief! Sounds like baby talk. "Do 'ou wike it? do 'ou? awww Pwetty surge."

"He started with this," Mr. Gephardt said of Dr. Dean.

Make him stop, Mom!

"I feel very good about where we are," (Gephardt) said. "I always knew this was going to be a tight race, an intense competition. We've got good candidates, everybody's been working really hard. But I believe with all my heart that at the end of the day we're going to win this."

Yeah, Dick. So did Al Gore--in fact he believed so many things with all his heart, his heart must have been some sizes larger than his brain...no surprise that. These guys are certainly proving the old adage: If you aren't a liberal when you're young, you have no heart...if you don't become a conservative as you mature, you have no brain.

In case you've been in a coma for the last three weeks, 2004 is a presidential election year. The media seems suddenly determined to remind us of this at every turn. Whatever President Bush does from here till November is going to be analyzed and written up as "an election year effort". His immigration is "an election year proposal"; his space program is "an election year plan". If he came up with a plan to have Americans breathe regularly, it would be considered "an election year effort" to win the regular-breathers vote (always a core group). To be fair and balanced, something the papers are not, I disagree with President Bush's immigration suggestion, but this is because I think it is a bad idea not because he suggested it (the media's reason). And they are right--it is "an election year proposal" because 2004 is an election year! And yes, he is also trying to "court" the Hispanic vote. So what? Isn't this what politicians do? It's not earth-shattering news. Politicians want to be re-elected; so they reach out to the voters they believe can re-elect them. There's nothing patently immoral about the process--it's American as apple pie. All the presidential candidates are doing it--why else do you think extreme leftists in the Democratic primaries are talking about Jesus, while campaigning down south? But according to the exalted media this is simply "trying to connect" with the voters. Personally, I think we might safely see it as "an election year proposal" to make Christians look so bad (by equating them with the likes of Howard Dean) that no one takes Christian candidates seriously anymore. In light of President Bush's Christianity, the possibility is not remote.

An ode to our brave soldiers abroad and a shame to the wusses at home protesting what they don't even have to do:

(excerpted from "Loamhedge" by Brian Jacques):

Fortunes and fate be with you all,
You who fight for the right:
Some will stand, others fall,
Never to return this night.

But fear ye not, my loving friends,
Be strong of limb and heart,
Knowing that peace depends on you,
Let courage play its part.

Tranquility and calm spread wide
Through this, our dear homeland:
Justice and truth go by your side
Which evil cannot withstand.

Well, my predictions went 3-for-4. It will be Carolina @ Philadelphia and Indianapolis @ New England. I'm going to go with my heart this time and predict Indy-Carolina Super Bowl. Both games will be awesome though and really close.

In the interest of commenting about current issues with relevance, I hear today that Koby Bryant didn't have a very nice time last night in Denver. Of course, it being so near the place where he made "his big mistake" makes that expected.

Does Bryant deserve this? Well, I have been following the story mainly because it proves a point I have suspected all along: liberals who claim Americans (you know, people who live in America) don't care about the sex lives of celebrities obviously don't know many Americans. Bryant is apparently guilty of adultery, possibly of rape, and the outcry has been great. So it should be. Still, I wonder why the media focuses on it so relentlessly if it is true that average Americans don't care about sex. I suspect it is because, up to this point, Bryant was "the clean boy on the block." I mean, let's face it, with teammates like Magic Johnson, almost anybody can look like a Vienna choirboy. It's one of the things that should disgust people about the media--they delight in tearing down the images of anyone held up as a role model. Koby did wrong and no one can deny it, whether or not these allegations are proved. But the media (and average people) should report these with sorrow, grieving that a man, heretofore (as far as is known) was a clean-cut, upright man should have fallen so far. There should not be this gleeful "Oho-look-who's-not-so-perfect." Give him the same consideration as was given a certain president about six years ago.

The mainstream media won't report it, it seems, and so it falls to those of us with an ear to the ground to say anything good about President Bush. While AOL news falls all over itself painting Howard Dean up as a non-extremist (there's a good one), you will find nary a trace of the story Chuck Colson told in his Breakpoint commentary yesterday afternoon. It seems that among the countless thousands who distributed gifts to children of prisoners with Angel Tree, two at least should have stood out to the media: The President and the First Lady. They visited a church in Alexandria, VA on December 22nd and distributed gifts to forty children. The press was there--they are always there when the President moves--but they didn't report it. Why? Chuck Colson has the answer: "Because our President doesn't do this for the cameras; he does it because he's genuine. And the papers just can't handle that." Rather than leave with the media, the President and his wife stayed to visit with the children, even speaking to the Hispanic children in their own language. But don't expect Dean's fan club known as mainstream media to tell you anything about that. They're too busy assuring you that Dean is "inspired" by the life of Jesus, whatever that means. Perhaps he wants to be crucified or something.

Andrew Jackson did something similar in his days as president. Growing up as an orphan, the President understood the needs orphans have at Christmas time and so he invited the inhabitants of a local orphanage to the White House for a big snowball fight and then a party where he distributed gifts to them. Historians today don't talk much about this, nevertheless it was an essential part of who Jackson was. Like him, our current President is also a real person, not one who claims the "example" of Jesus while living like everyone else in the world. Historian Stephen Mansfield commented, "Americans seem to want their president to believe in God, but not to act like it once he's in office." That's the real story of why Dean needs to claim Jesus "who serves as my example" (Jesus serves Dean?). Hopefully the American people will look for someone who really means it.

Many have asked my opinion of the LOTR trilogy. As an old Tolkien fan I must say I thought they were quite well done. I'm glad too because when the news was first released that a film was in the making, I feared the usual Hollywood garbage and thought the books would be butchered. That was, thankfully, not the case.

There were some parts I thought a bit overdone. Legolas bringing down the oliphaunt singlehandedly in the third movie was one instance. Arwen's presence in all three movies, but especially the second, was definitely another one. The third movie would not have been so long without the "she-elf"'s (greatly expanded) role in the second movie. That was unnecessary.

Overall, however, the actors and actresses (Liv Taylor excluded) portrayed very much what I had in mind from reading the books years ago. And the special effects were quite amazing--TIME credits the scenes in Shelob's lair as "the creepiest computer generated images ever" but I think the scenes with Aragorn in the Paths of the Dead beat Shelob out--perhaps because I'm not, as TIME reporters inevitably are, arachnophobic. Still, I must admit...Shelob would give me a start. Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen certainly shone in their respective roles and a good job was done by all. While the books are always better, the movies are worth seeing...again and again and again. Go for it, if you haven't already.

I read now in the news that North Korea is again offering to freeze its nuclear program. While this is certainly welcome news, the US would do well to keep one hand on the revolver. When dealing with barbarians, especially barbarians with lasers, it is always helpful to keep the force card clearly in view. While we don't want to attack a nuclear-capable nation unless we have to, our ability and willingness to do so must be in plain sight.

Interestingly, the news release on AOL News perpetuates the myth that the US brought this on by accusing North Korea of violating the agreement and then suddenly, presumably by a touch of master magician Kim Jong Il, voila! Nuclear weapons where they have never been before. I wonder...is there anything bad that happens in this world that can't be blamed on the US if once the leftist media gets ahold of it. North Korea had already violated the agreement, all Bush did was call attention to it. Clinton could have done the same, if he wasn't too busy pardoning rich felons. The lesson of North Korea is, "Never trust a savage; they'll shake your hand and swing their axe at your head with the other."

To everyone's surprise, especially my own, my predictions went four for four over the weekend. Emboldened by this I have decided to stick my neck out and make predictions for the four games this weekend as well. The lineups and predictions are as follows:

Carolina @ Saint Louis: Rams by 10.
Tennessee @ New England: Patriots win a squeaker.
Indianapolis @ Kansas City: Colts by 10
Green Bay @ Philadelphia: Eagles by 3.

This time I hope I'm one for four. I'd like to see the Panthers, Titans and Packers prove me wrong. We'll see.

In the interest of further proving my inability to pick winners in anything except politics, I submit to whoever may be bored and interested my picks for the playoffs this week:

Tennessee @ Baltimore: Titans by a slim margin.
Dallas @ Carolina: Panthers by 7.
Seattle @ Green Bay: Packers by 14
Denver @ Indianapolis: Colts by 10.

And so I hear today that General I-Bombed-Civilians-In-Kosovo Clark is now claiming the President "knew about 9/11 and did nothing to stop it." While agreeing with Roger Mitchell, in for Rush Limbaugh today, that there appears to be "no depth to which these people will not sink," I think Clark's statement gives the lie to the oft-repeated liberal belief that the President's war on Iraq was uncalled for. With the hell they've raised over the President's "pre-emptive strike" against terror master Saddam Hussein, I don't think they would have been likely, with far less evidence than the US had against Iraq, to have allowed the President to take any action to head off 9/11. But, with the war on terror largely a success, no terrorist attacks over New Years (I can hear the "oh darn" of the Democrats now), and the economy appearing to be growing stronger than ever, they are desperate for an issue, any issue, to raise that might possibly blacken the President's image with the people. Fortunately for our country, I think the American people are smarter than that. At least one person is.

In "The Story Girl" by Lucy Maud Montgomery, the heroine remarks, "Just think of it: Three hundred and sixty-five days with nothing happened in them yet."

I always think of that as each new year begins. Each day is a gift from God and He goes with us into each one.

Happy New Year!