Dr. Paul Kengor's new book: "The Communist"

Serious stuff. Buy it here.

"The Forgotten Heroes of America"

Never forget.

Billy Graham says "Eat Mor Chikin"

More free advertising for Chick-fil-A. Excerpt:

Billy Graham, the dean of American evangelists, has once again broken his usual silence on hot-button issues, defending the president of the Chick-fil-A restaurant chain for his opposition to same-sex marriage days after issuing a letter decrying what he sees as the nation's moral decay.

Earlier this year, the ailing preacher publicly endorsed a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay unions in North Carolina, raising eyebrows among many who'd watched Graham studiously avoid thorny social issues for years.

On Thursday, he issued a statement of support for the popular fast-food chain. Many people have slammed Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy for saying his company backs the traditional family unit and is opposed to same-sex marriage.

Billy locutus est, causa finita est.

I have eaten twice in the last week at Chick-fil-A as a direct result of the latest politically correct freak-out. If you are Dan Cathy, you have got to love all the free advertising.

Take that, muppets.

Tom Cruise sends actresses back to the Church?

So Katie Holmes is Catholic again. Also she recently divorced Tom Cruise, an avowed Scientology dude.

I don't really follow this kind of stuff, but didn't Nicole Kidman return to practicing her Catholic faith after getting divorced from Tom Cruise? I'm pretty sure she did.



But I'll let somebody else look it up.

But did Michael Vick eat those dogs?

Funny article due to the dog abuse connection. What were those meat balls made out of again?

"[T]he gigantic, flaming, multi-car pileup that is modern-day feminism"

Insightful article by pro-life feminist Heather Wilhelm. Wilhelm is smart and attractive so when she claims to be a feminist we'll have to take her word for it. Here's an excerpt:

The problem, I suppose, is that most “real” feminists I know of—Caitlin Moran and Slate writers like Marcotte likely among them—would probably consider me a weapons-grade woman betrayer with a full-time residence on Planet Patriarchy. I am, after all, pro-life. I have been known to vote for Republicans. If you want to be a stay-at-home mom, I think that’s fine. If you want to be the CEO of Yahoo and say you’ll only take three weeks of maternity leave—interestingly, Mayer is getting pilloried for this decision as well—that’s fine too. I believe that casual sex is destructive, not empowering. I often don impractical footwear crafted by male oppressors.

I also generally shy away from celebrations of meaningless vulgarity, which, sadly, seems to be the leading theme in both Moran’s book and in the gigantic, flaming, multi-car pileup that is modern-day feminism. In “How to Be a Woman,” it’s OK to be a “slag” or a “slut,” as long as we’re “simply being honest about who we really are.” In interviews, Moran expresses approval for the recent rash of mortifying “Slut Walks,” in which young women strut down the street in ill-fitting, body-baring “clothing” in order to prove that they are empowered, not sexual objects. Which totally makes sense, if you’re crazy.

I see in Wilhelm's analysis the birth pangs of the new feminism that Pope John Paul II saw the need for. I've blogged on this topic before and it is really near and dear to my heart. The "old feminism" has become crazy and senseless—decrying strip clubs yet favoring "slut walks"—and amid it's insane ravings, desperation may be easily sensed. Here's now new feminist Heather Wilhelm ends her article on the impending doom of the old feminism.

No wonder certain feminists are getting so wound up. They have reason to be worried. Something new is out there—conservatism, decorum, chastity, and respect are downright radical these days—but it’s not poor Gaga.

It also shouldn’t be all that surprising that more and more high-profile women are shrugging off the traditional “feminist” label. It’s gotten kind of embarrassing. “How to Be a Woman,” celebrated as it may be, shows off that fact in spades.

Youth takes it's bow before the summer the seasons bring

The Government's Small Contribution To Success

There are two tragicomic aspects of Obama's "You Didn't Build That" quip which stand out to me. Firstly, the misrepresentation of the successful and their supposed ignorance of all the others in the past and present who have aided their success. I consider myself one of these successful folks and I feel that I am someone who took initiative, not full credit, with regard to my success. It's a both-and kind of proposition, not an either-or. You have to have clients, vendors and people who believe in you to make it in business. But you also have to make the leap of faith yourself and establish all those relationships on which you rely. No one can do that for you. Certainly no one can do anything in a vacuum, let alone breathe. But society isn't a vacuum, no one believes it is, and the opportunities which exist in the world have to be discovered and acted upon first by the mind of an individual or individuals, not mindless government policy, in order to build anything productive and worthwhile.

This leads me to the second aspect which is apparent to me: the relatively tiny contribution that the government makes toward the endeavor of any enterprise. Maybe Obama should read I, Pencil. Because then he might realize that people who believe in the power of the free market already see that their efforts are small in relation to something. However it is not the government role in their success at which they stare in wonder, but the role of the invisible hand of the free market. In the case of my business, I would be nowhere in my business without Dell, HP, IBM, Apple, Palm, Adobe, Microsoft, Cisco, AT&T and numerous other companies and people who work for them. And this is not to mention countless other people who built everything from the chair on which I'm sitting and the floor boards on which the chair is rolling to the car I drive and the glasses I have to wear so I don't wreck the car.

This whole exchange is troubling because it feeds the envy of the masses of Obama's angry supporters by ridiculing society's producers and those who have taken initiative. Fortunately he's really only knocking down rhetorical straw men since I believe most sensible people see the normal temperament of the very successful differently, from the singer blowing kisses to the audience and the football player kneeling and pointing toward Heaven in the end-zone to the myriad of business owners incessantly thanking customers for their business . In fact, I'd wager that if we have any picture in our mind of the arrogant self-made human it is the smug politician epitomized by Barack Obama giving one of his tedious, overlong speeches. Hopefully those people will come out in droves and vote for Mitt Romney in November.