In this forum in the past I may have sublty implied a belief that Bin Laden is dead. Oh, like, say in this post headlined, “Bin Laden is Dead.”

A three-year span without any video pronouncements or any audio that was conclusively of recent vintage certainly suggested that he was either dead or incapacitated. But now we have this.

As James S. Robbins, senior fellow for national security affairs at the American Foriegn Policy Council points out in this piece, Bin Laden seems to be monitoring the Democratic debates and/or perhaps Bill Maher’s television program to harvest his talking points.

Others have speculated that if the beard is indeed fake, Bin Laden may be hiding out in a place where Muslim men do not typically have beards, such as Indonesia or Malaysia.

It is also noteworthy that according to the leaked transcript, Bin Laden once again affirms that he is responsible for the 9/11 attacks. This, of course, won’t have any impact whatsoever on the weak-minded conspiratorialists who are convinced that the brilliantly-evil, yet-stupid Bushhitlerburton was behind the attacks.

That’s right, after only eight months in office Bush was able to engineer a global conspiracy that arranged for planes to be hijacked and flown into buildings AND explosives placed in those buildings to assure they fell down AND to have another airliner shot down by military jets over Pennsylvania, all in the same hour AND make it all look like Al Qaeda terrorist did it—all in order to have an excuse to invade Iraq for some oil and some Halliburton contracts.

And yet, in the four years following this all-powerful criminal mastermind couldn’t arrange to have a few WMDs planted in Iraq to legitimize the whole operation. Right. Got it.

For a frightening microcosmic glimpse into the dark fever swamps of conspiratorial thinking, just check out the comment thread under this article over at ABCNews.com. Scroll down a bit to find the nuts and flakes.

Keep in mind, those comments are actually a model of of sanity and reason compared to what you will typically find in the comment threads over at The Daily Kos, The Huffington Post and the Democratic Underground.

Abandon your grip on reality on ye who enter there.

I’m not sure why I got to thinking about it, but there are a handful of books I’ve read over the years that had a significant impact on the way I think and the way I live. They sit on my home office bookshelf amid hundreds of others, but they, for various reasons, changed me.

The Bible, of course, sits in a class all by itself. I’m reluctant to even call it a “book.” It’s alive. And though I’ve read it all my life, it still speaks to me in fresh ways. But to be honest, I don’t read it. It reads me.

But I’m talking about traditional books that have had a powerful and lasting effect on me. Books that I quote, cite, refer to, and mention in conversation year after year. Books that I go back to every few years for a renewal of the relationship and a freshening of the revelation I found there.

Here are a few of them and what makes them special to me.

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Dafoe

This book is my first love, not so much for what it says but for what it represents. You see, I was always the youngest kid in my class. I started First Grade as a five-year-old when everyone else was already six (some were almost seven!) This caused me to start out with pretty low self-esteem. On the last day of my Second Grade year, Mrs. Garner called me up to her desk and  handed me a thick hardcover copy of Robinson Crusoe. She said it was a special award for being an outstanding reader. An award! And it was a grown up, chapter book, too. I treasured it. It represented the first time I could recall being told I was really good at something. And it began my lifelong love affair with books. (God bless you Mrs. Garner.)

Hind’s Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard

This is the book that made me want to be a writer. I first read it in college and was captivated by both its story and the prose with which it was told. “Oh, to write like that,” I wished and vowed at the time. Later in life, I read it aloud to each of our girls when they were little, especially when they got to the age where they began to battle fear. Timeless. Beautiful. Perfect in every way.

Idols for Descruction: The Conflict of Christian Faith and American Culture by Herbert Schlossberg

Ponderous. Weighty. Frequently danged hard to read. Yet this book, more than any other book I’ve read, has served to form my worldview and political philosophy. Herbert Schlossberg may have been the smartest, most well-read man you’ve never heard of. Now, you can go ahead and read the combined works of Plato, Aquinas, Locke, Hume, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Marx and the other influential minds of Western Civilization if you want. Or you can just read Schlossberg, who has done it for you. I recommend Schlossberg.

True Success: A New Philosphy of Excellence by Tom Morris

I grabbed this book back in the mid-nineties as I was preparing to do a talk on leadership and success for a group of business people. Then this book grabbed me. And it has never let go. In it Morris lays out an alternative paradigm for “success.” There are concepts and ideas in this book that have simply been integrated into who I am and how I make key decisions. Now that I think about it, I think I’m due to revisit it.

 The Four Pillars of a Man’s Heart by Stu Weber

King. Warrior. Mentor. Friend. Weber’s profound, moving and deeply masculine exploration of what God created a man to be, did for me what Helen Hunt’s character did for Jack Nicholson’s character in “As Good as it Gets.” It “made me want to be a better man.” And showed me what he looked like.  

Intra Muros (Within the Walls) by Rebecca Springer

Written in the late 19th Century by an extraordinarily gifted and sensitive writer, this book gives us a vivid look at Heaven. I don’t know if Heaven will really be like Springer’s vision, but I hope it is. What I do know, is that I come away from every reading with a heart bursting with gratitude for Jesus and love for God. And that’s pretty good fruit for any book.

That’s all for now. I’ll post part 2 at a later opportunity.

In the second season of “Leave it to Beaver” there is a scene in which Ward reads a note from The Beav’s principle. It is only on screen for a couple of seconds and it is only now, in the digital age of screen grabs, that it is possible to read what that letter says.

The enterprising folks over shorpy.com, the wonderful site for vintage photography, have transcribed the entire letter. After 50 years shrouded in mystery, we now know precisely what the letter says:

Mr. Ward Cleaver 
485 Mapleton Dr
Mayfield, State

My Dear Mr. Cleaver: 

This paragraph has absolutely nothing to do with anything.
It is here merely to fill up space. Still, it is words,
rather than repeated letters, since the latter might not
give the proper appearance, namely, that of an actual note.

For that matter, all of this is nonsense, and the only
part of this that is to be read is the last paragraph,
which part is the inspired creation of the producers of
this very fine series.

Another paragraph of stuff. Now is the time for all good
men to come to the aid of their party. The quick brown
fox jumped over the lazy dog. My typing is lousy, but the
typewriter isn’t so hot either. After all, why should I
take the blame for these mechanical imperfections, with
which all of us must contend. Lew Burdette just hit a
home run and Milwaukee leads seven to one in the series.
This is the last line of the filler material of the note.
No, my mistake, that was only the next to last. This is last.

I hope you can find a suitable explanation for Theodore’s
unusual conduct.

Yours truly,
Cornelia Rayburn

Read the whole analysis, including details about Lew Burdette’s homer for Milwaukee in the ’58 World Series, over at Shorpy.

James Lileks has been live-blogging from the Minnesota State Fair all this week. It’s worth a read. But then James recounting a day in bed with gout would probably be worth a read. (He has tens of thousands of us starting each day by reading what he did the day before.) He’s also been producing short videos he’s shot there. Fun stuff.

We lived in Minneapolis for  five years, so I know the Minnesota State Fair. It’s a good one. Clean. Well organized. Carnies not too frightening. The fair was a great reminder that, despite the pretension of the Twin Cities, Minnesota was very much a farm state still. It’s basically just a big Iowa with lakes and trees.

As a matter of fact, the fair will culminate with the selection of this year’s dairy queen who will receive the title “Princess Kay of the Milky Way” and be honored by having a bust of her likeness carved from a block of butter. Seriously.

The other state fairs with which I have intimate acquaintance are the Oklahoma and Texas affairs. In fact, I have a rule to only attend state fairs that are held within a few miles of I-35. Which means the Kansas S.F. in Hutchinson, Missouri S.F. in Sedalia, and Iowa S.F. are all on the table.

Texas and Oklahoma readers my wonder why Minnesota has its fair in late August. It is because by the time the Big Tex starts welcoming visitors to Fair Park, snow is likely to be blowing in Minnesota.

So much for the much-invoked “consensus” among scientists on man-made global warming.

A new study shows that fewer than half of all published scientists are on board with the assertion that man-made causes are the primary driver of warming.

Seems that it’s about like that overwhelming consensus that we need more Paris Hilton-related news.

Dean Barnett over at Hugh Hewitt’s blog seems to think so. I don’t.

Now I’m a Dean Barnett fan. I find him entertaining, erudite, and thoughtful. He’s one of a handful of guys I make sure I read everyday, no matter how busy I am. But in the blog post I linked to above, he’s going off on the Michael Vick thing and I think he gets a little carried away.

He makes a number of solid points, and then he writes:

I know America loves comebacks and second acts, but aren’t there some people who don’t deserve another crack?  Vick can’t make right what he has done wrong.  The dogs he murdered aren’t coming back. (emphasis mine)

Sorry. No sale on that last part. You can murder a person. But you can only kill a dog. Sure, if you do it wrongly, cruelly, or senselessly—it’s a despicable act. It’s also likely a criminal act. But murder is, by definition the wrongful killing of a human by a human being. (When a bear mauls a camper, the camper hasn’t been “murdered.” )

Maybe it was just hyperbole. Maybe it was just the loose, dashed-off-edness of the blogging medium. But words matter a great deal, which is why I’m in hair-splitting mode on this one.

The entire wrong-headed “animal rights” movement is built upon this kind of distortion of language and abuse of meaning. It’s embedded in the very name of the movement, in that animals have no transcendent “rights” in the sense that humans do. But this liberal use of the word murder to descibe the killing of animals is standard operating procedure among these folks.

Now I don’t have an opinion on whether or not Michael Vick should be considered to have forfeited all opportunity to ever return the NFL (or polite society for that matter.)

Frankly, I’m not interested enough in the controversy to even attempt to parse where dog fighting/betting/killing ranks on the heinous-ometer relative to sexual assault, drunk driving, drug peddling, wife beating and the host of other crimes professional athletes are accused and convicted of with mind-numbing regularity.

But when a dependably clear-headed conservative—one who uses words for a living—chooses one so poorly, it gets my attention.

Regarding my previous post about C.A.I.R. ….

I just came across a great quote by G.K. Chesterton that pretty much sums up the reasons Christians should be taking a dim view of Islamic demands for “tolerance.”

“It is rather ridiculous to ask a man just about to be boiled in a pot and eaten, at a purely religious feast, why be does not regard all, religions as equally friendly and fraternal.”

The quote comes from this essay.

For some time now, prescient cultural observers have been warning that militant Islam will take our nation’s obsessiveness about multi-culturalism and “tolerance” and use it as a club for beating Christians.

It’s already well underway in the UK and Europe where people tend to be even more terrified than liberal American elites of being labeled “insensitive” to other cultures. A priest in the Netherlands the other day suggested that Christians start referring to God as “Allah” out of sensitivity to their Muslim neighbors. (Sadly, I’m not making that up.)

Muslim pressure groups in Canada have already become quite skilled at using that country’s broad “hate crimes” laws to cow or silence Christian groups that voice biblical cultural values. Now this brand of intimidation has claimed one of its first Christian victims in the U.S..

A Christian television ministry program has been dropped from a CBS affiliate in Tampa because of complaints from CAIR, The Council for American-Islamic Relations.

The “Live Prayer with Bill Keller” program ran afoul of the pressure group by labeling Islam a “false religion” and suggesting that Islam is about “hate and death.” These are characterizations that may indeed hurt Muslims feelings, but, as Christians well know, there are no constitutional guarantees in this country against having your feelings hurt. At least there didn’t use to be. In fact, Christianity is mocked, derided, criticized and slandered publicly all the time. We Christians are used to it.

Nevertheless, as they’ve done with great success in the UK and Canada, CAIR is using the spectre of potential “hate crimes” to justify its concern:

“It is our belief that anti-Islamic rhetoric like that used in ‘Live Prayer with Bill Keller’ is exactly the type of language that is likely to incite hate crimes against the American Muslim community,” the letter said.

World Net Daily has the whole story.

Now, Rev. Keller has stated that he won’t back off of declaring biblical truth on the air, and I believe he means it. But you have to wonder, human nature being what it is. . . The next time the topic of the claims and nature of Islam comes up on his program, it will surely cross Rev. Keller’s mind that last time he was kicked off of a network affiliate for speaking his mind. Might he possibly be tempted to temper his words a little? To soften his rhetoric? To get a little more subtle and euphemistic?

I know I would. And what about all the other Christian broadcasters who are know aware of Keller’s experience? Will they tread a little more cautiously? Choose another topic, maybe?

Of course, this is precisely the effect C.A.I.R. is hoping for.

We’re frogs in a kettle of water. The heat just went up a little. But I’m sure we’ll get used to it.

Drudge is teasing a story about a scientist claiming there is strong evidence for microbial life on Mars.

If true, it will surely spark some debate about the theological implications in both the scientific and spiritual communities. But should it?

I’ve been fascinated since childhood with space exploration and always enjoy those Discovery Channel programs about the latest discoveries about the conditions on Europa or Io or other moons of Saturn and Jupiter.

Invariably, there is a mention of the possibility of the presence of “water ice” or even liquid water on these moons immediately followed by a breathless suggestion that this greatly enhances the possibility of finding life there. I’m always amused and intrigued by this earnest expectation among those in the scientific community.

It’s almost as if they believe: “Find liquid water and you’re almost sure to find life!”  It seems to me that these scientists are presupposing there’s a very strong bias for life built into the universe.

I’m always surprised by this expectation because, according to the best scientific thinking, life arose on Earth due to an almost unthinkably unlikely confluence of circumstances. Earth cooled at exactly the right distance from exactly the right-sized star with precisely the right amount of iron to form a molten core which produced just the right magnetic field to produce just the right protective shield from solar radiation. It was then bombarded with just the right asteroids and comets at the right times to deliver just the right elements and water, etc, etc.

Of course, for the Christian, all these “coincidences” pose no mystery. But for the materialist/atheist scientist, you would think it would temper their expectations of finding life elsewhere just because a little water is lying around.

So back to Mars. What does it mean for a Christian’s faith if it is proven that microbes do (or once did) exist on Mars?

Nothing, as far as I can tell. For one thing, it is possible that past meteor strikes on Earth blasted huge amounts of material into space and into the orbital path of Mars. Furthermore, there is nothing in the Bible to suggest that life cannot/must not exist elsewhere.

And if life did arise on Mars or elsewhere it does suggest compellingly that there is a bias for life built into the cosmos, and therefore shouts this question: “Who built in that bias?”

Did you know that the “Kristallnacht” night of terror in Nazi Germany was triggered, in large part, because Hitler’s socialist government was broke and about to default on some big debt payments? I didn’t either.

This is just one of a multitude of fascinating insights you’ll find in a new book by Gotzy Aly titled, “Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State.”

If this era of history interests you, check out David Frum’s oustanding review of this book here.