Absolutely Brilliant! The Election is Over

Barak Obama just lost the election. Read about this amazing woman here and here.

Here is a list of some important blog posts about Governor Palin. Here's an article by Fred Barnes about Gov Palin's reform work in Alaska.

UPDATE:

Read this article. I laughed my head off!

Here's an excerpt:

It's as though Karl Rove sat down with pen and paper and sketched out the perfect conservative nominee....
A hunter with a lifetime membership in the NRA.
Regularly attends church.
Fought corruption even within her own party.
Knew her son would have Down Syndrome and still chose life.
Has a son who is headed to Iraq, but still supports the war.
Has more executive experience than Obama and Biden combined.
Sold the governor's state plane because it's a waste of tax dollars.
Her husband is a union laborer.
Wants to drill in ANWR.
Oh yeah, she's a woman!

For a collection of more discussion of the McCain/Palin ticket, follow Hugh Hewitt's links here.

UPDATE:

Here's the link to a story in the British TimesOnline. Pretty fair, though there were a few potshots. I really loved the comments. They are about 5-1 in favor of Palin. I think McCain succeeded in energizing not only his ticket, and the convention, but the whole Republican party!

More praise - it keeps pouring in. Here (Fred Barnes), here (Bill Kristol), and look at all the blog postings at BeldarBlog! And here's a often humorous comparison between Palin and Obama.

Still Trouble in Georgia

In my opinion, this is a flag we should all become familiar with. It is the Georgian flag. Recent reports are that the Russian army has pulled out significantly but not to pre-invasion marks. They also have not left the port of Poti, the main deep water, commercial port along Georgia's west coast.

What is Russia gaining here? It seems Moscow is intent on flexing its muscle in its previous, Soviet-era, sphere of influence. With most of the West busy with other issues, like Iraq and Iran, and with most of Europe dependent on Russian oil, Moscow thinks the time is right for a re-assertion of influence. The West has no desire to go to war with Russia, so what have they got to lose?

This picture, of a Russian soldier on the road between Tbilisi and Gori, pretty well sums it up.

Very Interesting Article

I found an excellent article about Rick Warren in the Wall Street Journal (thanks to Justin Taylor at "Between Two Worlds"). The gist of the article is that the huge "lurch to the political left" that evangelicals are supposedly doing is a farce. The MSM have interpreted an interest among evangelicals in environmental issues, poverty, and disease as an embracing of a leftist agenda. This interpretation, though, only reveals the bias of the interpreters. Why assume that government is the only solution? Rick Warren makes clear that a person can both be passionate about such "liberal" issues AND be someone who strongly believes in limited government. Why is this so hard to understand?

Here's a key quote:

Over the years, [Warren] has repeated the idea that he became a pastor instead of a politician because he does not have a lot of confidence in the ability of government to get things done. In addition to social issues and foreign policy, this is where evangelicals often part ways with more secular types.
The media assume that when religious people express interest in the problems of poverty and disease, they must have taken a left turn politically. But one can be interested in solving such problems without believing that government is the solution. "Our government has spent trillions of dollars in Africa," says Mr. Warren, "and the standard of living is worse now than it was 50 years ago." He knows whereof he speaks, having launched a massive effort to help the country of Rwanda rebuild itself. "There is only one way to get people out of poverty and it's not charity. It's jobs."

Read the whole article here.

The Most Heroic Moments in British History

Here's the results from a TimesOnline survey:

Battle of Britain - 55%


Declaration of War on Nazi Germany in 1939 - 20.8%


Defeat of the Spanish Armada - 8.9%


Slave Trade Act - 5.9%


Napoleonic Wars - 5.4%


Oliver Cromwell - 3.3%


King Alfred's Danish Wars (huh?) - 2.8%



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Charles Williams Quote

On my way to Sri Lanka, I read a book by one of the "inklings," Charles Williams, called The Place of the Lion. It didn't do much for me - I probably didn't understand most of it - but I did find an interesting quote, on the first page no less. I should've have stopped reading then.

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Mightn't it be a good thing if everyone had to draw a map of his own mind - say, once every five years? With the chief towns marked, and the arterial roads he was constructing from one idea to another, and all the lovely and abandoned by-lanes that he never went down, because the farms they led to were all empty?