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An alternative take on conspiracy theory found on NRO:

“…conspiracy theorists, for example, tend to assume there are conspiracies everywhere precisely because if they were in power they would be hatching conspiracies themselves.”

YES YES YES! This thought haunts me every time I hear the Dems make Bushitler accusations. What does it say about them? (Didn’t Hillarycare remind you of the Italian run-on-time train system?)

This is component of human nature is observed by the Patriarch: “[the guilty] flee when none pursue” and the Bard: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

I don’t harbor a preference for conspiracy theory because I’m plotting to corner the world’s platinum supply, but because a) the official stories have massive holes in them, and, b) even a cursory examination of history reveals hundreds of past conspiracies.

I heard back from Daniel Pipes:

>>While I very much respect your work, please don’t

>>make the mistake of depending on anything

>>Michelle Malkin has written.

I did a little more research and found her reply to your critique at http://michellemalkin.com/archives/000489.htm

That, of course, is her post of September 6th. So, I sent Mr. Pipes the following excerpt from my September 27th column:

Now mistakes – even howlers – are made by every columnist from time to time. But when egregious mistakes are compounded by evasive half-truths, it raises real questions about whether they were honest mistakes at all. On WBAL radio last Tuesday, Ron Smith asked Michelle Malkin how she would be responding to my challenge to debate the question of military necessity. She backed down, saying:

“I won’t be doing that. I have already addressed those questions on my blog.”

However, the only posts at michellemalkin.com related to the question of military necessity were made on Aug. 6 and Sept. 6. I did not join the growing number of Mrs. Malkin’s critics until Aug. 18, and I did not even send her my list of 10 specific questions until Sept. 8. The truth is that she has never successfully addressed a single point that I have made with regard to her many factual inaccuracies and erroneous assertions, on her blog or anywhere else.

Daniel Pipes is a courageous writer. Considering that he bothered to look into it, I have no doubt that he’ll soon reach the same conclusion that so many others have, that Malkin is a clueless purveyor of equine ejectus.

DL isn’t quite sure what to think:

The gist of that paragraph is that Jews totally out of proportion of their numbers are in the front in of the Secularists in taking Christ out of Christmas and, alas you write the truth but not the whole truth. What you chose to omit is the fact the Conservative Jews both neo as well as paleo (amongst the latter I number myself) made a determined effort to keep Christ in Christmas, as a cursory glance of Town Hall during the month of December will testify thereto; and I do fault you for that….

Now back to Jewish Fascists or rather the term ‘Fascist.’ Are you using this term as a descriptive or as a pejorative? If descriptive, how to describe it? One way is to go back all the way to the source, to the late Benito Mussolini who, after all, coined that word: ‘All to the State, everything inside the State, nothing outside the State.’ Obviously not applicable in this particular instance.

If using it as a pejorative, well . . .

I’m aware of people such as Dennis Prager, Charles Krauthammer, Mona Charon, Michael Medved and Jeff Jacoby defending the right of Christians to publicly celebrate Christmas. But these very Jews have criticized the very same secular Jews to whom I was specifically referring. These more-or-less conservative Jews are clearly not anti-religious secular Jews, (although I’m not actually sure about Krauthammer).

You’ll note that I did not say “Jews” or even fascist Jewish secularists. “Secular Jewish” served as an adjective to describe the non-religious fascists (small-f descriptive) at the ADL and the ACLU. I

speak Italian, I have lived in Italia and I have even personally translated Mussolini’s Manifesto of the Fascist struggle. So, I do not speak lightly when I call these individuals fascists – as opposed to Fascists – as it is the ideological term that best suits their corporate-friendly ur-socialism. There is more to the historical Fascist program than the slogan Niente fuori lo stato…. and much of it, especially its virulently antireligious fervor, is echoed by the ADL and the ACLU.

One hit, one palpable hit of yours was: Meanwhile, in gloriously secular Europe, Jews walk the streets in visible fear and are physically attacked on a regular basis in France, Germany and Belgium.

I was at a large train station in Europe and it really struck me how fearful the eyes of an Orthodox Jewish couple were, as they glanced continuously around them. I’ve never seen that in America.

One grievance I do have with columnists across the political spectrum is their contribution to the debasement of our language, or, as a conservative columnist, whom charity forbids me to name, excused himself by saying that he merely follows current usage.

I agree, though I make the occasional slip myself. It’s why you’ll usually see me referring to left-liberals. And I have written several columns on how the Fascists and Nazis were both left-wing ideologies.

AC Milan captain Maldini and Juventus and Azzurri defender Zambrotta spent their Christmas break in the Maldives but have rushed back home to Italy. Inter Milan’s Marco Materazzi, Livorno’s Cristiano Lucarelli and AC Milan striker Filippo Inzaghi are also reported to have been holidaying in the country and are arranging their flights home.

All players, and their families, are safe and accounted for although Lucarelli’s brother Alessandro, who also plays for Livorno, told www.gazzetta.it that Cristiano had to grab his children and run for cover when he saw a tidal wave approaching.

I’m not saying that Juve was responsible for the tsunami, but anyone who has followed Serie A over the years will understand that it does look more than a little suspicious… I wouldn’t put it past them to whack Zambrotta if doing so could ensure them taking Paolo and Pippo out of the hunt for this year’s Scudetto.

Seriously, though, this terrible tragedy is a reminder that for all our power and technological achievements, Man is not supreme. We style ourselves gods and assert our ability to dictate spiritual and moral laws, and yet find ourselves humbled before a single shake in the earth’s crust. Strange, that we should find it so hard to humble ourselves before our Creator, even those of us who believe in Him.

TMQ ponders physics:

If Anyone Reading This Column Finds 85 Percent of the Universe, Please Return It

As Tuesday Morning Quarterback has pointed out before, physicists claim to be able to explain the Big Bang Theory, the very beginning of existence itself, but cannot locate most of the universe. Evidence suggests that about 85 percent of the universe is “dark matter” and “dark energy” that defy detection. The galaxies move as if being acted upon by far more gravity and other forces than could be produced by the matter and energy in all stars and planets, suggesting there must be another category of substantiality, called dark because it’s hard to locate. Though “dark matter” and “dark energy” appear to permeate the firmament, no test has ever detected the stuff.

The latest on this front is this report from the annual meeting of the American Physical Society, the professional group of physicists, at which researchers disclosed that the newest, most advanced search for “dark matter” has drawn a blank. The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search, super-sensitive detectors buried deep in an iron mine in Soudan, Minn., ran for two months and failed to detect so much as one particle of dark matter, though trillions of such particles should be flowing through any area the size of a toaster. So we can’t find 85 percent of the universe — but trust us, we’re experts!

And scientists wonder how anyone can possibly be skeptical….

A Pentagon spokesman insisted that Rumsfeld simply misspoke, but Internet conspiracy theorists seized on the reference to the plane having been shot down.

“Was it a slip of the tongue? Was it an error? Or was it the truth, finally being dropped on the public more than three years after the tragedy” asked a posting on the Web site WorldNetDaily.com.

Some people remain skeptical of U.S. government statements that, despite a presidential authorization, no planes were shot down September 11, and rumors still circulate that a U.S. military plane shot the airliner down over Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

A Pentagon spokesman insists Rumsfeld has not changed his opinion that the plane crashed as the result of an onboard struggle between passengers and terrorists.

Well, if a nameless Pentagon spokesman tells us that he knows what Donald Rumsfeld is really thinking, I see no reason to doubt the official story…. Seriously, considering that George Stephanopolous, John Kerry and Donald Rumsfeld have all made public statements blatantly at odds with the official version of US aviation history over the past nine years, I don’t see why everyone isn’t skeptical.

I don’t pretend to know what the truth is regarding Waco, Oklahoma City, TWA 800 and 9/11. But I am sure of one thing. The government is lying. Why? Because it ALWAYS does, as even the best and most honest government officials believe they have a responsibility to avoid panicking the public.

Despite a second straight late-season slide, the Vikings picked up Tice’s $1 million option for 2005, ending much speculation about the coach’s future…. The Vikings raced to a 6-0 start in 2003, Tice’s second full season, but finished 9-7 and missed the playoffs. They are headed in a similar direction this year, having lost six of their past nine games, but at 8-7 still have a good shot at a wild-card berth.

“Although our expectation of winning the division was not met, we feel that the program Mike Tice has guided gives us the talent base to have success today and in the future,” owner Red McCombs said in a statement. “Our expectations are high for the upcoming playoffs and for next year.”

At the beginning of the year, the Sports Guy mentioned that Mike Tice was threatening to join his bad coaches list, a list that includes Tony Dungy (Colts) and Mike Sherman (Packers) as coaches you should always bet against, all else being equal. He bases this on the idea that these coaches are bad game-time coaches who are regularly overmatched in the chess aspect of NFL football.

Unfortunately, Tice has earned membership on that list several times over in the last four weeks alone. I’ve already complained about his foolish decision to throw the ball instead of using one of the league’s top rushing attacks to cram it down the throat of two teams, Chicago and Seattle, that can’t stop the run. Two unnecessary losses right there.

Then, in the Green Bay game with the score tied, he punts the ball from the Packer 45 on 4th-and-5 with 1:35 left on the clock. Now, this is the conventional thing to do, however, when you’ve got a terrible defense that has reliably failed to stop Brett Favre, the smart thing to do is bet on your offense to get the first down, because even if you fail, it’s better to give them the opportunity to score faster since you’ll have one offensive shot left yourself.

But the conventional is the best one can expect from Tice; hoping for him to do the smart thing appears to be well beyond him. Tice is a good man, but I don’t think McCombs is doing Vikings fans any favor by keeping him around for another season.

A Texas father is auctioning off the video game systems he had bought his sons for Christmas, saying they do not deserve the expensive presents. The 41-year-old man from Pasadena said he had bought three Nintendo DS systems – one for each son. But fed up with their misbehaviour, he has posted the items on the eBay auction website.

“No kidding,” the eBay posting says. “Three undeserving boys have crossed the line.” The man told the Houston Chronicle newspaper that he and his wife were at their wits’ end. The boys – aged nine, 11, and 15 – would not stop fighting, swearing and making obscene gestures, he said. He defended the decision to auction off the three systems, together with three games, by saying: “Teaching accountability is NEVER EVER EVER wrong.”

Good for him. Sure, it seems a little extreme at first glance, but if you let things go for too long as this couple apparently had, you find that you have no choice but to resort to extreme measures. If nothing else, the sheer embarrassment of the resulting publicity should teach those three boys a lesson.

Of course, Child Protective Services will probably take them away from the parents, as the combination of a) celebrating Christmas, b) forcing children to experience consequences, and c) not providing material goods on demand likely constitutes child abuse as defined by the agency.

Evangelical Outpost has an excellent post on the Scopes evolution trial. As is often the case, the scientists with their pretensions to infallible authority look stupid, arrogant and more than a little evil in retrospect:

Teaching evolution…and eugenics — The biology book that was used by Scopes was George William Hunter’s Civic Biology….

The Races of Man. — At the present time there exist upon the earth five races or varieties of man, each very different from the other in instincts, social customs, and, to an extent, in structure. These are the Ethiopian or negro type, originating in Africa; the Malay or brown race, from the islands of the Pacific; The American Indian; the Mongolian or yellow race, including the natives of China, Japan, and the Eskimos; and finally, the highest type of all, the caucasians, represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America.

Improvement of Man. — If the stock of domesticated animals can be improved, it is not unfair to ask if the health and vigor of the future generations of men and women on the earth might not be improved by applying to them the laws of selection. This improvement of the future race has a number of factors in which we as individuals may play a part. These are personal hygiene, selection of healthy mates, and the betterment of the environment.

Eugenics. — When people marry there are certain things that the individual as well as the race should demand. The most important of these is freedom from germ diseases which might be handed down to the offspring. Tuberculosis, syphilis, that dread disease which cripples and kills hundreds of thousands of innocent children, epilepsy, and feeble-mindedness are handicaps which it is not only unfair but criminal to hand down to posterity. The science of being well born is called eugenics.

The Jukes. — Studies have been made on a number of different families in this country, in which mental and moral defects were present in one or both of the original parents. The “Jukes” family is a notorious example. The first mother is known as “Margaret, the mother of criminals.” In seventy-five years the progeny of the original generation has cost the state of New York over a million and a quarter dollars, besides giving over to the care of prisons and asylums considerably over a hundred feeble-minded, alcoholic, immoral, or criminal persons. Another case recently studied is the “Kallikak” family. (Note: The name Kallikak is fictitious.) This family has been traced back to the War of the Revolution, when a young soldier named Martin Kallikak seduced a feeble-minded girl. She had a feeble-minded son from whom there have been to the present time 480 descendants. Of these 33 were sexually immoral, 24 confirmed drunkards, 3 epileptics, and 143 feeble-minded. The man who started this terrible line of immorality and feeble-mindedness later married a normal Quaker girl. From this couple a line of 496 descendants have come, with no cases of feeble-mindedness. The evidence and the moral speak for themselves!

Parasitism and its Cost to Society. — Hundreds of families such as those described above exist today, spreading disease, immorality, and crime to all parts of this country. The cost to society of such families is very severe. Just as certain animals or plants become parasitic on other plants or animals, these families have become parasitic on society. They not only do harm to others by corrupting, stealing, or spreading disease, but they are actually protected and cared for by the state out of public money. Largely for them the poorhouse and the asylum exist. They take from society, but they give nothing in return. They are true parasites.

The Remedy. — If such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading. Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy of separating the sexes in asylums or other places and in various ways preventing intermarriage and the possibilities of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race. Remedies of this sort have been tried successfully in Europe and are now meeting with some success in this country.

In an amusing note with regards to the media’s objectivity, Joe also notes that the reporter for the Baltimore Sun who was covering the trial, HL Mencken, paid the fine meted out to the teacher found guilty.

Sports Illustrated’s Peter King’s predictions for NFL 2004

MVP: Jake Plummer.

Coach of the Year: Mike Holmgren.

Rookies of the Year: Kevin Jones (Offense, Detroit), Darnell Dockett (Defense, Arizona.).

Super Bowl XXXIX: Broncos 30, Seahawks 13.

Or not so much….