The Bosque Boys

Gateway Pundit has the round-up on the continuing threats and now actual violence against Clinton supporters from Obamaniacs.

Here.

Does anyone else find this scary? The adulation Obama receives, coupled with the threats and violence, make his movement seem like Third-World politics.

Anyone out there have a clue what Thin Lizzy mean by their song Holy War?

Lyrics:

A sample:
If you will adore me
Bow before me and praise my name
If you place no god before me
Then all I have is yours to claim
And if God is in the heavens
Why did God let children die
If you don't ask these questions
There is no reasons why
We are chosen
We are one
We are frightened of no one
And no one will win this war
This is the way
This is the law

Holy War performed in concert, 1983. Hat tip Infidel Bloggers Alliance.

This afternoon I had a conversation with a former chairman of the Comanche Nation. He mentioned that he had met John McCain once. My friend was returning from a meeting in Washington, D.C., after the 9/11 security procedures were in place. After he cleared security and was putting his shoes back on, things into his pockets, etc., he noticed that the man next to him putting on shoes was John McCain. My friend spoke to him and shook his hand. While he remains a staunch Democrat, this encounter impressed him; McCain asked for no special treatment but stood in line with everyone else.

Character is revealed day-by-day in small actions. Take a lesson Cynthia McKinney.

Throughout the war in Iraq the best reporting on the ground has come through the blogosphere from military personel or independent bloggers who traveled to Iraq. Here is a report from Armed and Curious that tells a powerful story. Link from Instapundit.

I know that a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking has criticized the U.S. military for disbanding the Iraqi Army almost immediately, and building another from scratch: a time consuming process that may indeed have left a power vacuum. But, there is all the difference in the world between an army that has been the support for a tryant and an army committed to democracy and human rights. In the long run, I think we did the right thing in building a new Iraqi Army.

Some evangelicals are becoming increasingly wary of the religious teachings promoted by Oprah Winfrey. Story here from USA TODAY.

Religion writer Marcia Nelson, author of The Gospel According to Oprah, said criticism of Winfrey by conservative Christians dates to 1998 when she included a spiritual emphasis on her TV show.

"Back then she got pretty much lambasted the way she is being lambasted now, for telling us what to believe and telling us the wrong thing to believe in, according to conservative Christians," said Nelson.

But Nelson, who studied a year of Winfrey's shows, differs with those who call Winfrey's spiritual ideas "New Age." She says Winfrey would be more related to the "New Thought" movement, which is more mainstream, focusing on positive thinking as a spiritual tool rather than crystals, for example.

"I absolutely regard her as a Christian but ... she's one of those capacious Christians," Nelson said.

I myself don't have an opinion because I have almost no idea what happens on Oprah or in O Magazine.

Staying with us now is a work group from a Reformed church in Slate Hill, New York. Tonight I am to do a devotional with them. I am planning to ask them this series of questions, following a reading of Matthew 28:18-20, stressing the part about making disciples of all nations.

Matthew 28:18-20

1.You are a missionary to a culture that practices polygamy. A man wants to convert to Christianity. He has 4 wives. Do you baptize him as is? Do you have him choose only one wife before baptism? A single male Christian within this culture takes a wife. Then, he wants to take a second wife to add with the first. Do you perform the wedding? If he does take the second wife, do you think church discipline is necessary?

2.Within a culture that venerates ancestors, each family keeps a shrine within its house dedicated to the ancestors of the family. A small plate of food and a small cup of liquor are placed before the shrine each day, in a short ceremony involving prayers to the ancestors. What do you do, as a missionary pastor, in regard to this practice?

3.You are a missionary pastor to a culture that is oral, without a written language. Stories are retold within families. In each village there is a storyteller whose task is to remember the history of the village and of the tribe, and to tell the history on special days. In the middle of the village is a large thatched roof shelter. When anyone comes to the village, they are expected to go to this shelter where everyone will gather to hear the news from wherever the person who arrived is from. Do you attempt to create a written language for the tribe, so that a written Bible translation can be made, or do you create a Bible translation that is purely oral, that is, unwritten.

What resources guide you in your answers? What is your thought process?

4.You are a missionary pastor to a culture in which legal divorce is easily obtained and common. A divorced woman wants to convert. Do you baptize her? A Christian man in the church divorces his wife, saying they just drifted apart. Is church discipline necessary? The man wants to take another wife; will you marry the two of them?

5.You are a missionary pastor in a culture which values sports highly. Youth soccer games are routinely scheduled morning, noon, and night on Sunday. What do you teach your congregation to do?

6.You are a missionary pastor to a culture that spends vast sums of money on weddings. Easily the sum of money that could be used as a down payment on a house. The latest trend is to do “destination weddings” in which the ceremony is to take place in an exotic location like the Bahamas. Do you participate? What do you teach your congregation?

This essay argues that an Obama presidency will not resemble Carter's--who was weak and president during a time of economic malaise--nor Clinton's--who lacked Congressional support for left-of-center policies--but rather will be like LBJ, promoting significant change in the direction of Big Government as the attempted solution to all perceived social problems. Worth checking out. Link from Instapundit.

In fairness to LBJ, I think the big Texan loved his country and had a genuine connection to and affection for common Americans. And some of his actions were good and overdue, like signing the Civil Rights Act.

Obama is seeming more and more like an elitist without a deep affection for this country as it is and has been.

Brits at their Best excerpts and links to this essay by David Pryce-Jones on the arrogent, undemocratic, liberty-destroying, actions of the European political class in pushing ahead with the EU even after the people have spoken against it. Evidently the voice of the hoi poloi means nothing to the MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE in their home in Brussels.

And to think that some American politicians (read DEMOCRATS) want us to become more like Europe.

Recent comments by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and therefore leader of world-wide Anglicanism, show a tremendous lack of critical intellect. Story from The Mail online.

Dr Rowan Williams also criticised Christianity's history for its violence, its use of harsh punishments and its betrayal of its peaceful principles.
His comments came in a highly conciliatory letter to Islamic leaders calling for an alliance between the two faiths for 'the common good'.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has admitted that Christian doctrine is offensive to muslims
But it risked fresh controversy for the Archbishop in the wake of his pronouncement earlier this year that a place should be found for Islamic sharia law in the British legal system.

(Sigh), where to begin? He seems to assume that Christianity is pacifist, a point that is at least debatable. And, Anglicanism has never been pacifist. And finding a place for Sharia in the British legal system? How can one have a nation if more than one system of Basic Law is in place? Sharia? a blueprint for the oppression of women, punishment of "apostates," discrimination against non-Muslims, etc.

The Archbishop's letter is a reply to feelers to Christians put out by Islamic leaders from 43 countries last autumn.
In it, Dr Williams said violence is incompatible with the beliefs of either faith and that, once that principle is accepted, both can work together against poverty and prejudice and to help the environment.

What? Islam spread by force of violent conquest. The Q'uran advocates violence against unbelievers. Muhammad, the exemplar of how to live, engaged in acts of violence in consolidating his power. Islam and violence are extremely compatible. What a ninny.

He also said the Christian belief in the Trinity - that God is Father, Son and Holy Ghost at the same time - 'is difficult, sometimes offensive, to Muslims'.
Trinitarian doctrine conflicts with the Islamic view that there is just one all-powerful God.
Dr Williams added: 'It is all the more important for the sake of open and careful dialogue that we try to clarify what we do and do not mean by it, and so I trust that what follows will be read in this spirit.'

What does he mean "sometimes offensive, to Muslims?" The Doctrine of the Trinity is inherently offensive to Muslims who believe Allah to exist in splendid unitary isolation. And why do I think that Williams call "to clarify what we do and do not mean by it" will involve backpedaling on this most fundamental Christian doctrine.

He told Muslim leaders that faith has no connection with political power or force, and that Christians have in the past betrayed this idea.

What? Only if Christianity is to have absolutely no relationship, directly or indirectly with government, which as St. Paul said, has been given the sword by God. I was not aware that Anglicanism had secretly been Anabaptist all along.

'Religious identity has often been confused with cultural or national integrity, with structures of social control, with class and regional identities, with empire: and it has been imposed in the interest of all these and other forms of power,' he said.

Such as when the Royal Navy in the nineteenth century unilaterally ended the slave trade across the Atlantic, a projection of power rooted in evangelical Christian conviction.

As Bugs Bunny says, What a Maroon!

Is it funny?

Not so much. It took my breath away, but it did not make me laugh. Although, in the interest of full disclosure, the droll brilliance of the celebrated New Yorker cartoons is often wasted on my simple palate.

Should the Obama-nation be this angry?

Obama is not my guy--but, if he were, I would be crying foul, overflowing with contempt for the mainstream media. What I might say if the New Yorker did this to John McCain: "Would they do something like this to Barack Obama? Hell No!"

Of course, if the tables were turned, the other side surely would be saying: "lighten up, fellows. It is merely a cartoon. You Republicans need to have thicker skins."

Having said that, this seems mean-spirited and ugly.

What was the point?

Inoculation. This clunker of a cover was an obvious attempt by the New Yorker, an Obama-friendly den of sophisticates, to make opponents of their candidate seem ridiculous. As I have declared before on numerous occasions, the claim that Obama is actually a closet Muslim and, therefore, potentially an Islamist Manchurian Candidate is one of the most patently asinine accusations in all of American political history. No one with any sense gives this story any credence. Almost everybody (90 percent of Americans, according to recent polls) understand perfectly well that Barack Obama is an evangelical Christian (possibly from Kansas). Upon the foundation of that egregiously spurious claim, the cartoon connects a series of images that convey other less outlandish worries.

The Message: any concern you might have about Barack Obama is backward, ignorant, and possibly racist.

What went Wrong?

1. It wasn't funny. It was too New Yorkerish. There are too many people like me who aren't snarky and hip enough to appreciate this genre.

2. The satire was a bit too close to reality. Even the intended beneficiaries realized that the caricatures struck too close to home. In the midst of the satirical sketch, there is the "fist bump," which is actually a true staple of the Obama public personae.

The real problem: apart from the Muslim garb, the other gags are not so outrageous. There is a legitimate worry in Middle America that Michelle really is a limousine radical. Some Reagan Democrats really do fret that Barack may be a bit too naive when it comes to confronting terrorists. Floyd R. Turbo wonders why the Senator seems so uncomfortable with Old Glory as a unifying national symbol.

Although this was indisputably friendly fire, in the end, the New Yorker outsmarted itself and inflicted a non-lethal wound on Barack Obama.