The buzz among Conservatives is that Oliver Stone's new movie about 9/11, "World Trade Center," is without political bias. If that's true, one has to wonder whether Liberals will attack the movie for being too maudlin and pro-American. Personally, I'll never know, because I will never see it for several reasons. And, for the record, I didn't see "United 93," either.

Regardless of the movie's bias or lack of same, it was made by notorious anti-American director Oliver Stone, who never met a Communist dictator he didn't like, and who referred to the terrorist attacks as "the revolt of September 11th." The movie also features actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, who believes the United States is "responsible in some way" for 9/11. People like that don't deserve a dime of my hard-earned American cash, nor do the anti-American causes which some of that money will ultimately fund. I don't need to watch Hollywood half-wits faking shock and sorrow they may have felt for perhaps a few seconds at best before they began blaming America for being the victim of terrorism.

My memories of 9/11 have not yet begun to fade. I almost wish they would. I will be able to see those people falling -- or worse, jumping -- out of those windows any time I close my eyes for the rest of my life. When I travel to north New Jersey or New York City, I'm still unable to stop myself from searching the now-unfamiliar skyline for towers where none now exist. .

When I want to see a movie about real New York heroes on September 11th, I'll watch the footage shot by two French filmmakers who happened to be making a documentary about a probationary firefighter that day. Jules and Gedeon Naudet followed the men of a lower Manhattan firehouse as they dealt with the attacks on the Twin Towers and the immediate aftermath. The accidental documentary, entitled simply "9/11," did a far better job than any slick Hollywood blockbuster ever could.

And when I want to learn about our enemies, I'll watch "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West," which I first saw when it premiered in Philadelphia in March 2006. Naturally, it became available on Google video right after I ordered the DVD, but it's money well spent.

I need no big-budget, big-screen reminders only five years after 9/11. Get back to me on the fiftieth anniversary, perhaps.

The "Israel attacked and killed dozens of children" story has spread with a speed that defies rational explanation. It's as though most mainstream media "journalists" around the world were excited to learn that an Israeli attack on a Hizballah rocket launch point resulted in the deaths of 37 children. Those media vultures swung into action, painting the Israelis as evil aggressors deliberately targeting innocent men, women and children, making them sound... well, like Hizballah.

A three-story building in Qana, Lebanon was hit by an Israeli air strike in response to rocket attacks launched into Israel from the vicinity. The Associated Press depicted a man screaming, "Why are they killing us? What have we done?" as he pulled bodies from the wreckage. Reuters coverage, accompanied by graphic descriptions of the bodies, quoted another man asking, "Why have they attacked one- and two-year-old children and defenseless women?" It's difficult to remember the last time the media published such heart-rending accounts of personal grief in the aftermath of a Hizballah strike on an Israeli town. Then again, the media doesn't want to make that comparison, since people might notice that the Israelis aren't, in fact, launching random rocket attacks at innocent civilians on purpose. 

The media seems to be doing little more than publishing Hizballah propaganda thinly disguised as "news." The blog EU Referendum, for example, has documented evidence of Hizballah stage-managing coverage of the tragedy at Qana. The same man is seen "rescuing" the same victim in photograph after photograph, taken over a period of hours by several agencies, posing for the cameras with the body. CNN correspondent Nic Robertson took a guided tour conducted by a Hizballah "press officer" that was blatantly staged to "prove" that Israel was targeting civilians. Only photographic evidence that Hizballah attacks are launched from civilian areas, published in the Australian Herald Sun, weakened the mainstream media's indignation somewhat. Outrage over an Israeli airstrike that killed four UN "observers" was only slightly dampened when it was revealed that Hizballah was using the presence of UN troops as a shield from behind which they could launch attacks unmolested (or so they thought). UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan still used the Qana incident to demand an immediate cease-fire, which would prevent Israel from defending itself while leaving Hizballah free to regroup and rearm for more attacks.

Few of these "journalists" seem to have asked the questions, "what were women and children doing in that building when it collapsed, and why did it happen some seven hours after the airstrike took place?" The fact that Hizballah and other terrorists routinely use innocent civilians as human shields doesn't seem to change their foregone conclusion that the Israelis are really the bad guys. If it turns out that the building was used to hide Hizballah explosives which caused the building's collapse, Israel will still somehow be made to bear the blame.

There was no way for the Israelis to know that building contained women and children... if they were actually even there when the airstrike took place. There was no reason for any civilians to be in the town at all. Hizballah certainly knew that there were civilians present, but used the residential area as a launch zone anyway, knowing that Israel would respond. As usual, the majority of the "mainstream" media attaches no blame to terrorists whatsoever, even as the terrorists manipulate the media for their own ends.

The Israelis have been doing all that can be reasonably expected to limit civilian casualties in Lebanon as well as their own country. They regularly warn residents of southern Lebanon to leave towns targeted for airstrikes, via radio and dropped fliers, even though such warnings also tell Hizballah where the next blow will fall. No matter what they do, however, the Leftist media will continue to do all in their power to turn world opinion against them.

Israelis might as well forget about who "likes" them and do whatever it takes to remove Iran-controlled Hizballah from their northern border. After that, a multinational force -- NATO or an ad hoc coalition -- should help the Lebanese military keep the area secure from attacks. Now that the media has its meme, however, the clock is ticking on Israel's already faint international support. 

Just as most members of the media have used the crimes committed at Abu Ghraib to tear down public support for the entire liberation of Iraq, they will try to use Qana to turn support against Israel. If the Israelis bow to "world opinion" now, however, they might as well save time and drown themselves en masse in the eastern Mediterranean.

11 Aug 2006 UPDATE: More on photo fraud by a complicit media from aish.com.

Why are so many on the Left condemning Israel for a "disproportionate response" to attacks by Hamas and Hizballah? Is there a better way to defeat an enemy when it comes down to combat? After all, the object of war is not to play "tit for tat" games with the enemy, but to beat him. It's just another symptom of Leftist insanity that they believe the stronger combatant should be handicapped to make things "fair"... especially when the weaker force started the fight, and deliberately murders civilians as standard operating procedure. Did Patton leave men behind to make battles with the German army more "fair" during his push across Europe?

Of course, one has to wonder whether we'd hear the same rhetoric about fighting fair if Israel were among the weakest of Middle Eastern countries, instead of being one of the strongest. The prevalence of anti-Israel rhetoric among the Left seems to indicate that most Liberals wouldn't shed a tear over the fate of an occupied -- or destroyed -- Israel. 

The Israelis did everything they reasonably could to purchase peace with their enemies. They withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000. Hizballah, Iran's sock puppet army, used their claim that they had driven Israel out to win political power. Israelis even uprooted their own people and withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Hamas, an offshoot of the same Muslim Brotherhood that spawned al Qaeda, turned the claim that they had forced Israel to leave into a part of their own winning campaign platform. Instead of peace, all Israel got was Hamas firing Qassam rockets from one direction and Hizballah firing Iranian Katyushas from the other. Finally, both Hamas and Hizballah began conducting raids right into Israel itself. What could the Israelis do, if not fight back? No one who condemns Israel's response seems to offer a reasonable alternative.

This fight was never about land, occupation or peace, as the world should finally be able to see. This has always been about the destruction of Israel, pure and simple. Israel's enemies chose this fight. There is no "proportional response" to the threat of a nation's utter destruction.

The timing of this flare-up was no accident, either. Iran was facing UN sanctions over their refusal to halt their nuclear program, and needed as much time as they could buy in which to develop a bomb. If Iran's leaders ordered Hizballah to attack on the heels of Israel's reprisal against Hamas incursions, they have sacrificed a rook for nothing. Israel struck back, with a determination to crush Hizballah that surprised that group's leaders.

Those behind Hizballah's attack must have been even more surprised when most Arab nations refrained from using the opportunity to attack Israel again, even rhetorically. Consider what happened at an emergency meeting of the Arab League. Despite attempts by Lebanon and Syria to condemn Israel for attacking Hizballah on Lebanese soil, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and several other Middle Eastern countries chastised Hizbollah for "unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible acts"... which is more than most of the mainstream media can do. Perhaps they (Middle Eastern nations, not the media) are capable of learning from their repeated failures. 

Maybe they've simply grown weary of backing the terrorists in their fight to return the world to the 7th century. It's not going to happen, although they can (and do) make the world a pretty miserable place sometimes. More likely, most Arab nations simply don't want to be dominated by Iran. Now that Saddam can no longer provide a check on Iran's ambitions, it may be that at least some Arabs fear Iran more than they hate America. Removing Saddam from power may have been the first step in dismantling Arab support for terrorism, after all.

Negotiating with Hizballah is not a valid option, unless we want the terrorists to gain legitimacy while remaining a danger to innocent people. The main item on the terrorists' wish list is the destruction of Israel, which happens to be about the only thing Israel hasn't already offered them. If Israel expands the war to the north of Lebanon in order to stop Syria from supporting Hizballah, Syria may become directly involved... and then, so might we. If Israel decides to halt their offensive, their best move would be to create a terrorist-free "buffer zone" inside Lebanon, then turn it over to the Lebanese military backed up by NATO... but not UN "peacekeepers." If they do pull back, however, Israel will merely gain a breathing space, after which Hizballah will return with even more Iranian support.

The UN failed to respond to Hizballah's disregard of UNSC resolution #1559, in which Hizballah was ordered to disarm or be disarmed by Lebanon. Hizballah's response: "By whom?" Lebanon's reponse: "Err... they must have meant some other Lebanon." Hizballah was so cowed by the UN's demand that they imported approximately 13,000 Katyusha rockets to fire into Israel. The presence of UN peacekeepers would be more likely to encourage Hizballah to tighten its grip on Lebanon than retreat from it.

The UN and other Leftists demand that Israel and Hizballah simply cease fighting, as though that's a solution. They seem to think that peace is merely the absence of war, instead of the absence of enmity. Returning to the status quo, in which Hizballah (and Hamas) attack Israel at will while Israel is practically forbidden to defend itself, is not an option. At least, not if Israel intends to survive. And after fighting for their survival for nearly sixty years, no one should doubt their intention to do just that.

The split this conflict has caused among Middle Eastern nations is nothing less than an opportunity to dismantle some of the world's worst terrorist groups one by one, instead of facing a united terror network backed by every country in the region. It would be a shame to squander that opportunity by allowing the Left to dictate our response. If we're serious about the War on Terror, we should back Israel all the way to Damascus... or even Tehran.

Five and a half years after taking office, President Bush finally blew the dust off his veto pen to reject increased Federal funding for embryonic stem cell (ESC) research. There's no good, scientific reason the government should fund embryonic stem cell research (not to mention most other things), and many reasons not to do so.

Critics complain because he vetoed the bill due to his religious convictions, as though that's a bad thing. Liberals seem to believe no one who draws a government paycheck should have moral values, or should pretend they have none while on the job. Sometimes it seems they won't be satisfied until all officials are drawn from the 6 percent of Americans who have no religious or spiritual beliefs at all, while the 90 percent who do (according to a 2005 Newsweek/Beliefnet poll) are excluded from holding any government job. They just don't understand that the majority of Americans want a President who adheres to strong religious beliefs, as shown by a 2004 Zogby poll. While the Left tries to build a soulless, hidebound, all-encompassing bureaucratic machine reminiscent of the dear old Soviet Union, a republican form of government should be reflective of the people it governs.

The first reaction of Democrats and Liberals is to call the veto a "ban" on stem cell research, thinking to make it a campaign issue as they tried to do in 2004. That's two lies for the price of one. No research has been banned by Bush's veto on appropriating Federal funds for it. In fact, the Bush administration is the first to fund embryonic stem cell research at all, a fact those on the Left are disinclined to mention. In addition, there are other forms of stem cell research for which government funding has not been blocked.

The private sector (in which research and development used to take place) and state governments are free to fund ESC projects as much as they like. California, for instance, has appropriated three billion dollars for that purpose. Complaints about having to depend on private funding for ESC research only highlight the fact that years of such research have shown few positive results, and produced some spectacular failures. Embryonic stem cells introduced into laboratory mice are routinely rejected by the subject's immune system, and often result in teratomas -- Greek for "monster tumor" -- as the stem cells form all kinds of tissues unrelated to the surrounding tissue.

Meanwhile, research on adult stem cells found in bone marrow, the pancreas, the spleen, hair follicles and fat cells have all produced actual, measurable results. Stem cells taken from the placenta (afterbirth) and umbilical cord after live births show at least as much promise as cells from dead embryos. Dr. Mariusz Ratajczak of the University of Louisville (Kentucky) has directed adult bone marrow stem cells to change into brain, nerve, heart and pancreatic cells. In 2004, Dr. Dennis Turner testified before Congress that symptoms of his Parkinson's disease virtually vanished for four years after treatment with stem cells from his own brain. This research mimics all the supposedly miraculous properties of ESCs while overcoming the rejection issue.

Research on adult stem cells have shown remarkable progress in treating diabetes, muscular dystrophy, blindness, heart disease, paralysis, cancer and dozens of other medical conditions. All ESC research proponents can talk about is potential breakthroughs, while adult stem cell research is actually producing the results. Aside from the lure of endless funding for projects that never need show a return, why do Liberals want taxpayer dollars funneled into experiments that have so far yielded no results?

The most common Liberal argument against Bush's veto is, "well, fertility clinics kill embryos anyway." Two wrongs, however, don't make a right. Deliberately killing fertilised, viable human embryos in the name of science would be a step towards "normalising" abortion for the general public, in anticipation of the possible overturn of Roe v. Wade. If the Supreme Court's unlegislated legalisation of abortion is overturned, individual states would once again get to decide the question of abortion's legality.

If killing human embryos for research purposes becomes widely accepted as a legitimate use of tax dollars, then the Liberal argument for government-funded abortion will be, "how is it any different from harvesting them for research, which we already pay for?" To Liberals, money means acceptance, even endorsement... which is why they fight against Federal funding for projects run by religious groups or charities.

Bush's veto of Federal funding for embryonic stem cell research was the right thing to do, morally and scientifically. If state governments and private firms want to sink money into ESC research based on promises that sound more like those of a faith healer than a scientist, let them answer to local voters and investors.

30 July 06 UPDATE: A company called BrainStorm is just one of several already treating Parkinson's Disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease) and Multiple Sclerosis using stem cells taken from the patient's own bone marrow. If anyone has a good reason why we should funnel taxpayer dollars into research that will take decades to reach the same point, if it ever does, while using material which is at best morally ambiguous, I have yet to hear it.

It seems that the Israelis have finally had enough. Even after they gave up Gaza to appease the Palestinians, with IDF troops herding their own countrymen out of their homes at gunpoint, the terrorist attacks on innocent men, women and children continued. Suicide bombers and nightly rocket attacks launched from Gaza and Lebanon proved that appeasement just doesn't work; rewarding bad behavior only leads to more bad behavior. When members of Hamas abducted a young ISF soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, via a tunnel dug from ther Palestinian Authority, Israel ran out of patience.

When given a choice, the Palestinians elected the terrorist group Hamas to lead them, despite (or due to) the fact that the Hamas "platform" consisted mainly of calling for Israel's destruction. Meanwhile, the new prime minister of Lebanon appointed a Hezbollah member to a cabinet post. Members of that terrorist organisation also hold elected positions in the Lebanese government. Hamas and Hezbollah had no intention of coming to an agreement with Israel, however. People don't blow themselves up or target innocents in order to reach a compromise.

So the Palestinians and Lebanese chose the leadership most likely to pick a fight with Israel... and a fight is what they got. When Israeli troops moved into Gaza carrying plenty of supplies on their mission to free Shalit, it was apparent that Israel had lost all hope of reaching a state of peaceful coexistence with terrorists.

Predictably, the United Nations met to discuss how best to reprimand Israel for defending itself. The UN's Human Rights Council, again predictably, condemned Israel for taking out bridges and power plants in Gaza, and approved a resolution demanding Israel's immediate withdrawal. The US promptly vetoed that resolution. President Bush affirmed that Israel has the right to protect itself from terrorists.

Even more predictably, Hamas and Hezbollah tried to intimidate Israel into withdrawing by firing more rockets, kidnapping more Israelis (soldiers and civilians), and even killing a few. The Israelis long ago passed the point where they can be intimidated into submission, either by terrorist attacks or terrorist supporters at the United Nations. They merely expanded the scope of the war.

Israel's prime minister Ehud Olmert reacted to Hezbollah's incursion into Israel and the attack on IDF troops by considering it an act of war by Lebanon, from which the attack was launched. "Israel's response will be restrained but very, very, very painful," Olmert said. Israeli forces quickly imposed a blockade and attacked sites in Lebanon, concentrating on areas controlled by Hezbollah, but including the Beirut airport and a Lebanese Air Army base. Meanwhile, Hezbollah continued launching rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.

In September 2004, the UN issued resolution 1559, which stated that Hezbollah must be disarmed, and that Lebanese military forces should patrol the southern border to prevent terrorist attacks on Israel. The Lebanese government is either unable or unwilling to accomplish those tasks. Hezbollah controls the southern half of the country and is in turn controlled from Syria. Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas, enjoys the protection and patronage of Syrian president Bashir Assad. But all the trails of terror that run through Syria lead to Iran, in the end. Israel should have little trouble supressing terrorists in Gaza and Lebanon, but no one can be safe while Syria and Iran support terrorist groups.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned of a "fierce response" should Israel attack Syria. Any large-scale attack from Iran that crosses Iraq in some way would surely be treated as an unfriendly act by the Iraqi government... and by the US. If Iran makes a move, it's almost certain that both Israeli and American forces would strike at Iran. That country may already be involved in a more clandestine fashion, however -- two medium-range Iranian missiles that struck Haifa, out of range of Hezbollah's usual Katyusha rockets, are believed by some Israeli officials to have been launched by members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard working with Hezbollah.

Israel was right to hold the Palestinian government and Lebanon accountable for the actions of Hamas and Hezbollah in their areas, even more so since the terrorist groups are part of those governments. No country can sit by and endure constant attacks launched from within the border of another that does nothing to stop them. How long would we sit still if a terrorist group was launching daily rocket attacks into Detroit or Buffalo from across the Canadian border, and Canada did nothing at all to prevent them?

If the nations that support Hamas and Hezbollah don't find some way to appease Israel soon, the Israelis will be knocking on the door of Assad's summer palace, instead of merely sending fighters to fly over it. It's useless to keep pretending that terrorist groups are separate from the nations that train, harbor, supply and use them in order to conceal their own involvement in attacks. The masks in Middle East politics are coming off at last... and so are the gloves.

Ready or not, the big war for the Middle East seems about to begin. Constant terrorist attacks have driven Israel to the point where they have nothing left to lose. Could neighboring countries possibly hate them any more, or launch more terrorist attacks against innocent civilians, than they already do? Could the United Nations possibly condemn them any more than they do now? Israel has nothing to gain by inaction.

Whatever else happens, I doubt the Israelis will make the mistake of surrendering precious land for promises of peace again anytime soon, even if they are convinced to stop short of invading Syria. Terrorist sympathisers around the world might as well forget about Gaza, and probably half of Lebanon, for the foreseeable future.

We're facing a potential nuclear crisis with North Korea that's been a dozen years in the making. Kim Jong Il has been building his nuclear capabilities since shortly after signing the 1994 agreement in which he promised to cease doing so, and now has long-range missiles with the potential of carrying nuclear warheads to our own West Coast. The fact that the first one he tested failed after launch is of no relevance. The problem is that the dictator of North Korea feels comfortable lobbing missiles at the United States. Who knows where he will aim the next one... or what payload it will carry?

This is what happens when we allow America's enemies to continue working on ways to kill us instead of standing up to them. Democrats and Liberals, the media and many of our supposed "allies" began pouting and stamping their feet over the decision to stop Saddam Hussein from the moment President Bush mentioned Iraq as a part of an "axis of evil" in 2002. Despite the contributions of over 50 countries to the liberation of Iraq, America's "unilateral" action was universally anathematised.

So the Bush administration decided to deal with Iran and North Korea, the other two countries whose leaders have ambitions that need curing, by making a point of allowing other nations to take charge of the negotiations. Result: Iran continues to build nuclear weapons, and North Korea is now testing long-range missiles by firing them off at Hawaii. Meanwhile, without batting an eye, the Left tells us to give Kim Jong Il "incentives" to get him to talk to us, as though talking is an end in itself. Some on the Left seem to believe that fanatical Islamofascists and terrorist-supporting dictators simply can't build their engines of destruction while sending diplomats to hold meetings. The Dictator's Dictionary, if there were such a book, would surely define "negotiations" as, "the best way to prevent your enemy from acting against you until you are ready to attack."

Kim Jong Il's actions are obviously timed to take some pressure off his partners in Iran, as they approach a deadline of their own. Iran has been given until 12 July 2006 to suspend uranium enrichment, but that country's leaders have already declared they will not even respond to the ultimatum until August. With Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya off his customer list, Kim is running out of major countries willing to buy his missiles. Iran is his last major partner -- much of Iran's arsenal is North Korean in origin. If America succeeds in halting Iran's ambitions, North Korea will have very few sources of revenue left. Kim Jong Il wants to blackmail the US into one-on-one talks while he still thinks he can repeat his 1994 performance. In bilateral talks, Kim gained valuable concessions including two light-water reactors and oil, in return for a promise he found easy to break without discovery.

Even China couldn't stop North Korea's missile test, despite the fact that North Korea is normally a useful pawn in China's chess game against the US. China's premiere, Wen Jiabao, asked Kim Jong Il to "refrain from taking measures that will worsen the situation" on the Korean peninsula, yet the test proceeded as planned. In fact, Kim Jong Il's defiance of his patron nation may be an excuse for them not to act, if we decide to do so.

Japan immediately called an emergency session of the UN, with predictable results. As in the Iranian situation, China and Russia stated that they would veto even the mildest of sanctions against North Korea, squashing any attempt to work through the UN yet again. Apparently, the angry letter a fictional Hans Blix threatened to deliver to Kim Jong Il in the movie "Team America: World Police" is stronger than any action of which the real UN is capable. If the UN (as usual) is unable to act, then we (as usual) may have to.

If our enemies pay attention to the New York Times and other mainstream media outlets, they must believe our military is stretched to the breaking point and our people are on the verge of revolt. In fact, the naval power we have in the Pacific is more than sufficient to wipe out every launch pad, missile facility, military base, weapons depot and (of course) palace in North Korea. Air strikes could do the same in Iran, if need be. We've barely stretched our muscles yet, if the truth were told. But if we continue to pretend that talk is a substitute for action, openly-declared enemies like Iran and North Korea will continue to drag us towards a nuclear war.

And the next time we let an enemy launch a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, we may not be able to build a memorial for several hundred years.

Although the majority of Americans support a Constitutional amendment that would allow Congress to set penalties for desecration of our flag, the Senate failed to pass a proposed amendment by a single vote. It's disappointing that we see a need to amend the Constitution in order to protect our flag, and even more disappointing that our elected leaders don't see fit to do so.

The reasoning behind a flag amendment is the same is that behind the proposed marriage amendment. No matter how many laws state or federal governments may pass, one activist judge with an agenda to push can strike them down, twisting the words of the Constitution to suit his or her purpose. That was the fate of every flag protection statute ever passed, from the first state law enacted in 1897 to the federal ban on flag desecration enacted in 1968. Only by amending the Constitution can lawmakers prevent the Judiciary from rewriting laws from the bench.

It's not as though we have no limits on free speech already, besides the old standby that one can't yell "fire!" in a crowded theater. We have limits on political speech, thanks to the McCain-Feingold Act, which prohibits using a candidate's name in a political ad right before an election. Libel, slander and child pornography are prohibited by law. In many cases, one can't talk about religion in public places, not even when a student delivers a valedictory address at a high school. A compliment to a member of the opposite sex might get one fired for sexual harassment. And how many categories of "hate speech" do we have now? I've lost track. Don't argue for the "right" to desecrate the American flag in the name of free speech absolutism.

Burning or otherwise desecrating the American flag is not "freedom of speech." It's not speech at all. It's an action, designed to anger and upset people. If you can't come up with any way to make your point other than resorting to an emotional attack, then you don't really have a point to make. Many on the Left defend flag desecration by saying, "well, it's just a piece of cloth." But if that's all the flag is, then why bother burning it?

The flag is not just a piece of colored cloth. It's a unifying symbol that brings all Americans together, the one thing we all have in common. The American flag is the badge of our country -- the defender of freedom, the beacon of hope for billions. We display it to honor our country, our ideals and achievements. Generations of Americans have pledged allegiance to the flag, and generations of foreigners have viewed it with aspirations of one day living in the kind of freedom for which it stands. Our national anthem is a paean to our flag, despite the fact that, as a child, I thought "The Star-Spangled Banner" had only one verse and ended with, "Play ball!"

The American flag flies over every government building in this country, and every one of our embassies overseas. An American flag stands, alone and proud, to mark the spot where humans first touched the surface of another world. The sight of three firefighters raising the flag over the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center in a gesture of solidarity and defiance brought tears to the eyes of every American. Every member of our military wears the American flag into battle on our behalf, to fight for the ideals it represents -- from the revolutionaries who carried the current flag's predecessors to the men and women proudly fighting under its colors today. And when they fall, that flag covers them on their final journey home.

Anyone who burns or otherwise violates our flag isn't just burning a piece of cloth, they're expressing their hate and disdain for the country that it represents, purely to hurt the feelings of those who love it. There is no other way to interpret the act of desecrating the American flag, whether performed by a Berkeley protestor or a Pakistani militant. So if flag burning is speech, as Liberals insist... it can only be hate speech, which they claim to, well, hate.

Take that, hippies.

The 1949 Geneva Conventions were created in the aftermath of the horrors of Nazi Germany. The First Geneva Convention, "for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field," was first adopted in 1864 as part of the founding of the Red Cross, but revised at the time the other three were written. The Geneva Conventions II, III and IV cover "the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea," "the Treatment of Prisoners of War" and "the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War."

The idea behind the Geneva Conventions and similar agreements was to codify the rules of "civilised war," and to ensure that no nation would want to violate those rules. The warning that any fighting force that violates those rules will not be able to claim their protection if captured is an explicit part of the Conventions. To make it perfectly clear, Article 4 of the Fourth Geneva Convention specifically states, "Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention are not protected by it."

Even if one ignores the fact that terrorist groups are not a nation, the Conventions set very specific conditions under which a captured combatant may claim POW status. According to the Geneva Convention III (Part 1, Article 4, Section 2), prisoners of war must be former members of the regular armed forces, non-combatants, or:

Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:

(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) That of carrying arms openly;
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

Once again, the New York Times has shown us that al-Qaeda doesn't need to infiltrate our country to ferret out secret information that might help them. Why should they, when details of classified programs used to track and arrest terrorists are routinely splashed across the front page of what used to be a great American newspaper?

When President Bush promised us right after 9/11 that he would "starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest," he meant every word of it. Responding to subpoenas from the Treasury Department, the Belgium-based financial organisation SWIFT -- Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication -- began helping US agents track down sources of terrorist funding.

As nearly every international transaction travels through the SWIFT databases, the program was a vital source of information, while the Society was able to protect the interests and confidentiality of customers who were not sending money to terrorists. "SWIFT received significant protections and assurances as to the purpose, confidentiality, oversight and control of the limited sets of data produced under the subpoenas," a SWIFT representative said. "Independent audit controls provide additional assurance that these protections are fully complied with."

So, the secret program was both useful and legal -- as even the New York Times has acknowledged. What's more, the tracking program has even borne fruit. Hambali, the Bali nightclub bomber and al-Qaeda's Southeast Asia chief, was captured because of the ability to track his financial dealings. Terror operations require money, and bank transfers moving through multiple dummy corporations and fake charities were obviously thought to be "Bush-proof" until now. Terrorists may have known that the US government was trying to track their financial transactions, but not the details of how and through which banks it was done. Those who commit tax fraud, rob banks and launder money still do so even though we all know the FBI looks for criminals, because the FBI doesn't publish every detail of how they work.

For two weeks, Representatives, Senators and other government officials from both sides of the aisle practically begged managing editor Bill Keller and publisher Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger not to print the classified information. Former NJ Governor Thomas Kean (R) and former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-IN), the co-chairmen of the 9/11 commission, asked Keller and Sulzberger to keep the classified program under wraps. Even Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) -- no friend to President Bush -- asked Keller and Sulzberger to preserve the program's secrecy. They carefully explained how useful the program is to our fight against international terror networks, and showed that the program has broken no laws. However, Keller and Sulzberger decided that their interpretation of the public's "right to know" everything the government does is more important then the government's ability to stop terrorists -- especially if it boosts declining sales of their paper. Details of the secret program were first published on the NY Times' web site, and the story appeared the next day in the print version of the paper, as well as in the LA Times and the Wall Street Journal.

If the NY Times is willing to publish details of an ongoing classified government program that a) has caught major terrorists and b) was not even alleged to be illegal or intrusive, then where do they draw the line? Would they publish troop movements, citing the "public's right to know?" If they had learned of the air strike on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi before it took place, would they have felt the public had a "right to know" about that, too? Will the next major terrorist targeted for arrest find out in time to escape, just by walking past a newsstand? The New York Times fulfils all the functions that would be expected of a spy network, but only costs a dollar a day. That's good news for the terrorist on a budget.

Anyone who knowingly publishes classified information regarding national defense, or allows it to be published, ought to be prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act. The US Code (Title 18, Part I, Chapter 37, Section 793.e) states, "Whoever having unauthorized possession of ... information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted ... the same to any person not entitled to receive it ... Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both." Since those responsible for the NY Times were duly informed of the consequences of publishing the classified information, they certainly had "reason to believe" the information "could be used to the injury of the United States," yet published the information anyway. In my opinion, Keller and Sulzberger ought to be imprisoned, and the Times heavily fined.

The editor and publisher of the NY Times are not the only ones to blame, however. Someone with access to classified information deliberately committed a breach of his or her non-disclosure agreement, as well as a violation of the public trust, in order to give information to the media that did nothing but help the enemy. These leaks of classified information just to damage the Bush administration have got to be stopped. Whoever gave details of this particular program to the media must be found, even if the entire staff of the NY Times has to be subpoenaed and forced to testify under oath by the Attorney General on penalty of imprisonment. If such treatment was good enough for NY Times reporter Judith Miller when she refused to reveal her source in the Valerie Plame case, it's certainly appropriate when a real breach of national security has taken place. And when he or she is found, the leaker should be tried for treason against the United States and sentenced to death. Period. This is a war, not a tea party, and these leaks are serious business.

Some argue that the NY Times has every right to publish anything they want, damaging to the US or not. They climb on their soapboxes to proclaim that freedom of speech is absolute, and that the government should keep no secrets... though they also argue that the NY Times should not have to name its source. The next time a major terrorist attack takes place somewhere in the world, the same people will be the first to scream that the Bush administration didn't do enough to prevent it.

As for freedom of speech: with rights and freedoms come responsibilities. It's about time members of the mainstream media learned that lesson.

Science is our way of using reason and logic to understand how things work. One forms a hypothesis to explain data gathered by experiment or observation, and the hypothesis becomes a theory when supported by evidence. There are no absolutes in science -- even the "law" of gravity was found insufficient to explain the behavior of matter in extreme circumstances. Einstein succeeded Newton, and was in turn succeeded by Hawking.

When science becomes entangled with ideology, however, the truth is what suffers. Some on the Right are just as guilty of filtering science through their ideology as most of those on the Left. Promoting anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming and attacking the theory of evolution are two sides of the same "faith-based science" coin.

Evolution is a rather simple and elegant theory, and easy to explain. Over time, successive generations of creatures will slowly become more adept at survival in their environment, as long as that environment stays the same. No creature is precisely like either of its parents, as anyone can see. If any difference, no matter how slight, gives a creature an advantage in finding food, avoiding predators or finding a mate, that creature will live longer and consequently leave more descendants. The genes for those traits will become dominant in those descendants. Over time, traits that confer an advantage will spread among the population. If the environment changes, the process begins in a new direction.

Some on the Right try to discredit the theory of evolution for purely ideological reasons masquerading as scientific objections. Their "intelligent design" alternative theory depends on the active intervention of an intelligence: either God or advanced aliens. However, this theory doesn't explain the varying forms of life shown by the fossil records, unless that designing intelligence makes a LOT of mistakes and missteps.

Let's cut to the heart of the debate. The anti-evolution crowd have two real objections to a simple, scientific theory: they feel evolution "disproves" the existence of God, and they object to any suggestion that humans may have evolved from lesser creatures. These are purely religious objections, not questions that can be answered by any amount of evidence.

Proponents of ID often denigrate evolution on the grounds that it can't explain how life began. But evolution is not a theory that covers the beginning of life; evolution must presuppose that life exists. The creation of the universe is an entirely different discussion. Some argue that life forms are too complex to have evolved spontaneously, or randomly. Of course, evolutionary theory does not state either of those things. Randomness has little to do with whether a certain trait carries an advantage for a creature.

ID enthusiasts also argue that evolution can't work as long as there are gaps in the fossil records. That's a fallacious argument, however -- every time a single gap is filled, two gaps are created. The theory of evolution is the best scientific way we've found so far to explain those gaps -- creatures slowly change over time to better suit their environment.

Consider this question: why do giraffes have long necks? The intelligent design crowd might simply say "well, God designed them that way," but that's not an answer. Our understanding of the universe is not advanced one iota that way. That's as if someone solving a huge, complex chemical equation drew a circle around a blank spot and said, "and then lead became gold," and moved on to the next part. Saying "it just happened" doesn't explain HOW it happened, and that's the question at hand.

Someone with a more inquisitive bent, but no understanding of science, might come up with a Lamarckian view: that giraffes changed by successive generations stretching to reach the highest leaves. Since we know that acquired traits are not inherited, that explanation makes no logical sense. Otherwise, millions of children would be born every year with their ears already pierced.

On the other hand, evolutionary theory can provide a reasonable explanation. The ancestors of modern giraffes (a deer-like creature with a short neck) lived in the lush African grasslands as they began to dry out. Some naturally had slightly longer necks and forelegs than others, the same way some people are naturally taller than others. Because of increasing competition for food, the lower branches of the ancient acacia trees would get browsed out early, leaving the higher branches for taller creatures, who could find food when slightly shorter creatures went hungry. As a result, taller ones lived longer and mated more often, passing on the genes for longer necks and forelegs. Of course, other factors were involved in the selection for longer necks -- giraffes also use a long field of vision to help them spot predators, for instance -- but competition for food may have been the primary factor.

The fossil record shows that the ancestors of modern giraffes branched off from something like a modern okapi during the early Miocene (around 23 million years ago). A line of several distinct species led to modern giraffes, each with progressively longer necks and forelegs. Meanwhile, the okapi, a close relative of the giraffe living in a rainforest area with plenty of food, remained essentially unchanged. Competition drives change.

Now, the anti-evolution crowd will feel that the above explanation is an attempt to prove there's no God. How that can be so escapes me. From all we've heard of God, he remains unseen, which gives belief a moral value. If that were true, then he would likely set up a mechanism like evolution to enable species to respond to an ever-changing Earth without tipping his hand. After all, if we kept finding familiar animals suddenly changing into brand-new species everywhere we looked, we just might suspect a supernatural hand at work. Religion would no longer have any more moral value than mathematics.

Evolution takes place under human supervision every day. Due to deliberate changes in their environment (that is, artificial selection for traits that merit breeding), cows have developed huge udders, sheep have developed thick, fluffy coats, dogs have developed hundreds of sub-species with specific traits that breed true, and so on. If deliberate, artificial selection by mere humans can accomplish such sweeping changes in only a few thousand years, how could anyone deny that greater changes can occur in the natural environment over the course of millions of years?

Before dismissing evolution, consider this also: if evolution is a crock, then why are we so concerned about the avian flu mutating into a form that humans can pass to each other? Human beings may have effectively halted our own evolution upon achieving intelligence, but the natural pressure to adapt continues in even the most humble and simple forms of life.

See Faith-Based Science 1: Anthropogenic Global Warming