WSJ on why it published The Story

According to the editors of the Wall Street Journal, they were never asked not to publish the SWIFT story. Senior government officials briefed them with some unclassified details, since they knew that the NYT was goign to go ahead and publish it anyway. This is key: They say that if they had known that the government had asked the Times to spike the story, they would not have run it.

Too bad the Times doesn't have their sense of civic duty.

NT06 - Philemon

Paul's letter to Philemon was written while he was in prison. It's an interesting little letter, teasing all sorts of questiosn about the kind of person Paul was, and the interpersonal interactions he had with people on his journeys.

Amidst the personal please, verse 6 sticks out as a universal teaching: "I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ."

It's when we give away our faith that we come to fully understand it.

NT06 - Philemon

Paul's letter to Philemon was written while he was in prison. It's an interesting little letter, teasing all sorts of questiosn about the kind of person Paul was, and the interpersonal interactions he had with people on his journeys.

Amidst the personal please, verse 6 sticks out as a universal teaching: "I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ."

It's when we give away our faith that we come to fully understand it.

The high cost of treason

The Left wants the NYT shut down

Michelle Malkin has a roundup of reaction to the NYT's treasonous publication of yet another legal, Congress-briefed, safeguarged, SECRET intel program that (until today) was helping catch terrorists.

I think I've finally figured it out.

The Times is trying to goad the administration into shutting it down.

The American Left has been braying about how Bush is a fascist dictator, but of course they have had nothing with which to back it up. The Bill of Rights is still in effect.

But if they can get a major newspaper to aid and abet the enemy badly enough, often enough, to get the administration to clamp down, then they can dance around and say, "See? WE TOLD you Bushitler was a dictator!"

The neck-slicers and suicide bombers will now be able to better conceal their financial dealings. I'm sure they'll express their gratitude by killing the Times's staff last.

Bush forced her to get an abortion?!?!

Blogger Freeman Hunt absolutely shreds an astonishing WaPo op-ed. Not to be missed!

You can sleep when you are dead

Mrs. Olsen is rolling, absolutely ROLLING, in her grave.

Click on the TV. You'll understand.
ht:HH
linkage: Anne and The Anchoress

Bill Whittle is back

My favorite atheist pilot/philosopher has a new post up at Eject! Eject! Eject!. It's typical Whittle, in desperate need of editing (sorry, Bill, but it's true). But also typically, it is well worth the effort.

RTWT

Striking a blow for sanity

The President of the University of North Dakota warns the NCAA to back off its capricious and arbitrary P.C. stance on team nicknames.

Jesus is a four-letter word

The MPAA gives a PG rating to a Christian-themed film because its evangelistic message might possibly be offensive to some.

Hey, here's a news flash for ya - the Gospel IS offensive. Nobody likes to be told they're going to Hell and need Jesus to be saved.

Nobody likes to be told they have cancer and need surgery, either.

Frankly, I wish they'd given the film an R rating - then maybe more kids would sneak in to see it.

UPDATE: Here's a related post (ht:HH) on "preachy," overtly Christian movies. He's got a point.

The Jihad-ehs

James Lileks riffs on how a liberal might react to the roll-up of the Canadian terror cell.

Welcome to Hell, Mr. Zarqawi

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi killed in air raid

Is it wrong to rejoice at the thought of a man spending eternity in Hell?

No. Not when that man hacked the heads off of innocent victims while chanting "God is great."

Not at all.

Burn, baby, burn.

Invitation to a vivisection

Hugh Hewitt interviews Paul Campos.

Campos is a law professor in Colorado and a sometime columnist for the Rocky Mountain News.

Hewitt is a law professor, A-list blogger, and nationally syndicated radio host.

Campos took a swipe at Hewitt in a recent column.

What was that Mark Twain said about not picking a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel? Hewitt invited Campos on his show. The Marines have a saying: If you find yourself in a fair fight, you have not adequately prepared.

Hewitt was prepared.

Campos got his posterior anatomy handed to him on a silver platter, and didn't even realize it. He was expertly sliced, diced, julienned and pureed. This interview - if you can call a public vivisection an interview - should be required reading in cross-ex classes.

As professor Glenn says, RTWT.

UPDATE: Welcome, Hewitt readers! If you liked this, you might like some of the rest of the stuff here. Please go to the effort of leaving a comment - it gets lonely out here on the long tail.

The Euston Manifesto

The Euston Manifesto is a declaration by folks on the left end of the political spectrum that demands examination and respect. I heartily endorse its main points - rejection of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism, a willingness to hold up to examination the historic failures of Communism, absolute rejection of terrorism as a valid means to political ends, and a summary rejection of terrorism's apologists.

I differ with a few details having to do with the fact that I'm on the center-right rather than the center-left. So personally, I couldn't sign on.

But those who do have my respect, because we agree on the important things. And on the less-important things, we can agree to disagree and work toward mutually acceptable solutions.

Democrats, are you listening?

Hold your nose and pull the lever

Dangitall, Hugh. I hate to admit it, but you're probably right. As crummy as DeWine is, Sherrod Brown would be worse. You convinced me that majorities matter with "If It's Not Close". I really wished DeWine had had a real opponent in the primaries. He impresses me not in the least. By in comparison, Brown is downright scary.

Better to hold your nose in the voting booth than cut it off.

The Lawn Ranger!

Atlas Shrugs: Iraq: Loving this American Soldier HT: MKH@HH

Power Corrupts; Powerpoint corrupts absolutely

The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation

Learning by teaching

One thing I love about teaching is that I always learn something new. Sometimes it's a new piece of music that a student wants to learn, so I have to learn it, too.

Sometimes it's an insight into how I taught myself to play, which enables me to explain something I wasn't able to explain before. That happened this week.

I've been playing for a long time - 30-odd years. I was in band in jr high and high school, so I learned how to read music, and how to count and clap. I've listened to a LOT of different styles of music, with some fairly complex harmonies and rhythm structures. And back in the day, I'd play in public for hours at a time.

So a lot of what I know is so deeply internalized that I have forgotten how I know it.

Case in point, some fingerpicking twiddly bits I do. This week, working with a student, I suddenly realized how to explain it, how to break it down into bite-sized chunks for a beginner.

When I really thought about how I had learned these bits, I realized that I had spent hours playing with very small movements. For example:

-------------------
-------------------
----0--0--0--0---
--0--0--0--0--0--
-------------------
-------------------

with the thumb on the 4th string and the index finger on the 3rd string.

I also spent a lot of time doing this:

-------------------
----0--0--0--0---
-------------------
-------------------
--0--0--0--0--0--
-------------------

with the thumb on the 5th string and the 2nd finger on the 2nd string.

Hours, mind you. Hours spent doing this. Sitting on that legal-pad-yellow corduroy bedspread - the kind that leaves stripes in your cheek when you take a nap on it.

I combined the two motions:

-------------------
---0------0------
-------0-------0-----
-----0------0--------
--0-----0--------0--
-------------------

Looks a lot more complicated, but it's just switching back and forth. You can simplify it, though, by not worryng about the fingers - just play them together:

-------------------
---0---0---0---0---
---0---0---0---0---
-----0-------0-----
--0------0-------0-
-------------------

Get comfortable with that, and then play the fingers one after the other:

------------------------
-----0----0----0----0---
----0----0----0----0----
-------0---------0------
--0---------0---------0-
------------------------

Do the same thing while fingering a C chord:

------------------------
-----1----1----1----1---
----0----0----0----0----
-------2---------2------
--3---------3---------3-
------------------------

Now, remember that thing called a hammer-on? Do that with your middle finger, on the 2nd fret on the 4th string (keep fingering that C chord, though, so you arch the 3rd finger over the 4th string):

--------------------------
-(1)-------------------------
--------------------------
---0h2----0h2----oh2----0h2--
-(3)-------------------------
--------------------------

Now when you put all those simple things together, you get this:

-------------------------
----1------1---1-----1---
----------0---------0----
-----0h2--------0h2------
--3----------3---------3-
-------------------------

That's a very neat country-sounding twiddly bit that sounds a lot more complicated than it really is, once you break it down. (It's also the foundation for "The Boxer" by Simon & Garfunkle.)

Chocolate Covered Broccoli

Museum Technology blogger Richard Urban of Musematic uses the phrase "Chocolate covered broccoli" in a very interesting post on an unrelated subject to describe the typical educational games found in museum displays (and elsewhere, as I can well attest).

I happen to LIKE broccoli (especially with cheese sauce), but the analogy is apt and vivid.

A prayer for commencement

The school where I work jsut had commencement. Predictably, a member of the faculty sent an email to the administration, staff, and faculty complaining about the fact that there was a prayer. So in the spirit of intellectual syncretism, I offer this non-denominational prayer.


Oh, great celestial Father or Mother or otherwise supposedly Eternal and Beneficent Being or Beings, who may or may not exist (and if you don't exist, please disregard this prayer):

On this occasion, a celebration of knowledge and learning, it seems appropriate to many of us (though not all) to acknowledge You ("you" being used as a generic non-gendered second-person-personal pronoun implying neither singular nor plural status) as the source of knowledge and learning.

As it is written in one text that many (though certainly not all) consider sacred, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,"

and in another, "He grants wisdom to whom He pleases, and whoever is granted wisdom, he indeed is given a great good,"

and in another, "One must possess knowledge about action; one must also possess knowledge about prohibited action; and again one must possess knowledge about inaction,"

and in yet another sacred text, "Inna-godda-da-vida, baby."

Although Your existence cannot be scientifically proven, it cannot also be disproven, and so prudence dictates that it might not be such a bad idea after all to to ask Your blessing - should You be disposed to do things such as give blessings, as described in many (though not all) religious tradtions, which this is not one of, being simply a voluntary ceremonial event, albeit one that's being held on the taxpayer's dime, but then just about everyone here is a taxpayer, and demographic studies show that most Americans believe in You in some form - on those persons among those gathered here who are willing to receive such a blessing from your hand or hands (we certainly would not want someone to receive a blessing that they did not want, and so we offer this opt-out clause).

In the name of Bob and the Flying Spaghetti Monster,

Yeah, Whatever.