Crichton on Environmentalism

Michael Chichton gave an wonderful speech (see link) on the subject of Fear, Complexity, & Environmental Management in the 21st Century.

It is filled with startling examples (especially if you are young) of headline smothering environmental catastrophes that were firmly predicted by never came to pass all the way from worldwide mass famine to the end of the world in an ice age.

The book really began in 1998, when I set out to write a novel about a global disaster. In the course of my preparation, I rather casually reviewed what had happened in Chernobyl, since that was the worst manmade disaster in recent times that I knew about.

What I discovered stunned me. Chernobyl was a tragic event, but nothing remotely close to the global catastrophe I imagined. About 50 people had died in Chernobyl, roughly the number of Americans that die every day in traffic accidents. I don’t mean to be gruesome, but it was a setback for me. You can’t write a novel about a global disaster in which only 50 people die.

Undaunted, I began to research other kinds of disasters that might fulfill my novelistic requirements. That’s when I began to realize how big our planet really is, and how resilient its systems seem to be. Even though I wanted to create a fictional catastrophe of global proportions, I found it hard to come up with a credible example. In the end, I set the book aside, and wrote Prey instead.

But the shock that I had experienced reverberated within me for a while. Because what I had been led to believe about Chernobyl was not merely wrong—it was astonishingly wrong. Let’s review the data.

The initial reports in 1986 claimed 2,000 dead, and an unknown number of future deaths and deformities occurring in a wide swath extending from Sweden to the Black Sea. As the years passed, the size of the disaster increased; by 2000, the BBC and New York Times estimated 15,000-30,000 dead, and so on…

Now, to report that 15,000-30,000 people have died, when the actual number is 56, represents a big error. Let’s try to get some idea of how big. Suppose we line up all the victims in a row. If 56 people are each represented by one foot of space, then 56 feet is roughly the distance from me to the fourth row of the auditorium. Fifteen thousand people is three miles away. It seems difficult to make a mistake of that scale.

Read the whole thing.

My Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

From Tech Central Station on how to win a Nobel Prize:

...that is precisely why I decided to go ahead and publish my acceptance speech now, because that way I could make it clear to those guys in Sweden that I know exactly what kind of thing they are looking for in a Nobel Prize laureate, which is fanatic, frothing-at-the-mouth, virulent anti-Americanism of the most vicious kind.

[snip]

A creative mind is a wonderful thing to have, however, and I soon came up with my acceptance speech.

“Ladies and gentleman of the Swedish Academy. Thank you for honoring me with your prize, and thanks for all the money that comes with it. But now for the part you have all been waiting for -- my anti-American speech.

“America sucks! It sucks now and it has always sucked. As long as there is an American left alive, the world will suck because it has Americans in it. All Americans suck. I suck and all my friends back in America suck, too. In America, even the cats suck. It’s sickening to think how much we suck. In fact, just thinking about America makes me want to puke. See, look, I’m vomiting right now.” Of course, I won’t really be vomiting -- I’ll just be pretending to, the same way the Swedish Academy pretends to award literary merit. It will be like a work of conceptual art, and you can only imagine the electrifying effect as the Reuters newsflash bulletin makes its way around the globe: “American Nobel Prize Laureate Lee Harris Pukes All Over Himself Denouncing His Own Country.” You won’t hear anybody asking “Lee Harris Who?” after that, will you?

Who knows, after making such a good impression, I might go on to win the Peace Prize the next year -- and without having to commit a single act of terrorism!

Read the whole thing.

Density Is Destiny: On Politics and the Paperboy

From Tech Central Station (read the whole thing):

Why are things the way they are, politically speaking? Why are the Republicans' most effective ads straightforward clips of Democrats contradicting themselves? Why are conservative pundits so frequently flanking their liberal counterparts? Why is the left-of-center blogosphere moving their party away from the Democrats’ historic base while the right-of-center is co-opting libertarians and moderates?

Realizing that this is a question of the same magnitude as Douglas Adams' "Life, the Universe and Everything?" I nevertheless propose that the answer is "population density" in general and "the cost of newspaper delivery" specifically.

It all starts with an indisputable fact. Higher density urban areas tend to the political left of rural, lower-density areas. It doesn't really matter, in terms of this analysis, why this is the case. I'm not arguing the superiority of the conservative message, only its greater effectiveness at this time in history -- most easily evidenced by control of all three U.S. branches of government. There are, however, hints in history and economics about the reasons that cities tilt left.

The Newspaper Game: Buying Lies.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram recently ran a Molly Ivins column that repeated the hoax about the U Mass Student who claimed to have been visited by Federal agents for wishing to check Chairman Mao’s “Little Red Book” out of the library. The story was fishy from the start, but the Left – ever ready to believe that Bush is a Nazi – bit on it and it became a story in the outermost fringes of the kook Left including Molly Ivins and Ted Kennedy.

This became a discussion topic on FreeRepublic.com and I subsequently e-mailed the editorial page editor, Paul Harral, to get his response. I reprint it in full below.

Thanks for your comments about the UMass student which have been passedon to Molly Ivins.

You do understand, don't you, that she does not work for this newspaper?She's a syndicated columnist in the same way that Cal Thomas, whom wealso print, is a syndicated columnist.

That does not lessen our responsibility, but it is to say that hermaterial is not the property of the Star-Telegram. She writed forCreators Syndicate: http://www.creators.com

I have forwarded your messages along to her.

Paul K. Harral
Editorial Page Editor
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
PO Box 1870Fort Worth, TX 76101
817 390-7836

The formulation: “You do understand, don’t you…” is obviously meant to be translated as: “You dunce...”

Then there is the phrase “That does not lessen our responsibility...” This reminds me so much of the excuses that come out of Washington when things go wrong. Someone steps up and “takes full responsibility,” following which nothing happens. It’s as if the famous sign on Harry Truman’s desk was changed from “The buck stops here” to “The buck stops here; now move on.”

This morning I wrote Mr. Harral back.

Thank you for your reply.

Your response, however, it begs the question. What is your responsibility when you print something that has been proven to be a hoax?

It seems to me that in view of the numerous instances of journalistic malfeasance that have occurred - and been revealed - in the recent past, responsible newspapers would have instituted some more stringent quality controls.

If a car dealer sells a defective auto, or a pharmacist knowingly sells a defective drug it is held responsible. The fact that the car was not made by the dealer or the drug by the pharmacist does not absolve them of responsibility. Are newspapers held to lower standards than car dealers or pharmacists? Does it absolve you of responsibility if you don't have a liar on your payroll but simply buy lies via syndication?

I realize that “freedom of the press” provides the press special privileges that are not afforded other industries. You have a constitutional right to print falsehoods. However, I believe that it is not just a betrayal of the implicit agreement you have with your readers, but it is a bad business practice. Newspaper circulation has been dropping partially because of a perception of untrustworthiness. Making excuses that the untruth you provide is done via syndication and the promise to pass this along to the liar does not provide the consumer (me) with the feeling that you believe you have a problem.

These are not rhetorical questions. I work in a highly regulated industry where millions of dollars change hands based on a verbal handshake. Trust is vital in an increasingly interconnected world where, for the first time, your industry can be fact-checked by thousands of pajama clad critics who will make every misstep known worldwide.

Your situation is not unique and I am earnestly asking all editors these questions. I am very interested in their replies.

Thanks again for your response. I hope that you will favor me with a reply.

(signed)

I'll post his reply if there is one.

UPDATE:

Paul Harrell replied to my e-mail on 12828/2005 with:

We are continuing to check the story. We have a reader advocate here and he is backtracking. He is making contact with the newspaper that originally handled the story. We don't ignore these kinds of issues --but neither do we rush to judgment on them.

At a certain level this makes sense. Having been stung by a lie in the first place, a responsible organization would want to make sure that it does not compound the error. However, the newspaper that originally published the story - the Standard Times - has already, publicly exposed the story as a total fabrication. So far the only thing missing is the student's name, a fact that was withheld in the original article. So the need for a personal contact by the "reader advocate" of the Fort-Worth Star Telegram would seem superfluous in terms of printing a correction.

This is a common phenomenon. For example, remember the story of guards flushing the Koran down a toilet at Gitmo? The "flushed Koran" story received immediate, sensational and universal space on the pages of newspapers, magazines and the electronic media. Would I be overstating the case that there was a "rush to judgement" on the part of the media in that case? The improbability, nay the impossibility of the act never fazed the editors. And the "corrections" if they came, came weeks later; after the original lies led to an international black eye for the US and the deaths of people in far off lands.

Does anyone else find it strange, even suspicious that errors in reporting never seem to favor the Bush administration? Coincidence? You decide. I'm sure the Fort-Worth Star Telegram carried the original flushed Koran story. Would it be a low blow to ask if their "reader representative" is checking his sources on that story even now?

UPDATE 2 (12/30/2005):

I received another e-mail from Mr. Harral:

FYI ... Molly Ivins takes note that she fell for the hoax in her latestcolumn and we are publishing both that and an official correction.Correction runs Friday am. Column runs Sunday.

Stay tuned for the printed corrrection and see if we misjudged Mr. Harral. There is no misjudging Milly Ivins. Here "paper trail" is too long.

HOAXES IN A TIME OF WAR. (You mean the Left would lie?)

Excerpt:

The UMass Dartmouth student who claimed to have been visited by Homeland Security agents over his request for "The Little Red Book" by Mao Zedong has admitted to making up the entire story. The 22-year-old student tearfully admitted he made the story up to his history professor, Dr. Brian Glyn Williams, and his parents, after being confronted with the inconsistencies in his account. Had the student stuck to his original story, it might never have been proved false.

REPORT FROM IRAQ

And that's the way it is.

Pallywood: The Staging of the Intifada

Click on the link and see how the movies showing the Palestinains being shot by Israelis are staged.

Keeping Secrets

From Belmont club:

Once upon a time signals intelligence was considered so important that considerable efforts were taken to prevent its compromise. Captain John Philip Cromwell, who was privy to the secrets of signals intelligence, elected to go down with the USS Sculpin rather than risk capture by the Japanese and reveal his knowledge under torture. Cromwell agonized over a problem the NYT editorial board might have found easier to resolve.

The destroyer quickly destroyed the bridge, killing Connaway, the XO (LT Nelson Allen), and the gunnery officer (LT Joseph De Frees – son of Rear Admiral De Frees). LT G. E. Brown, another reservist, was now the senior officer assigned to the submarine and quickly took command. He chose to scuttle the boat and gave the order, "abandon ship." The crew struggled into life jackets as the Chief of the Boat opened the vents. Captain Cromwell, division commander with only 13 days at sea on his first war patrol, was faced with a predicament. He could abandon ship and face the possibility of severe torture in a Japanese prison camp or go down with the ship. Knowing full well the possibility of the enemy gaining information about Operation Galvanic and the secrets of Ultra during torture, Cromwell chose to take the secret information to the bottom. He told LT Brown that he "knew too much" and would stay onboard. Ensign Fielder, perhaps feeling responsible, made the same decision. These two brave men – and ten others – rode the ship down for the last time. ...
When Admiral Lockwood learned of Sculpin and Captain Crowmell’s fate, he recommended Cromwell for the Medal of Honor. It was approved and awarded to his widow after the war. Admiral Lockwood went on to say, "Captain Cromwell's selfless act of personal sacrifice represents what our submarine force is all about. It stands for dedication, courage and honor in the face of adversity." "John Cromwell is a true American hero," he added.

Eavesdropping on the Enemy

No, not the Democrats, but the headchoppers and baby killers of Islam. From Powerline:

I've been working on and off on the legal issues surrounding the NSA's interception of communications directed to al Qaeda members overseas, some of which originated in the United States. I haven't had time yet to write up a full analysis of the case law. For now, let me just say that the question does not appear to be close. Under all existing authorities, the NSA program, as we understand the facts, was legal.

For now, let me simply quote the November 2002 decision of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, in Sealed Case No. 02-001:

The Truong court [United States v. Truong Dinh Hung, 4th Cir. 1980], as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information. *** We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power.

And those are cases that deal with electronic intercepts inside the United States. A fortiori, intercepts outside the United States that coincidentally sweep in messages sent from America would seem to be obviously within the President's inherent Article II powers. So far, I have found no authority to the contrary.

What Does Winning Mean?

Excerpt:

Today's Muslim regimes cannot win this war in the long term. Most of them are absurd governments of kings and princes or brutal generals whose idea of succession planning is primogeniture. (Kings?!? How often do we Americans, who institutionalized lèse-majesté, consider how idiotic a system monarchy really is?) These kings, princes, sheikhs and generals-for-life are clowns, and anybody who views any of them -- even the "moderate" ones -- as better than contemptible is seriously deranged. History is against them, and every thoughtful person in the world knows it. The question is, what will replace them?

The jihadis are fighting to install a Caliphate and lower a dark curtain over a fifth of the world. The United States and its courageous allies are fighting to create room for modern democratic governments based on popular sovereignty.Since the region's clown governments lack credibility and citizens who are willing to take great personal risks to defend them, al Qaeda is able to create spaces in those countries in which to operate (see, e.g., southern Saudi Arabia and Pakistan's "tribal regions"). Where al Qaeda flourishes, it is able to cajole and coerce the local population -- the Average Abdul -- into cooperating. This creates a local base from which it can "vex and exhaust" the apostate regime.

We need Average Abdul to stop cooperating with al Qaeda and to start turning in the jihadis in the back of the mosque. Unfortunately, he won't turn in the jihadis because he is more afraid of them than the local regime and he will not bear any risk to defend the clowns. The jihadis will kill him and his family for blowing the whistle, but the clown regime will neither punish him for keeping silent or induce him to fight the jihadis out of patriotism. Average Abdul, simply put, is unwilling to risk his life for the clown regime, which has not earned his devotion, even for money.

Average Abdul will, however, risk his life for an idea, just as al Qaeda's jihadis do. Once, that idea was pan-Arabism, or Communism. Today, both are discredited. "Moderate Islam," whatever that means in a dusty town in Syria, Jordan or Egypt, obviously does not have the fire to motivate Abdul to risk his life to fight the Islamists. The only idea with the juice to do the job is popular sovereignty. Democracy. This is the realist case for the Bush administration's "democratization strategy."

Bush lied, people dyed. Their fingers.

Excerpt from Mark Steyn (read the whole thing):

Bush lied, people dyed. Their fingers. That's what this is about: Millions of Kurds, Shia and Sunnis beaming as they emerge from polling stations and hold up their purple fingers after the freest, fairest election ever held in the Arab world. "Liberal" in the American sense is a dirty word because it's come to stand for a shriveled parochial obsolescent irrelevance, of which ''Good Night, and Good Luck,'' Clooney's dreary little retread of the McCarthy years, is merely the latest example. (Clooney says he wants more journalists to "speak truth to power," which is why I'm insulting his movie.)

The Anglo-American political tradition is the most successful in the world in part because of the concept of "loyal opposition." Yes, the party out of office opposes the party in office and hopes to supplant it, but not at the expense of the broader political culture. A party that winds up cheerleading for a deranged loser death cult is the very definition of pointless self-defeating sour oppositionism. So, as Zarqawi flails, Dean and Murtha and Kerry flail ever more pathetically, too. Just wait till the WMD turn up.

And here’s the problem…

A poster “Anonymous” who identifies himself as a law student comments on the war we are in : “Seriously, the war on terror is like the war on drugs, the war on poverty, or a war on …”

You can read the entire post HERE. But it reinforces a comment I made yesterday on another website:

Whenever the JustinKs [an anti-Bush poster] write their comments, the discussion quickly becomes disconnected from reality. Words and phrases creep in that are not fact related - remember the Left claiming that Bush said the Saddam was an imminent threat, when he said the exact opposite? This is usually followed by claims of lying, by claims that the administration acted illegally, that we are heading for a Fascist state (or have already arrived).

In another post a Leftist wrote that Bush was such a liar that he could not be trusted to with the powers to protect the country so - if the power to take appropriate action was taken away and we were attacked - it would be Bush's fault. This is such blatant sophistry that it defies belief.

People like this are not serious. They live in a solipsistic cocoon. It's all about them. There is no war. The images on the screen of people being beheaded, of people jumping out of burning buildings, of the collapse of the Twin Towers, of explosive laden cars exploding have all the reality of the "West Wing" or a Steven Spielberg movie.

For many, it's simply another political contest with the war in Iraq as background noise. They did not die on 9/11 and they really don't believe that there will be another attack - or, if there is - the chances of their involvement are low; rather like being killed in a car crash; no reason not to drive. So the issue of this titanic clash of cultures is unreal. What is real is the politics of the moment.

But it was ever thus. Even in countries where war has come, most people try focus on the things that interest them; unless they are in the path of a bullet or a bomb or faced with starvation. And in America, the reality is that most people believe they are safe; they are well fed and therefore there is no apparent need to rally to the defense of the country.

After 9/11 a part of America woke up from the end of history. Unfortunately, another part never did. They now play word games, or indulge in political sport. They are Liberals who have not been mugged yet.

There is an old saying that it’s the Generals who are always prepared to fight the last war. We give the military too little credit and the younger generation too much. Here we have a young-fuddy-duddy – a student in law school - insisting that we are waging a metaphorical war. His young mind has been trained to think in old ways. That real wars are fought by national armies surging across national boundaries with tanks and planes and troops in uniform. If it isn’t like the World War 2, it isn’t a war. Instead, it’s a metaphor like the “war on drugs.”

3000 dead on 9/11 did not allow him to break out of his mental cocoon. Ditto the attacks in Madrid, Bali or London. Ditto the terrorists in Iraq. But metaphors don’t die and leave widows and orphans. So we have to ask ourselves what will have to happen before this young man breaks his mental shackles. The answer is not obvious. Keep in mind that as the Germans rounded up their Jewish victims and transported them to their deaths, there was little resistance. Except for Warsaw, there was no rebellion even as people knew that either way, they would die.

That is the difference between Todd Beamer and “Anonymous.” Todd Beamer surveyed the situation, gathered some allies, said “Let’s roll” and changed history. “Anonymous” would consider the fact that attacking the hijackers could be considered a crime: assault, interfering with a flight crew. Beamer and his friends broke quite a few rules. “Anonymous” would have sat down and waited for the plane to land and then he would have complained to the authorities.

That’s why we cannot allow “Anonymous” anywhere near the levers of power.

Steyn on Stifling Dissent in Europe

Excerpt (read the whole thing):

Hollywood stars are forever complaining about the "crushing of dissent" in Bush's America, by which they mean Tim Robbins having a photo-op at the Baseball Hall of Fame cancelled because he's become an anti-war bore. But, thanks to the First Amendment, he can say anything he likes without the forces of the state coming round to grill him. It's in Britain and Europe where dissent is being crushed. Following the murder of Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands, film directors and museum curators and all the other "brave" "transgressive" artists usually so eager to "challenge" society are voting for self-censorship: "I don't want a knife in my chest," explained Albert Ter Heerdt, announcing his decision to "postpone" a sequel to his hit multicultural comedy Shouf Shouf Habibi!

But who needs to knife him when across Europe the authorities are so eager to criminalise him?

Katie Couric on Ramsay Clark: What a Shocker!

Katie Couric shows herself to be a clueless as we have all believed she is (from The Corner at NR):

AS UNLIKELY AS SNOW IN WINTER IN ALASKA [Cliff May]

On the Today Show this morning, Katie Couric said: “Now to another big story going on in Iraq: the trial of Saddam Hussein. And an unlikely member of his defense team: Former U.S. Attorney Ramsey Clark. He is here for his first interview since visiting his client in Baghdad last week. Mr. Clark, good morning.”

Yes, Katie, what a shocker! I mean, Ramsey Clark defending a bad guy? You could have knocked me over with a feather.

Of course, there may be just a little teeny-tiny bit of precedent for this. Clark did defend Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslavia president who is on trial for war crimes. And, of course, Radovan Karadzic, the former Yugoslavian general also indicted for war crimes.

Oh and come to think of it, Ramsey Clark also defended Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization leaders, when they were sued in connection with the Achille-Lauro terrorist attack. And didn’t he defend Libyan dictator Muammar El-Qaddafi after the United States bombed Libya in response to terrorist attacks?

Gosh, how could this have slipped both our minds, Katie (a senior moment?): Ramsey Clark also defended Karl Linnas, a Nazi who ran an Estonian concentration camp, and Jakob Reimer, a notorious Nazi concentration camp guard.

And – silly us – we plum forgot he defended Sheik Omar Abdel, convicted of conspiring to blow up New York City landmarks. And Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, a leader of the Rwandan genocide. And Charles Taylor, the former Liberian leader charged with crimes against humanity. And Leonard Peltier, convicted of killing 2 FBI agents. And Lyndon Larouche.

But I see your point, Katie: These were all unlikely cases – every single one of them. Which is why you went on to ask Clark this hardball question: “…And many Americans scratch their heads and say simply: Why? Why is this man with such a distinguished record, although controversial, why is he representing someone known as the Butcher of Baghdad?”

Clark’s response: “It's very simple. We are the ones that named him the Butcher of Baghdad and demonized him.” Yeah, once again we have met the enemy and he is us. We demonized Saddam – it has nothing to do with the mass graves and the rape rooms and the amputations and the poison gas used against Halabja and the genocidal campaign against the Kurds and the terrorist training camp at Salman Pak and the plot to assassinate a former U.S. president and…well, you know this history a lot better than I ever will. That’s why they pay you the big bucks! That’s why they’re considering making you an evening news anchorperson!

Anyway, as I was saying, Americans named Saddam the Butcher of Baghdad – when to his friends and family he’s always been the “Teddy Bear of Tikrit.”

So what’s on deck for tomorrow, Katie? I’m hoping you might have Ramsey Clark back. Ask him about his Christmas recipes. I hear they, too, are highly unlikely – and surprisingly tasty!

Alito Opponents Support Drug Dealers

Here's the latest ad supporting Judge Alito and tying his opponents to drug dealers.

Echo chamber

Iraq Elections

Get the latest directly from Iraq The Model blog.

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Genghis John rides again

Sen. John Kerry's appearance last Sunday on "Face the Nation" suggests he's mastered the nuanced finesse of betraying his contempt for American soldiers without accusing them of behaving in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan.
The Massachusetts Democrat has come a long way since 1971.
Back then, Mr. Kerry had the starring role as the principled and decorated Vietnam War veteran testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about supposed war atrocities committed not by the Viet Cong but by his fellow vets.

Kerry earnestly testified that other American soldiers said they had raped, cut off ears and heads, randomly shot at civilians and razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of the marauding mass murderer of Mongolia. They must have been remarkably discreet; Kerry never actually saw any of it. ....

By Dimitri Vassilaros, (excerpt) read the whole thing.

But seriously folks, this clown is dangerous

Good news! On Thursday, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, who recently called for Israel to be wiped off the map, moderated his position. In a spirit of statesmanlike compromise, he now wants Israel wiped off the map of the Middle East and wiped on to the map of Europe.

"Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces," Ahmadinejad told Iranian TV viewers. "Although we don't accept this claim, if we suppose it is true," he added sportingly, "if European countries claim that they have killed Jews in World War II, why don't they provide the Zionist regime with a piece of Europe? Germany and Austria can provide the regime with two or three provinces for this regime to establish itself, and the issue will be resolved. You offer part of Europe, and we will support it."

Big of you. It's the perfect solution to the "Middle East peace process": out of sight, out of mind. And given that Ahmadinejad's out of his mind, we're already halfway there.

So let's see: We have a Holocaust denier who wants to relocate an entire nation to another continent, and he happens to be head of the world's newest nuclear state. (They're not 100 percent fully-fledged operational, but happily for them they can drag out the pseudo-negotiations with the European Union until they are. And Washington certainly won't do anything, because after all if we're not 100 percent certain they've got WMD -- which we won't be until there's a big smoking crater live on CNN one afternoon -- it would be just another Bushitlerburton lie to get us into another war for oil, right?)

....

There has always been a slightly post-modern quality to sovereignty in the transnational age: We pretend the Syrian foreign minister is no different from the New Zealand foreign minister, and in so doing we vastly inflate the status of the former at the expense of the latter. But with Ahmadinejad we're going way beyond that. If a genocidal fantasist is acceptable in polite society, we'll soon find ourselves dealing with a genocidal realist.

Mark Steyn on Iran. Read the whole thing.

The “Christmas” Wars

As Christians, as we prepare to celebrate, we ask only for simple respect. Do not ask us to pretend that our Faith is something offensive, something to hide.

Excerpt from the American Thinker. Read the whole thing.