The Pendragon's Hall

I guess it's good news that Congress is acting on the President's challenge to pass an energy bill before the summer recess. Reportedly the bill gives tax breaks to electric and other energy companies to encourage more drilling and exploration and also relaxes some of the strict environmental standards that make it economically unfeasible for energy companies to expand. This is all good. But I'm not so sure about the fact that the idea of drilling in ANWR has been left out. I know the House had to do this to avoid those mindless Dems filibustering it in the Senate, but it's just leaving the fight for another day. As long as the Hollywood Jet Club is cruising across the country in private jets, burning enough fuel to run an SUV for a year, and living in huge mansions that take up enough electricity to light pretty much any African country for years to come, normal people are going to fight back by sticking fast to their right to own their own vehicle and travel. And why shouldn't they? Since when is "the right to travel" only guaranteed to the rich? While the Democrats are pontificating endlessly about tax breaks for the richest oil companies, they might do well to remember what their own limousines run on. But the only thing that I can see that will do a lot to seriously reduce our dependence on the foreign oil provided by brutal dictators is to begin drilling our own in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge. They did it in Siberia with little to no environmental damage. In fact that caribou got frisky and their population tripled. And anyone who think the ANWR is some kind of northern paradise hasn't seen even a picture: it's a barren, frozen wasteland and the people who live there want the oil line. It's just one more way of making "Seward's folly" pay for itself. (For my Canadian readers, "Seward's folly" is what many people called Alaska when the Secretary of State arranged its purchase from the Russians, thinking it was just a frozen wasteland that would never redeem itself.)

CNN breathlessly announced last night that Elizabeth Smart's kidnapper has been found "incompetent" to stand trial. This both infuriates and confuses me: the man was competent enough to break into a house without waking anybody up, spirit the girl away with nobody knowing till a short time afterwards, hide her in the region being combed by police and amateur child-finders for weeks on end, keep her presence hidden during a nationwide search, keep his own identity under wraps, even convince Elizabeth herself she was someone else. But he's not competent to stand trial. No wonder our criminal justice system is a mess.

I also saw a rather amusing bumper sticker the other day that proclaimed: "FAIR Trade, not FREE Trade." I'm working on one now that says, "FREE Trade IS Fair." And it is, if you think about it. People who work hard in a free trade system get the rewards of their work eventually. But of course the lefties in the world would rather we took it away from the people who earned it and give it to deadbeats.

Over the past few days I have been rereading the sixth Harry Potter book and, as usual, noticed some things I missed the first time around. The first thing was a possible political allegory. It seems to be cropping up a lot--whether in Star Wars or what have you. The Ministry of Magic, at war with the Dark Wizards, hunts down and arrests three suspects who turn out to be innocent but whom the Ministry continues to hold because they do not wish to be seen to be incompetent. Naturally, some liberals and defensive conservatives, will read this as a response to the British and American governments' detainment of terror suspects. They could be right, given the author's British background, but somehow I just can't equivocate the bumbling idiot Fudge and his Auror friends who detain people unawares just to be seen to be doing something about Voldemort to Bush and Blair. It was, after all, the Ministry who refused to believe Voldemort was back in book 5 until he appeared right in their headquarters. That sounds more like the Left, refusing to believe terrorists are guilty until they're caught detonating an atomic bomb in Manhattan and the pompous, incompetent Fudge more an allegory for Jacques Chirac than for George Bush.

I still don't know what I think about the final scene in which Snape murders Dumbledore, proving that Harry was right and everyone else was wrong. Kids already think they're misunderstood; I don't know that it's a good idea to reinforce that thought. But you've got to wonder: what did Jesus' disciples think when one of His own friends betrayed him to His death? Had any of them ever wondered why Judas was allowed to be in the band when he seemed more like a Death Eater? Had any of them ever warned Jesus that Judas was stealing the money he was supposed to be guarding and suggested he be thrown out? Had Jesus ever told them, "I trust Judas"? Maybe or maybe not. And I'm not sure, until Book 7 hits the stores, what the aftermath of Dumbledore's death will be. I just think there might be parallels.

As a side note, this country is way too obsessed with shuttles launches.

I don't know what has possessed conservatives this week. Maybe they are feeling ashamed that since the election most of what they have proposed to do is standard conservative stuff, pretty predictable, and more of the tame stuff at that. First we had Ann Coulter's article, now World magazine has been sounding their trumpet on everything from the supposed occultism of Harry Potter to echoing Ann Coulter's worries about John Roberts Jr. to Janie B. Cheaney even writing an article opposing a flag-burning amendment to the Constitution on the grounds that the flag would become an idol. In paranoid language, Cheaney fears living in a country where it is perfectly acceptable to burn a cross but a Federal offense to burn the flag. And she drags in some references to the bronze snake in the Wilderness that Moses made and then it became an idol in Israel. What Ms. Cheaney misses is that the people most staunchly supporting the flag-burning amendment are the same people who staunchly oppose burning crosses as well, and would, in fact, like to display them. Seeing as the cross is a religious symbol, one might ask Ms. Cheaney if protecting it from burning might make it an idol as well. After all, the cross is much more analogous to the bronze snake she refers to than the American flag is. One thing she neglects to mention too is that, at least for now, cross burning will be opposed by everyone: conservatives because it desecrates the symbol of the Christian religion and liberals because it is most often used in the persecution of blacks. I do not foresee a country where flag-burning is taboo but burning a cross is considered freedom of speech. Even liberals don't consider it such. I'm really not sure what has gotten into conservatives this week, but I think it may be their resentment at supporting officials and programs that are easily branded conservative. It's the old, "I want to be unplottable" argument. Someone once confided in me that her friend had actually dared to register Independent. "I wish I could do that," she lamented, apparently believing that her friend was some kind of latter-day female Sir Lancelot for registering this way. I'm not sure, though: how much courage does it take to tell the world you have no convictions whatsoever?

I don't like disagreeing with fellow Conservatives, mostly because of the Leftist myth that the Democratic Party is one big happy family, but I feel I need to today. Ann Coulter, for whom I personally have the greatest respect, has run a column declaring that Conservatives should be worried that Bush has nominated "a nobody" for Supreme Court Justice and that NARAL and the ACLU also attacked O'Connor, Kennedy and Souter when they were nominated and now these three tend to be very staunch friends of abortion rights and judicial activism. I don't know what she expected exactly--Roy Moore? But I think in this instance we ought to trust the President. His "nobodies" have turned out a lot better than his more well-known choices. I'd never heard of Dick Cheney before he was chosen to be Vice-President. How about Condi Rice? Who knew her name prior to her appointment as National Security Advisor? The most famous and well-known member of his cabinet originally was Colin Powell. So I think Bush has earned the trust of Conservatives on his appointment ability, even when he is appointing people we are not quite as familiar with as others. I still stand behind Judge Roberts.

Lots of very good news today. The British police are acting like cowboys, gunning down suspicious characters in London. I'm impressed. I didn't think Europeans had it in them. The British public, while frightened, overall appears to be defiant. Most of the "man on the street" interviews with Londoners seem to be saying, "We're not changing our lifestyle. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen." Well done! That's more like the London of World War II fame than the pansies I met while I was over there. Thus far, there appears to be no substantial calls for further reduction in Britain's role in the War on Terror, which is impressive as well.

Meanwhile, the House has reapproved the Patriot Act indefinitely by a vote of 257-171. AOL reports that "nine Republicans" broke rank but that was simply to cover up an earlier statement that 43 Democrats voted with the Republicans on this one. While we can't expect the same amount of rational thinking from the Senate, we can at least hope that Bill Frist will club down some of the mavericks and push it through.

Meanwhile some Muslim with possible separatist ties is dying in a hospital in the country (not the state) of Georgia after admitting to throwing a grenade during a speech by President Bush, killing one policemen and injuring some others. The story declares that he made "an obsecene gesture" at the video camera. Nice, pious fellows, these Muslim extremists.

Bush isn't letting any grass grow under his feet. With the High Court's living testimony to the limits of gender equality getting ready to retire, he has moved to replace her with a solid, constructionalist justice who will "interpret" the laws, and not make them. Unfortunately for liberals, he is also a highly-qualified judge. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) admitted he is not a "filibuster-able" judge (it's always highly amusing to watch them torture the English language, these people who sneer about "misunderestimate"). Teddy Kennedy wants to know if he will be able to remove his personal ideology from "the rule of law." I rather think it would be better for liberals if he didn't, since "rule of law" isn't part of their own ideology. The limited fuss Democrats have been unable to raise thus far (and they will keep trying, believe me you) only proves something we have long suspected: liberals want to impose a litmus test on the judiciary, to squash state's rights (unless it happens to be state court's rights, then all bets are off), to uphold the right of a woman to murder her unborn baby in any and every conceivable circumstance, to allow same-sex marriage and to enforce universities accept a certain quotia of unqualified minority students simply because they are minorities. Bush, according to all reports, did not ask John Roberts any of these questions. He knows the man's record as a constructionalist from a constitutional perspective and is satisfied he will do a good job. I am, as well. This latest development has proved that Bush still hasn't learned from his recent years in office, which is a very good thing for America.

I'm a little ticked off with J.K. Rowlings right now, for being so all-fire secretive about her book as if it were a matter of national security or something. So I'm retaliating the only way I can. This blog entry will review her latest book and give everything away. Those of you who wish to honor Ms. Rowling's wishes can read something else for today and rejoin us tomorrow when I will be discussing actual news. Those of you who were waiting for the movie may as well read this entry. The way it's going the sixth movie won't be out for some three or four years yet.

"Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" is a very good b0ok. The fact that I started it Monday night and finished Tuesday afternoon despite having to take a seven hour break for work and an eight hour break for sleep proves that. While it doesn't have the humor and lighthearted situations worked in that the previous five books had, it is a much more dramatic and epic book in which Voldemort, for a change, does not appear once except as a memory. It was kind of a relief to me. Harry falls in love with Ron's younger sister but at the end walks away from the relationship because as "the Chosen One" fated to bring down Voldemort, he believed she would be in more danger if it became known she was important to him. It's becoming a standard ploy in hero-stories but it's still quite effective and interesting that greatness means walking alone in many ways. Nevertheless, Rowling does not make Harry completely alone--in the closing scenes when Harry decides to leave Hogwarts and track down the Dark Lord who has killed so many close to him, Ron and Hermione will not be left behind but vow to be at his side wherever he goes. Other than this, the sixth book ends with Harry more alone than ever: Severus Snape was a traitor and in a dramatic break from the Order of the Phoenix, Snape proves Harry right and Dumbledore wrong when he officially joins Voldemort's side and cements it by killing a weakened Dumbledore. With all his family and his protecters now dead, Harry realizes he has to stop Voldemort before he goes any further. Book 7 will undoubtedly center around Harry's quest to find and destroy the "horcruxes"--six objects into which Voldemort has infused a little of his soul and without which he will be a mortal man again. He and Dumbledore spend a good portion of this book trying to find out what they are.

In short, it's a good book, with many good messages about loyalty, friendship and the sacrifice good people must make when evil is rampaging. Although I personally disliked the implicit message that Harry always knew better than Dumbledore, which comes when Snape confirms Harry's belief and not Dumbledore's, the book overall is well-written and worth reading. I think I've covered everything you're not supposed to know. Oh yes...one more thing: "the Half-Blood Prince" is Snape.

The press just won't go away. Now their masters in Congress, and Howard Dean at DNC, are saying, "Repeat after me: Bush is corrupt. Bush is corrupt." The latest charge is that the President "lowered the ethics bar" at the White House by hedging on whether or not he will fire Karl Rove for his supposed "leak" of a CIA operative's name. Lowering the ethics bar? How about, "I did not have sex with that woman?" Even beside that, it only makes sense the President waits to see what the final story is before firing one of his top advisors. It's a long held myth of the Left that Republican presidents can do anything to please them other than die. If Bush fires Rove, there'll be a slew of media stories about other cabinet members and aides and wondering why Bush doesn't fire them. Perhaps if Bush really is "lowering the bar" on ethics, it's because it was already so low from the Clinton years that just about anything gets him by. And the story isn't even out yet. The media is so determined they are going to replay the Watergate years where people actually listened to them, that they have to stand by this story no matter what proof comes their way. In "All the President's Men" one of the most dramatic scenes in the largely made-up movie comes when editor Ben Bradlee, despite all evidence to the contrary, declares: "We stand by our story!" Of course, in the media's dream world, it will come out all right. But this is real life. It is highly unlikely that Karl Rove, a man who knows politics and the media, would be so foolish as to leak the name of a CIA worker out of favor with the administration to, of all people, a TIME magazine reporter. Furthermore, as far as I can tell, this lady was not a covert agent working in the field: she wrote the report on WMD. She's a paper pusher at the CIA. Her life and work were not endangered, especially as supposedly she challenged the view of Iraq's WMD capabilities. Not exactly a sticking point for terrorists. Karl Rove shouldn't have leaked her name, however; that's quite right. He should have had the IRS audit her. The press wouldn't have minded that.

While we're on the subject of media lies, I see Bob Woodward's new book on "Deep Throat" is already out. He doesn't waste any time. Fortunately for him, he learned long ago that the way to write bestsellers is a minimum of fact. I'm anxious to read it, however: I want to see how he explains the fact that he picked up his newspaper in a lobby so "Deep Throat" would never have been able to know which one he'd pick up. Or how his apartment couldn't be seen from the street so "Deep Throat" could not have seen his flowerpot signal? Or why the second man in charge at the FBI could be skulking around a parking garage in the middle of the night? He'll probably do what he has done all along: conveniently forget his apartment number and leave out minor details like the newspapers. That's what he's done for years. The truth: there was no one "Deep Throat" and Woodward certainly wasn't meeting him secretly at night. This was a creation for the movie which actually preceeded the book in idea. And Robert Redford couldn't stand the idea of playing a paper-pusher. The "ethics bar" in the media is pretty low too.

The news just gets more interesting, folks. After all the hullaballoo about Karl Rove, with Chuck Schumer and others foaming at the mouth and demanding his resignation, the NYT over the weekend (you know the one, that bastion of conservative newspaper reporting) released the bombshell: ROVE WAS NOT THE SOURCE THAT LEAKED THE CIA AGENT'S NAME! The reporter still sits in jail refusing to name the source of her story and it turns out Rove learned the information from a reporter--he doesn't remember which one. Commentator Rush Limbaugh believes it was probably her own husband who leaked the information to the press. It is yet another instance of the trend: Democrats and liberals lie through their teeth about Republican presidents because they just can't stand the comparisons to their own. They needed some way to get to Bush and it would be good if people stopped thinking about terrorism in London and how the Bush administration is keeping it at bay and rooting it out abroad and more about some phony corruption among Bush's advisors. It just must drive the liberals mad to see how popular their three most hated Republicans are (Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and now George W. Bush) and they're willing to do anything to shatter that popularity--whether it's faking a felony called Watergate, making a big deal out of toppling communist dictators in Central America, or whether it's pinning leaking the name of a CIA agent on the President's top advisor.

It has been two days since I concurred with Ann Coulter's call for police to target Arabs while searching for suicide bombers, but I did not expect the British government, of all people, to actually do it. Yet it seems Tony Blair is a little smarter than I gave him credit for. Of course, for political purposes he had to shy away from saying anything about Islam in general, but his remarks on the bombing were definitely more focused than anything on this side of the pond has been lately. He dared to name the ideology of the bombers "Islamic extremism" (if he had used the term "Islamo-fascist terrorism" my life would have been complete) and his police are actually following the lead that MUSLIMS COMMITTED THE CRIME! Apparently the British police are investigating Islamic bookstores and schools, have arrested an Egyptian chemist believed to be linked to the attackers and are actively seeking the extradition of an Egyptian terrorist to stand trial in Britain. I say, well done, chaps! This probably won't win you points in Europe, but at least you can make reasonably sure those responsible are punished and that this doesn't happen again.

Reuters announced today that NYC police are going to be teaching subway passengers how to recognize suicide bombers. They include: wearing bulky clothing in hot weather and constantly returning to a package. Note to lovers: Keep the diamong ring in your pocket and don't look too interested in it or you might be suspected. Ann Coulter had an idea and I think she has the right one: LOOK FOR ARABS! White college students nervous about popping the big question or cranky old men whose internal thermostat hasn't worked for ninety years are rarely a threat in any form, except they might pass out from stress. But every time a terrorist organization strikes, it appears that actually there are Arabs involved. Racial profiling is really the only method that will truly stop terrorism where it starts. You have to look for people who look like all the terrorists to strike the West for the last twenty years.

I've had about enough of this ruminating about Karl Rove. Now, I don't like the man, not since he advised Bush to avoid a topic that might have won him Michigan, Pennsylvania and Oregon last November: gay marriage. But this making frontpage news out of what he supposedly did is getting out of hand. What Bush needs to do now is release an "enemies list" like the fictional one Nixon's enemies said he had and have John McCain's name at the very top. And of course Chuck Schumer is now demanding to know the whole story and says the President "owes" America the truth about Karl Rove. Personally, I think, all he "owes" Senate Democrats is a black eye and they should stop identifying themselves with America. The last four elections have proved they're way out of the mainstream. What I want to know is, where was all this passion in 1998? Why didn't Schumer want to know the whole story about Monica? If Karl Rove leaked the name of a CIA operative in the field to get back at her husband for criticisms of the administration, yes, that was wrong, and yes, he should be censured for it, and for many other things, too. Bush probably shouldn't have people on staff who do things like that; after all, it's better to have the IRS audit, and the press run smear jobs, on people who offend you. What's even more disgusting is that for a couple days, the Karl Rove story actually knocked the London bombings out of the frontpage news. The day after the bombings I eagerly signed online to find out the latest, to see if any progress was being made. Not a thing. But I could find out a lot about Karl Rove. This only confirms what we all hoped wasn't true but I guess it was: given the choice between detailing the atrocities of Islamic terrorists and doing a hatchet job on the President's top political advisor, the mainstream media will choose the hatchet job every single time.

I am thoroughly disgusted. After all my defending Nike against left-wing lunatics in Europe who were upset because Third World employees didn't have five weeks of vacation every year, they had to go and endorse gay civil unions. Now, I have to be one of the lunatics attacking them. This is really getting ridiculous. It's not even good business. Nike has already offended the European market, who now believe it's a sign of moral superiority, along the lines of preferring Italian pizza to New York-style, not to buy Nike because of the "bad conditions" for Vietnamese workers who otherwise would be able to be sitting in mud huts in the rain while liberals taped a "look-how-bad-the-West-is" National Geographic show. Now they will offend Americans. I'm not quite sure where they are planning on selling their shoes from now on. At any rate, I encourage anyone interested to visit this link to write a letter to Nike condemning their new pro-gay marriage policy. I also encourage you all: use the link by all means but write your own email. AFA is kind of extreme on their wording.

It was quite jarring to me to learn today that several of the places I frequented most in London were hit by terrorists early this morning. Newspapers are already calling this "the deadliest attack on London since World War II." Sounds familiar. They said that about 9/11 too. Al-Qaeda of course has claimed responsibility, as if there were any doubt, and claims it as retaliation for Britain's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, the two wars were not connected though. This should be the final proof, if any were needed, that terrorists don't hate conservatives (they do fear us, though); they simply hate all westerners. New York City didn't vote for Bush; London didn't support the war in Iraq. If I was in Paris I'd be getting a little worried about now.

I grieve with Britain today that so many more innocent lives have been lost in this war. No doubt their press will be saying it was only retribution for the supposed innocents killed in Iraq. No such thing! Terrorists know westerners have consciences. Unfortunately for them, unless I vastly overrate the British people, I think perhaps this is more likely to inspire an American-style response than a Spanish lily-livered surrender. I hope the US will do all it can to aid the UK and I'm sure we will. A friend in need is a friend indeed.

Today is George W. Bush's 59th birthday and by a wierd twist of fate, it is also the day, back in the 1850s, that the Republican Party was created. It must have been foreordained. I wonder if Jimmy Carter or FDR was born on the same day as the Democratic Party. That would be humorous.

Of course, all the world is a-buzz now that Canada and Spain have become the latest countries to allow gay marriage by law. Canada's Liberal Party may have just put the nail in their own coffin with this decision which seems to be extremely unpopular among rank-and-file Canadians. I wonder what happened to the US being a "cultural imperialist". Seems like if we were, more countries would be imitating us, either out of respect or out of fear. The real cultural imperialists, of course, are the same old political imperialists: the countries of western Europe. Liberals in the New World want to transplant Europe's socialist paradise here in Capital City. Now more than ever, we need determined leadership to stand up and govern this country. If Europe wants to go to hell, let it. I see no reason why Canada and the US need to go along to keep them company.