joyfulchristian

I can't argue with this

I have yet to see The Passion of the Christ, but Susanna's description pretty much matches my expectations. I certainly can't argue with this:

But one consequence of growing up studying the Bible, of talking about Christ’s death, of hearing the terms “scourging”, “mocking”, and “beaten” repeated over and over in the cool brightness of a comfortable church auditorium, is that the true horror of what Jesus Christ suffered as a man in the process of dying is lost. It becomes iconic, distant. We hear the words, we eat the communion bread, drink the communion grape juice, sing a sad song, pray, chat with our fellow congregants, then head off to Taco Bell or Wal-Mart. Those things aren’t bad, but a deep connection we need is too easily missed. That’s where The Passion of the Christ comes in.

I think Susanna makes a good point. For people who grew up in an established church and have been hearing the events of the crucifixion all their lives, the words often lose their meaning. I preached a sermon last December (Well, I preached part of it. The sermon was actually in 4 parts and I did 2.) At one point I described, in detail, just what exactly crucifixion means. I can't tell you how many people told me later that they'd never really thought about it like that.

Well, folks, we need to think about it like that. We need to understand just exactly what we did to the Son of God. We have to understand the sacrifice. If we don't, it's very hard to come to repentance. If we understand what He went through, then (at least to me) it's easier to turn from our sins. Especially if we ask ourselves, "Can he still feel the nails?"

Good question

In a post about the Lutheran church's problems with ministers and other employees who don't believe church doctrine, Alan Cornett makes a very good point:

It always puzzled me why someone who believes in the resurrection would ever have a problem with the virgin birth or miracles. If God can bring someone back from the dead then surely He could provide for a virgin birth or the healing of the sick. And the same source I go to to learn about the resurrection tells me about the virgin birth and the other miracles.

Yeah, this doesn't make a lot of sense to me either. The resurrection of Christ is by far the most incredible claim made in all of scripture. Yet a lot people claim to believe in the Resurrection, but discount other incredible events. I actually had a conversation with a man in his 70s who was a life long (as I understand it) Christian who spent a lot of his time helping others. We were talking about a Biblical miracle and he was insisting that it couldn't have happened. He finally looked right at me and said, I just can't believe that, it's ridiculous.

I was so flabbergasted I didn't know what to say. To this day, it floors me that he could accept the resurrection, but reject so much else that's in scripture. Especially since, for me, the resurrection is what seals my faith in everything else. I believe there to be ample evidence that, as absurd as it sounds, Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. Because I believe that, I can believe all the rest.

Yeah

I'm not a big B-Ball fan. Still, living in Stillwater and having gotten my masters degree at Oklahoma State, I must express some satisfaction that OSU has made the Final Four.

Go Cowboys!

Sometimes I wonder

... if the French have a genetic disposition that drives them into the arms of tyrants and villains. And yes, I know that's an unworthy thought. It's just that sometimes they make it so hard:

PARIS — A French lawyer, known for defending terrorists and a Nazi leader, said Saturday he will defend Saddam Hussein (search).

Color me surprised.

Jacques Verges (search) told France-Inter radio he had received a letter from Saddam's family requesting him to defend the former Iraqi leader in court. U.S. officials have said they will bring Saddam to trial for alleged crimes against Iraqi people. But the location of any trial and its format and date have not yet been decided.

Would someone tell me why there are any members of Saddam's family still free? And I'm sure the Marsh Arabs could think of a location and format for the trial.

The letter from Saddam's family read: "In my capacity as nephew of President Saddam Hussein, I commission you officially by this letter to assure the defense of my uncle," Verges said. He did not name the person who sent the letter.

Who talks like that? Since when is nephew a "capacity"?

Saddam is being held by U.S. forces at an undisclosed location.

Yeah, that's to prevent an unscheduled determination of the place and format of his trial.

Verges has defended Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal (search), whose real name is Ilich Ramirez. He gained international notoriety during the Cold War for staging a string of deadly bombings, assassinations and hostage seizures.

The French lawyer also defended Klaus Barbie (search), a Nazi Gestapo chief in France in World War II, who was convicted of crimes against humanity in Lyon, France.

Yeah, he really knows how to pick 'em, don't he?

I gotta admit

... i don't understand the furor over this.

Bryan Preston is totally worked up about Terry MacAuliffe's doormat with Bush's face on it.

Democrats, you'd better give MacAuliffe the boot for this one or you've surrendered any defense you'll ever have against accusations that you're not patriotic or that you hate America. There's no excuse for a Democrat official using Saddam Hussein's agitprop in his own office. None at all.

I'm sorry, but I'm just not getting this. For one, while people have drawn a comparison, is there any actual evidence that MacAuliffe had Saddam's idiocy in mind when he did this?

Second: Let's get some perspective! This is tacky. Yes. Unpatriotic? No. Unpatriotic is calling on troops to frag their officers. Putting the face of the president you're trying to unseat on a doormat is not.

Let's get a grip people.

God's not a buffet

Joe Carter has a great post on the nature of God and pacifism:

This may strike some people as rather obvious and others as quite absurd. But any Christian who takes the Bible seriously must either concede that point or suffer from a self-imposed cognitive dissonance. Believing that Christ is the Son of God requires accepting that he is the same Being as the “Old Testament God.” You can’t point to Jesus as evidence to deny the warlike characteristics of God without doing violence to the doctrine of the Trinity.

We attempt to exclude God's warlike attributes by focusing on other more "gentle" traits. But that leaves us with the question of which is the "real God." Is God a God of “justice” or is He a God of “mercy?“ He is, of course, both. Justice and Mercy, and Love and all the other attributes of God are one because God is one. We cannot pick and choose our favorites among these attributes. We must accept God as He is and accept that He appears to have a “warlike” nature it is precisely because of these very characteristics. Keeping this in mind will also help us gain a better understanding of the nature of war.

You should read the whole thing, but I'm particularly interested in Joe's comments about accepting God complete and whole. Far too often I've heard the phrase, "I can't believe in a god that ..." Sorry folks, it doesn't work that way. YWHY, the God of the Bible, is who HE is.

You don't get to take only the attributes of God you like. God isn't a buffet table where you get to pick and choose. God's more like the 72 oz. steak at The Big Texan. Either you eat the whole thing, or you're going to have to pay.

I know that's not what people want to hear, but there it is.

Just so you know

I'm really happy and quite enjoying life at the moment. Just wanted to share.

I just want to point something out here

The Senate has passed the unborn victim's bill:

WASHINGTON — The Senate passed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (search) on Thursday, following House passage last month of a bill that would make it a crime to harm a fetus during a violent federal crime.

But the bill, meant to further penalize someone who attacks a pregnant woman, has energized partisans on both sides of the abortion issue.

[...]

The bill, which will now be sent to President Bush, is also called "Laci and Conner's law" after Laci Peterson (search), the murdered California woman whose unborn son was to be named Conner. The vote has become a top priority of anti-abortion organizations and abortion-rights groups.

I don't, in principle, have any problems with this bill. ¹ However, I think tying this to the Laci Peterson murder is disingenuous. Laci Peterson's murder was a state, not a federal, crime. Consequently, even if this bill had already been passed, it would have had no affect on the case. No additional charges could have been brought against her husband under this law because there was no federal crime.

I think it's always important to call your own side when they use deceptive arguments and this is such a time. Tell the truth: this bill has only the most tenuous of connections to the Laci Peterson murder.

¹While I don't have a problem with the bill, I'm not sure I see the point. The bill only criminalizes (because that's all Congress has the authority to do) harming a fetus while a engaging in another federal crime. Aside from killing a female agent who happens to be pregnant or killing a woman during a bank robbery, how is this going to happen? I'm not saying it can't happen; i just think the odds are pretty low.

Heh

Yeah, well as Homer Simpson would say, "It's funny cause it's true."

Well, this is sort of right

The UN Security Council won't be condeming Israel for killing the murderer:

March 25 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. vetoed a resolution in the United Nations Security Council that would have condemned Israel for killing Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, because the measure didn't denounce the Palestinian group's terrorist acts.

Algeria introduced the resolution on behalf of Arab nations and the Palestinian Authority after the council couldn't agree early this week on a less formal statement on Yassin's death. The U.S. veto allows the Arabs to call for action by the General Assembly of all 191 UN members, where no nation can cast a veto.

The U.S. vetoed the measure because ``it is silent about the terrorist atrocities committed by Hamas, because it does not reflect the realities of the conflict in the Middle East and will not further the goals of peace and security in the region,'' U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said.

I've got another reason for blocking the resolution. How about that there is absolutely nothing wrong with killing the man who has orchestrated the deaths of hundreds of civilians?

I also note that the UK abstained. Shame on them. So did Germany, but I don't actually have any expectations that Germany might occasionally do the right thing.

AHHHHHHH! My eyes!

Al Franken is on Letterman. What is this? A conspiracy to make me go deaf and blind?

It may be unfair

I haven't had anything to say about the Richard Clarke thing. I'll tell you why: i generally dismiss out of hand any story that originally breaks on 60 minutes. Over the last few months or so i've come to view the show as a complete waste of time peopled by hacks. Maybe i'm being unfair, but that's how I feel. It just seems that over and over they've broken these huge "bombshells" that turn out to be nothing. After a while, I just learned to tune them out.

Appalling

Joe Carter has an excellent point:

Wasn’t it Bush who claimed that the U.S. would make, “no distinction between those who committed these acts [of terrorism] and those who harbor them”? So why would we be troubled by the death of a leader of what our own State Department classifies as a “terrorist organization?“ More specifically, why do we continually turn a blind eye to terrorism when it is committed by Palestinians?

We invaded Afghanistan to overthrow the al Queda-harboring government. Yet when the Israelis kill a terrorist leader in their own borders we have the audacity to criticize the action. Instead of condeming our friends we should remain in constant awe of Israel’s restraint.

There really is no excuse for this double standard. Hamas is every bit as much a terrorist group and every bit as much a threat to liberal democracies as al Qaeda. The only difference between the two is their primary target. Yassin was every bit as much of a legitmate target as bin Laden is.

President Bush's reluctance to allow the Israelis the same free reign that he claims as America's absolute right is one of the greatest flaws of his presidency.

Update: Jason Hannagan has similar problems.

Is it just me

... or are the Old Navy commercials incredibly obnoxious?

And, on a related note, is the only thing more obnoxious than Old Navy commercials those infantile "Wendy's guy" commercials?

I'm just saying.

Interesting theory

Rich Lowry speculates that John McCain has been defending Kerry, not because he wants to be VP, but because he wants to be Secretary of Defense. It makes more sense than the VP theory and is more charitable than my personal theory.

Sounds like the right spin to me

David Bernstein calls the killing of Sheikh Yassin a win-win situation.

So, is anything relevant

Bryan Preston notes that FBI records and eye witness accounts place John Kerry at a meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War which included a decision to murder U.S. Senators. Strangely though, as Preston notes, when the L.A. Times did a story about Kerry's involvement with VVAW, this information was left out.

As Preston says:

This is not a small, nitpicking point. John Kerry may have had knowledge of a plot to kill elected officials of the US government and failed to report it to proper authorities. In a time of war. It's hard to find a more relevant issue than whether a current candidate for president once knew of and failed to report a plot to kill American officials, especially when the nation is again at war.

If John Kerry's failure to report a conspiracy to murder U.S. Senators isn't relevant to a discussion of his anti-war activities, than I fail to see how any information about any topic can be relevant to any story. The press should just shut down as they obviously have nothing important to say.

Sorry, that really wasn't as sarcastic as I feel. I'd try to ramp it up some more, but I'm drawing a blank. This REALLY makes me angry.

I think I'm going to be ill

This picture is one of the vilest things I've ever seen. (Link via Joshua Claybourn)

Oh! That world leader

Scott Belliveau explains who it is Kerry's been talking to you.

Heh.

A fair question

Robert Moran wants to know, if it was news when Bob Dole fell in 1996, why isn't it news when John Kerry fell and cursed out a SS agent in 2004?

Yeah, I don't think the answer to this question is a big mystery.

Maybe I'm overly cynical

... but the bombing in Spain just before the elections there made me wonder something. If there was a series bombings in the D.C. metro stations just a few days before our presidential elections, what are the chances that Michael Moore would blame W?

Just asking.

Tough on trade, weak on defense

As Peter Wallison points out, that's John Kerry in his own words.

This is encouraging

Kate O'Beirne explains part of Bush's campaign strategy:

This kind of preemptive (if you will) strike should be welcome news to the president's supporters, disheartened by months of unanswered assaults against him and his policies. Earlier in the week, Kerry was criticizing Bush for dragging his feet on protecting the home front, when the senator voted against the Department of Homeland Security six times, delaying its creation by 112 days, according to the Bush campaign's count. The expectation is that when he talks in West Virginia about supporting our troops, he'll now be asked about those votes against equipping and paying them. "So he'll be answering questions rather than making charges," explains Bush-Cheney campaign manager Ken Mehlman.

The offensive tactic centered on West Virginia Tuesday tracks with a larger strategy of the campaign. Mehlman notes that most people get their news from local media and explains, "This election is about more than what is said inside the Beltway." Every morning, Mehlman reviews the front pages of major newspapers in the campaign's targeted states. Since December, about a half-dozen regional press aides have been working on identifying local surrogates to hook up with local reporters. The aim is to have the campaign's message consistently reflected in state and local media.

West Virginia voters will wake up Wednesday morning to news stories about John Kerry's votes against funding troops in the field. With the Bush campaign on offense, similar ads are no doubt headed your way — right ahead of John Kerry. There's certainly plenty of ad material. In 19 years, Senator Kerry has cast about 6,500 votes.

So Kerry shows up to talk about how veterans support him and gets greeted by ads about his lack of support for the troops. I love it. I hope this happens at every campaign stop.

You know how they say

... that there are five stages of grief? What a load of garbage. Monday will be the seventh birthday for my sister since she died. I'm still angry and acceptance ain't no where in site. Most of the time I can ignore it, but acceptance? I don't think it exists.

I hate having to do this

I've already issued one warning. No more warnings. Anyone impersonating a celebrity in the comments section will not only have their comments deleted, but will be IP banned.

Some perspective people!

Jonah Goldberg has some thoughts about what is, and what isn't, negative campaigning. You should read the whole thing, but I liked this part:

In fact, for more than a decade, Republicans and Democrats alike have been incessantly bellyaching about how mean the other side is. In 1992 Bob Dole, a WWII hero for Pete's sake, whined about how poppa Bush "lied" about his record. And in 1996 he complained again about how mean Steve Forbes was to him.

Meanwhile, the Democrats have been grousing about unfair "negative attacks" at the drop of a hat. Gore was the best at this. He'd call his debate opponents craven lickspittles of the cancer industry who only know how to go negative. Then, when his opponent said, "That's not true," Gore would moan, "See! He called me a liar! Another negative attack!"

It's all such nonsense (though successful nonsense for Kerry so far). By any historical measure, Bush hasn't gone negative at all yet. And all but the most vicious anti-Bush rhetoric from the Democrats isn't that big a deal by historical standards. In 1828 Andrew Jackson's wife was smeared as a bigamist, his mother a hooker, and he a murderer. Meanwhile Jackson's people put out the word that John Quincy Adams was a pimp for the czar of Russia. Now that's going negative!

No kidding.

I wish I had something useful to say

Estimates of the attack in Spain are 190 dead.

Spain is a grief stricken nation tonight after its worst ever terror attack. Train station bombs in Madrid killed at least 190 people and injured more than 1300. Spain is blaming the attacks on Basque separatists, but now there`s a strong possibility of a link to Islamic militants.

One stunned onlooker said, "This is so savage you can`t even describe it." Up to 13 bombs devastated three train stations in Madrid during morning rush hour, killing men, women and children. Spanish officials quickly blamed ETA, a violent Basque separatist group that has long fought to breakaway from Spain, but late today, Spain`s interior minister said police found a van containing detonators and an Arabic language tape with verses from the Koran.

From the outset U.S. Intelligence officials said they do not think an al Qaeda link can be ruled out. King Juan Carlos called on Spaniards to stand united against what he called "Repugnant acts." President Bush quickly extended U.S. sympathies, "I appreciate so very much the Spanish government`s fight against terror, their resolute stand against terrorist organizations, like ETA."

ETA says they didn't do it. I strongly doubt something like this went down without their involvement, but there are signs that Islamic extremists may have been involved as well. If local separatists groups and jihadists are starting to work together, what does that mean? I'm afraid it means that we haven't seen the last of events like this.

I extend my condolences to the family. And more importantly, my prayers.

Missing the point

This story questions whether Justice Ginsburg has violated her duty to impartiality. Let me start out by saying that I see no evidence that she's done anything wrong, but it certainly sounds bad.

WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has lent her name and presence to a lecture series co-sponsored by the liberal NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, an advocacy group that often argues before the court in support of women's rights that the justice embraces.

In January, Ginsburg gave opening remarks for the fourth installment in the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Distinguished Lecture Series on Women and the Law.

Two weeks earlier, she had voted in a medical screening case and taken the side promoted by the legal defense fund in its friend-of-the-court brief.

Yes, speaking before, and having other explicit ties to a group that often argues before and offers briefs to your court doesn't look good. But just because it doesn't looked good, doesn't mean she did anything wrong. Although, you could argue that such ties, like them naming a lecture series after her, could give the Justice a "warm fuzzy" feeling about the group which might cause her to unconsciously accept their arguments uncritically. It's questionable, but not flat out wrong.

I thought this part was interesting.

The liberal Ginsburg's involvement with the legal activist group, and recent outside activities by a conservative colleague, Justice Antonin Scalia, have touched off a debate over what kinds of extra-judicial appearances and contacts are appropriate for Supreme Court justices.

The code of conduct for the federal courts does not set clear rules for judges' involvement with advocacy groups. But it warns jurists to steer clear of outside legal activities that would "cast reasonable doubt on the capacity to decide impartially any issue that may come before" them.

If you didn't know better, you'd think the accusations against Scalia and Ginsburg are similar: that they're consorting with advocacy groups. But, while I think people may have levelled that charge against him in the past, the recent hubub around Scalia involved no such thing. The complaint there was that he went on a hunting trip at the same estate as the VP on the same weekend and the VP gave him a ride in his plane. This, while there was a case pending before the court about the privileges due the office of VP.

This is hardly the same charge being made against Ginsburg, though it too has the potential for raising questions. But from this story alone, you would assume, because they're grouped together without explanation and because the grouping is followed by a description of the court's rules on advocacy groups, that Ginsburg and Scalia did the same thing. They did not. I just don't know if this is an example of some bias, or just ordinary incompetence.

Finally, we have this:

Kathy Rodgers, president of the NOW legal defense fund, said Ginsburg's connection with the group should not raise questions about her impartiality as a Supreme Court justice.

"She is always very careful in her remarks," Rodgers said. "I've never heard her address cases that are in front of the court. So I don't see any evidence of her violating her impartiality."

I've never understood this backward thinking. A judges partiality is not violated by what they have to say about an issue prior to the case reaching the court. ¹ I find this a bizarre legal fiction. We like to pretend that the justices have no pre-existing biases on any issue, which is absurd. Everyone has biases, the question is whether or not the Justice can put those biases asided and rule fairly. Yet, anytime one of the Justices breaks our little bubble and admits to having biases, we try to punish them. But, it's apparently OK for them to have biases as long as they don't tell anyone about them.

What actually is dangerous in a situation like Ginsburg's, and which Rodgers totally misses, is not what the Justice says to others about cases before the court. What's dangerous is what they say to the Justice. And that's why lapses in judgment regarding who they associate with, are troubling when it comes to the Supremes.

¹ Scalia recently excused himself from a case becuase he had recently addressed the issues involved in a public speech.

Update: I don't mind pseudonyms in the comments, but people pretending to be celebrities really irritate me. The offending commen is coming out.

And rightly so

Lee Edwards is upset. Why?

Sometimes it's frustrating to be a friend of the United States. Consider the case of South Korea.

On the one hand, the mainstream media highlight North Korea's claim that the United States is to blame for the failure of the six-nation talks on ending North Korea's nuclear program. The reason, according to Pyongyang: Washington insists on a comprehensive dismantling, not merely a freezing, of all of the North's nuclear activities.

Could it be that Washington's hard-line has something to do with the ranking of Kim Jong Il of North Korea as the world's "worst" dictator, based on the findings of Freedom House, Amnesty International, and other human-rights organizations? North Korea is the only nation to earn Freedom House's worst-possible score on political rights and civil liberties for 31 straight years.

On the other hand, most of the media have either ignored or buried deep the announcement (as did the New York Times) that South Korea is sending another 3,000 troops — combat personnel, as well as military engineers and medics — into Iraq. There are already 400 South Korean military medics and engineers in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. That makes South Korea's military contingent the third-largest in Iraq, after the United States and Great Britain.

Sometimes it can be annoying to be South Korea's friend. Like when their politicians use campaign rhetoric that makes it sound like all their problems with the North are our fault or when students there hold massive rallies calling for us to remove the 37,000 troops guarding the DMZ. (The reactions to that were predictable on both side. Rumsfeld started hinting that if they didn't want our boys, we'd just bring them home. Then people were protesting that.)

The fact of the matter is, however, that despite the occassional bump in the road, when push comes to shove, the people of South Korea are generally willing to meet the challenge. According to Edwards, there are 15 volunteers for every available slot in the Iraqi contingent. Think about that. 45,000 volunteers for only 3,000 slots. And we're not talking about volunteering to go to Disney World here. Iraq is still a dangerous place and these soldiers are ready and willing.

That kind of devotion deserves our thanks and gratitude. But how are we to thank them if we're not told? The modern press has become a major embarrasment. In fact, in some areas, they're almost a liability. ¹

I want to take this opportunity to thank the soldiers of South Korea for what they're doing, and will do, in Iraq. You should do the same and try to let others know as well. While I'm thinking about it, I'd like to thank our own military as well as those of Britain, Australia, and Poland. There are other countries who've sent smaller contingents, and I want to thank them as well.

¹ I say that because on some topics the press seems incapable, often because of ideological blinders, of even seeing the real stories. Yet, because we do have a press, we often mistakenly believe we're being informed of the important issues. Consequently, we don't know that we don't know, so we don't do anything about it.

Woohoo!

This is my first post from my new computer: A Compaq Presario laptop complete with wireless networking. Converting everything over will be a pain, but this is one sweet machine.

Oddly enough

Austin Bramwell doesn't like the comparison of sodomy to incest:

If homosexuality is okay, what's wrong with incest? The question remains perhaps conservatives' best polemic in the gay-marriage debate. Indeed, gay-marriage advocates have yet to answer it, except by i) allowing that the two cannot be distinguished, or ii) blustering over the outrageousness of the comparison.

But the incest gambit, while tactically shrewd, is strategically unsound. For one thing, it reinforces the impression that conservatives only object to new rights for gays out of disgust for their conduct. Mere feelings, however, no matter how strong, do not provide reasons for government policies. Besides, if disgust for homosexual acts can be overcome (as, among today's youth, it already has), so, presumably, can disgust for incestuous acts.

Second, it gives credence to the charge that only animus against homosexuals is motivating those who oppose gay marriage. Homosexuals simply are not universally reviled anymore, and the attempt to compare them to a group that (still) is, such as those who practice incest, works to conservatives' ultimate disadvantage. Nobody wants to have to think about yucky sex acts, and people who make them do it are for good reason regarded as lacking in manners.

Ironically, since Bramwell describes himself as a law clerk, it seems to have escaped him that the use of incest in this is argument is not to make people feel icky or to disgust people. Rather, it is a legal argument. The argument assumes that even most of those who approve of homosexual acts disapprove of incest. The reason they do so can be religious, ethical, moral, practical, ir even the "ick" factor. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that they do disaprove.

The reason incest is used is that it is rather obvious that the types of arguments that have been used to justifiy homosexuality (two consenting adults have the right to perform whatever sexual acts they see fit) can obviously be used to justify a lot of other types of activities such as incest (when both parties are adults), and polygamy. The argument says nothing about the relative merits of the various arguments, just that the latter flow rather obviously from the former.

I actually doubt this argument will convince many, if any, gay rights activists to change their minds. It might, however, convince them to use a scalpel rather than shotgun to get their way.

Update: Several typographical errors were fixed after being pointed out to me by my thoughtful editor.

I'm truly confused

David Frum is concerned that Mel Gibson is not as clear as many would like him to be in affirming the Holocaust:

Sounds unambiguous, right? Now listen again. Note that Gibson did not say, “Don’t be absurd, Peggy. Obviously it is a matter of historical record that Adolph Hitler and the Nazis deliberately murdered millions of Jews.” Note that Gibson did not cite the universally accepted casualty count of between 5 and 6 million Jewish fatalities. Nor did he acknowledge that Jews were special targets of Hitler’s hatred or that anti-Semitism occupied a central place in Hitler’s ideology.

Note next that Gibson did not use the word “murder.” Instead, he used the generic term “atrocities,” which could cover anything from mass murder to assault and arson. And whatever was the point of that strange formulation, “Some of them were Jews ….”?

Notice finally how Gibson goes on to speak of Stalin’s massacres. Gibson speaks of Stalin's crimes in plain, direct language. For them, he invokes commonly accepted casualty counts. What prevented him from speaking that way of the Jewish Holocaust?

I'm confused about this for many reasons. Frum is not the first person, nor I suspect the last, who has made the argument that there is something wrong with the way Gibson speaks of the Holocaust.

I find this strange for a lot of reasons. The first is that I don't understand why the combination of the two facts that Gibson has produced and directed a movie about the crucifixion and resurrection of the Messiah and has a father who is a Holocaust denier requires Gibson to constantly say, "Yes, the Holocaust happened and millions of Jews died." I just don't understand this thinking.

I also don't understand what Frum's harping about "generally accepted casualty counts" has to do with anything. The generally accepted number of Jews killed by the Germans is six million. As far as I can tell, if I were to go around saying I thought that number was too low and I believed the number closer to 9 million I would be a Holocaust denier. I don't understand this way of thinking, but I've seen it a lot.

I've got other problems with his argument, but I'll stop now.

What's French for Passion?

Reuters is reporting ¹ that The Passion of the Christ is going to be distributed in France by Quinta Communications. I find it interesting that this story lists the reason it took so long to get a French company to sign on was squeamishness about violence. The reason I find this interesting is that I've seen previous stories (I don't remember where) that claimed, or at least heavily implied, that no French company had picked the film up because they were taking a principled stand against the supposed anti-semitism of the film.

Funny how large sums of money tend to change everyone's perception of principle for those in the entertainment industry. (Or am I being unfairly cynical?)

¹Am I the only one that finds "Reuters" and "reporting" to be an unusual combination? At least in the sense of the combination actually being accurate?

Questions

So San Francisco has been issuing marriage certificates to homosexual couples. There is no question that this violates state law and that the licenses should be a nullity, but the court system has refused to act.

How long will it be before one of these couples insists that another state recognize their marriage under the "Full faith and credit" clause of the Constitution? When that happens, what will the result be?

My gut feeling is that such an appeal should be denied since, technically, not even California recognizes these marriages. However the courts' failure to act could certainly be used to cloud the issue.

Jacob Levy explains

... that he doesn't think ROTK deserved the Best Picture Oscar. (He wrote this on Saturday.) On the other hand, he thought Fellowship and Towers did deserve to win.

What would probably make me happiest tonight is if the past two years' Picture and Director awards got revoked and given to Rings/ Jackson, and then River and Translation split the two 2004 awards. Sadly, that ain't how it's going to happen...