How sweet is this?

Very.

From the UK Times' mouth to God's ears: Chairman Kim's Dissolving Kingdom

Ask yourself: Would you vote, even as you faced terrorists' threats to behead your children?

These folks did.

Yep, it's a great day.

What You Won't Hear in School

Paul Graham, in his essay advising high school students, has a fresh take on the importance of self discipline:

One of the most dangerous illusions you get from school is the idea that doing great things requires a lot of discipline. Most subjects are taught in such a boring way that it's only by discipline that you can flog yourself through them. So I was surprised when, early in college, I read a quote by Wittgenstein saying that he had no self-discipline and had never been able to deny himself anything, not even a cup of coffee.

Now I know a number of people who do great work, and it's the same with all of them. They have little discipline. They're all terrible procrastinators and find it almost impossible to make themselves do anything they're not interested in. One still hasn't sent out his half of the thank-you notes from his wedding, four years ago. Another has 26,000 emails in her inbox.

I'm not saying you can get away with zero self-discipline. You probably need about the amount you need to go running. I'm often reluctant to go running, but once I do, I enjoy it. And if I don't run for several days, I feel ill. It's the same with people who do great things. They know they'll feel bad if they don't work, and they have enough discipline to get themselves to their desks to start working. But once they get started, interest takes over, and discipline is no longer necessary.

The essay in its entirety is about 4000 words, and well worth your time, even if high school is only a distant memory.

Thoughtcrime at Harvard

Dennis Prager analyzes the reaction to Harvard President Lawrence Summers' accidentally letting the truth slip out concerning sex differences:

Over 100 Harvard professors signed a petition against President Summers, leftist alumni threatened to give no more money to Harvard, and the vast majority of Harvard's professors kept a cowardly silence while their colleagues sought to suppress completely respectable intellectual inquiry. Consequently, President Summers felt forced to apologize.

In the year 2005, nearly four centuries after Galileo was forced to recant observable scientific facts about our solar system, the president of Harvard University was forced to do a similar thing. He was compelled to apologize for advancing an idea about men and women supported by scientific research and likely to be true.

. . .

What is most amazing about the Harvard story is that by and large neither the Harvard community nor any other university seems to be embarrassed by it. And one can only weep for America over the president of its most prestigious university fully caving in and apologizing for saying what he knows to be true.

Support Social Security Reform

An alert from the National Taxpayers Union:

Shortly after his re-election, George W. Bush began to use the "bully pulpit" of the Presidency to push Congress toward implementing several reforms that are essential to the continuation of the Social Security program. Simply put, Social Security reform is necessary in order to secure the retirements of millions of Americans and head off the system's inevitable slide into insolvency. Wisely, President Bush has chosen to make two of the guiding principles of reform the creation of individual savings accounts and doing so without raising taxes. Speak out today! Don't let Congress turn a blind eye to this problem. Let them know that you support reforming Social Security.

To take action on this and other alerts, sign up with the NTU Taxpayer Action center at NTU.org.

Robert Spencer has proposals for Taking Jihad Seriously.

The Wall Street Journal editorial page heralds the long-overdue end of the judicial filibuster.

A Must-Read

More on the HEROES Act at 2Slick's Forum.

From the don't-think-it-can't-happen-here file: "Homeschooling Illegal" Declares German School Official

Dignan comments on how the Seattle Left supports the troops.

Here's a photo essay you'll never see in the mainstream media. (Via Little Green Footballs.)

Robert Spencer challenges President Bush's Judeo-Christian-Islamic values.

Seventeen magazine brings your daughter tips on hair, makeup and sorcery.

Tony Blankley asks if we are sleepwalking toward the abyss.

Sure looks like we are.

Name That Country

About 600 people, including women and children, punched the air and chanted Allahu akbar (God is greatest) as they were shown videos of hijacked airliners crashing into the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11, 2001.

Care to hazard a guess as to where this little religious get together occurred?

Iran? Syria?

Guess again.

Lance in Iraq wants those human shields back.

Freedom or Power?

Today President Bush spoke forcefully of the human aspiration toward freedom, and how it can provide a catalyst for lasting peace among nations. This is the core of his strategy in the war on Islamic terror, and I hope his idealism is proven to be realism.

Developments like this, however, buttress the argument that Man is far more a power-seeking being than a freedom-seeking one:

Stalin back in favour as new statue goes up in Moscow

A NEW statue of the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin is to be erected in Moscow, returning his once-ubiquitous image to the streets after an absence of four decades, a top city official said yesterday.

Since Vladimir Putin became president in 2000, a number of Soviet symbols - including the national anthem and an army flag - have been restored to use, reflecting widespread nostalgia for the communist era.

But the rehabilitation of Stalin - denounced by Soviet leaders after his death in 1953 for encouraging a cult of personality and killing millions of real and imagined opponents - had remained out of bounds. Statues of him were removed from Moscow in the 1960s.

Oleg Tolkachev, Moscow's senator in the upper house of parliament, said a monument was to be erected to Stalin and others who led the war against Hitler. A statue will also be built in the Belgorod region, near the Ukrainian border.

In another sign of Stalin's growing appeal, many prime-time television shows have recently depicted him in a positive light.

Move America Forward has a great idea.

Two recent, very moving pieces on adoption here and here.

Considering that we're already at war with Iran*, this is good news.

*and Syria.

Michelle Malkin has a post in support of the HEROES Act, complete with a link for contacting your reps.

Back in Business

The SaveWesternCivilization.com blog is back in business after a long hiatus. So I'll be blogging here on a range of topics, including of course all threats to Western civilization, both foreign and domestic. My former blog site, TenMinuteLobbyist.com is undergoing some changes, described here.