Godly people can, of course, display the Ten Commandments every day without carting around a multi-ton monument. They can obey the commandments and live them out on a daily basis. They could promise, as did the Israelites, "all that the Lord has spoken we will do". The culture would improve, the church's would also, and the ACLU could do nothing about it.

The Salt Lake City Tribune reports that people around town are putting small monuments of the Commandments in their front yards.

Judge Moore has filed an appeal with the U. S. Supreme Court over the forced removal of his Ten Commandments monument. So the Supreme Court will decide if the nation's laws permit Judge Moore to display the laws of the Supreme Being.

CHILDREN ARE A GIFT FROM THE LORD. The Baby had a choir concert tonight. She looked beautiful with her hair done, wearing the blue and black formal. When she walked across the stage, I found myself grinning like an idiot. She sang with the choir and played percussion instruments for them. I found her name in the program and smiled at the accomplishments listed for her. Afterward, I told her how proud I was of her and how wonderful the concert was. She beamed. Life is good.

David Heddle over at He Lives has stirred up a major hornet's nest with his posts on Calvinism. I enjoy the professor and he always makes me think. You should read his blog.

Here is a funny cartoon about the newly liberal Wesley Clark.

Mark Byron puns on the hurricane. He asks if it is a "hole in Juan". I love it.

MORE GOOD NEWS. Gas prices have dropped an average of 10 cents in the last two weeks. The forecast is for continued dropping.

START THE WEEK WITH GOOD NEWS. I took the Baby to school today, and there were 30-40 high school kids standing around the flag pole praying. I admire these students so much. Jesus said, in Matthew 5:16, Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. May I do as good a job as they this week.

GIVE CREDIT WHERE IT'S DUE. I read a report by a fellow who had car trouble. He said he prayed about it while on a trip, and the problem went away by itself. How can we expect God to answer prayer when we won't admit he did? This is either a lack of faith, that is, we don't believe God really answers prayer and we just pray as sort of a good luck charm. Or, it means, more likely in this fellows case I think, of just not thinking in spiritual terms. Christians must upgrade their thinking and praying. When we pray, especially asking God to intervene, and He does, we must give him credit by way of thanksgiving and praise. It will glorify Him and it will increase your faith.

Oh no. I missed Banned Books Week. It was last week! I could have read a banned book. I could have pretended I was in North Korea and read the Bible. Or, I could have pretended I was in Canada and read the portions on homosexuality.

OBSERVATIONS FROM WEEKEND DUTY. I've been stuck with weekend duty this weekend duty. That is where a prosecutor (me) sits in an office and reviews cases for filing after a police department brings them in. There are over 40 police departments in Tarrant County. Here are my observations.

1) Lots of people drink and drive on the weekend, especially after midnight.

2.) Lots of people are willing to zoom through town in several thousand pounds of steel when they cannot stand up without holding on to something, cannot bend back and touch their nose with their index finger, and cannot walk a straight line.

3.) Lots of men beat women on the weekend.

4.) Most domestic violence cases occur when the man is drinking. In many, the woman is drinking, too.

5.) Lots of people drive around with cocaine in their pockets.

6.) Lots of policemen ask drunk drivers questions before they read them their rights.

7.) You cannot get cell phone service in the basement of the courthouse.

8.) People who work in law enforcement have a natural fellowship with each other if they are working the weekend.

9.) It is difficult to spend any time with your wife when you are working days and she is working nights.

10.) My friends still thought of me for lunch even though I missed church. Thanks!

Meanwhile, many of the Iranian people think the was with Iraq was necessary and want the U. S. to come liberate them, too. For example, remember Ayatollah Khomeini ? His grandson, of all people, Hossein Khomeini, gave a speach where he asked President Bush to "intervene by force" against the ruling clerics his grandfather appointed.

Khomeini also said “Mr. Bush should act like Churchill when he gathered around him the British population to fight against Hitler.”

Khomeini is even willing to have the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi lead the country.

I think what this shows is, regardless of the protests of anti-war folks in America and around the world, the people who are oppressed want to be liberated. Why should they have to live under oppression? Why should free people not want to share their freedom?

I need to start a new list called Smart Things Wesley Clark Said - Not! The leader of the invasion of Yugoslavia is calling the war on Iraq "unnecessary". That is stupid, since there is no way he can defend his war. Secondly, I doubt that the relatives of those lying in mass graves in Iraq would agree, although I know they don't get to vote, even in the democratic party. Maybe if they immigrated illegally, the dems would let them vote.

I love this headline: Italy faces blackout, blames France. I know I would.

The best politician in the world may be the Pope. By living and staying in office a long time and naming only like minded men to be cardinals, he has practically guaranteed that his successor will be as conservative as he. All but 5 of the cardinals eligible to vote for the next pope are conservative. I wish our Republican presidents had done as well with judges. Instead we got David Souter.

OK, as you can tell, Wesley Clark cracks me up. He is smart enough to know better, but his ego is on the rampage. He does not think we are smart enough to know the difference. Clark versus Bush is the race where he wants us to trade the President who invaded Iraq for the general who invaded Yugoslavia. You remember Yugoslavia. That hotbed of international, well nothing. They were a threat to no one, they just kept fighting the same civil war they had been conducting for hundreds of years with no help from the outside thank you. Just this time, the Slavs were winning instead of the Arabs, so NATO had to invade them. Huh?

By the way, we are still there. You don't read about it in the liberal rags, but we are still there, still spending money, still screwing up, still watching the U. N. stand by while people get killed. We could call it Clark's Quagmire.

Wesley Clark is the new kind of democrat. He voted for Nixon and Reagan.

Planned Parenthood in Oregon plans to start running ads for condoms used in Europe. This program is being used in, you guessed it, France, as well as those moral icons Germany and the Netherlands. Of course, in the Netherlands the government offers free drugs to go with the condoms.

Oregon is already a lot like the Netherlands, pursuing euthanasia for example. I guess I should support this. At least if Oregon keeps people from being born by birth control, it won't kill them later. God bless Texas.

HITTING AN ANT WITH A SLEDGEHAMMER: The gov'ment has recalled all 6,000 Segway scooters sold because three people have been hurt. How many people have been hurt by roller skates? Cars?

Wesley Clark before he decided to become a democratic candidate: But if you look around the world, there's a lot of work to be done. And I'm very glad we've got the great team in office: men like Colin Powell, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condolzeezza Rice, Paul O'Neill--people I know very well--our president, George W. Bush. We need them there...

A Colorado federal judge ruled the no call law unconstitutional because it violates the free speach rights of telemarketers. Huh? They have a constitutional right to call you on your private telephone? I don't think so. Can you imagine telling this judge he has to stand still and listen to me tell him what I think if the ruling on grounds that his walking away violates my right of free speach? No, he would say, you might have a right to express yourself, but I have a right to walk away, I have a right to my own privacy. But you don't. Siding salesmen have a constitutional right to invade your home and harangue you with sales pitches and refuse to hang up when you tell them you are eating dinner and you do not want to buy their ugly siding. Excuse me, I have to go look for the duct tape. My head is exploding again.

An 8.0 earthquake has hit Japan, followed by an aftershock of 7.0. Incredibly, no one was killed, although 160 were injured. The last earthquake this size killed thousands in Mexico. You have to admire the Japanese engineering. You also have to admire how they adapt to living on a difficult island continue to prosper.

With my birthday approaching, people are starting to hassle me about my age. Here is the latest, sent to me by e-mail. What really hurts is that I remember all these things.

You know you're getting up there if you remember when:

* Your computer's ready-mode was a black screen with a single curser.
* Apple was bigger than Windows.
* Or should I say PCs, since for a while, there was no such thing as Windows.
* There was just "DOS."
* And they were called microcomputers instead of PCs.
* Contrary to free-market theory, your phone choices and bills were much easier because AT&T was a good old-fashioned monopoly.
* There was this amazing new video game called "Pong."
* And you thought it had the most advanced graphics imaginable.
* AOL was just another start-up online service that could easily have lost out to rivals called Compuserve and Prodigy.
* A 20-something guy named Dell came up with the nutty idea of selling computers by mail.
* Jane Fonda went from sex symbol, to feminist activist, to dutiful wife of a powerful man, to obscurity.
* And that powerful man was known not as Ted Turner founder of CNN - but "Blackbeard Among the Bluebloods" for winning the America's Cup while scandalizing Newport society with raucus behavior.
* And there was no question U.S. sailors would of course win the Cup - forever.
* It was called VD instead of an STD.
* The first true laptop computer was a Radio Shack TRS-80.
* And if you were hip, you referred to it affectionately as a TRASH-80.
* Burning a CD was the act of a pyromaniac.
* Sean Connery was Pierce Brosnan.
* The new walkaround phone that gave you astonishing mobility was a cordless one you could take around the house.
* And it got better reception than the one you can now take all over the country.
* Only wives got alimony.
* Steve Jobs ran Apple. I mean, the first time.
* There was a guy on 60 Minutes named Mike Wallace who was so old you figured he'd retire at the latest by 1990.
* TheMideast was simpler because Iran was run by a dictator called The Shah, who wanted power rather than Jihad.
* Mail was something you wrote on a piece of paper and put into a stamped envelope.
* And you didn't get 110 unsolicited pieces of it every morning promising to enhance your anatomical assets.
* No normal person had speakers on their computer.
* The diners at the next restaurant table were smoking cigarettes and you barely noticed.
* The only thing you knew about Robin Williams was he played a weird alien named "Mork" on television.
* A 1-gig hard drive seemed as big as a warehouse. (Today, most are 40-times that.)
* An 8-track tape the size of a paperback book was an advanced concept in compact music recording.
* Everyone knew what an LP was.
And now the final test of whether you're getting up there:
* Even though there are plenty of LPs in antiques stores, you still have 400 in your attic, because deep down, you still think the format will come back.

Amina Lawal will live. The Nigerian appeals court has prevented her execution by stoning as punishment for adultery. Now we’ll watch to see how big the Islamic backlash is.

Richard Miniter has a good column up at Fox News debunking the persistent liberal myth that the U. S. funded Osama Bin Laden in the early days. Read it here.

With the 40th anniversary of the death of John Kennedy approaching (yes, I know, I can’t believe it either), look for lots of stuff about his assassination and his love life. The first shot book seems to be the Triangle of Death by Brad O’Leary and L. E. Seymour. The title sounds cheesy to me, but the book sounds interesting. The authors claim to have recently declassified material, plus newly released tape recordings of Lyndon Johnson, and interviews with Mafia figures. The first intriguing accusation is the Kennedy planned the execution of South Vietnam’s president, and his own assassination was in retaliation. The triangle bit has to do with the three groups involved in the killing. Of course, the French are involved.

Even the French don’t like France! Gerard Depardieu, the actor, is leaving France and applying for Swiss citizenship.

The 9th Circuit court has decided to allow the California recall election to proceed on October 7. It's those moments of sanity that make it confusing.

Another thing that happened in 1996, by the way, is that Hussein Kamel was murdered. He was the son-in-law of Saddam Hussein. He left the country. He made the mistake of returning. Do you remember his offense against Saddam? He reported Iraq's illegal nuclear and chemical weapons programs. Those are the programs and weapons that, according to present day liberal democrats, never existed.

It turns out now that the 9-11 attacks were being planned back in 1996. So all that liberal blather about how President Bush's policies were causing this anti-American attitude among Muslims was wrong. Totally wrong. As usual.

Do you remember 1996. Clinton got re-elected despite Whitewater. Despite the bombing of the Khobar Towers killing 19 servicemen. What did we do about that? Nothing. Maybe that is the cause.

If it would make everything all better to have the U.N. in charge in Iraq, why have there been two bombs now directed at the U.N.? Face it, guys, they don't like you any more than they like us.

Did California's governor Davis really say he had people from every planet on earth in his state? This is the kind of thinking people make fun of California for, but it is funny to see it in print. Maybe he'll give us a list of those planets. I guess he is giving them all drivers licenses.

Wow. The New York Times has an editorial opinion today that France has become our enemy. You can read an excerpt posted by Lee at Right Thinking on the Left Coast. Even a fancy newspaper can come to an obvious conclusion once in a while. Or as my daddy used to say, even a blind hog finds a nut now and then.

Fort Worth is going into the oil business! Cowtown might become Rigtown. The city council agreed to pursue hiring an expert to look into the matter. (You have to remember that our city council does not make decisions lightly. I know that agreeing to think about hiring a guy to look at something does not sound too decisive, but that is a big step here. These are the guys and gals that have been debating a toll way in Southwest Fort Worth for 10 years.)
The new mayor, Mike Moncrief, is, of course, related to Moncrief Oil and lives comfortably from that, enabling him to take low paying jobs such as an elected official in Texas. Moncrief showed off his oil knowledge with catchy lingo such as “get your straw in the ground”.

I’m just glad they are thinking of revenue other than taxes and fees.

That is not the case in Seattle, where the city wants to tax any drink made with expresso. No, really. And, not a little tax. No sir, the city wants a ten cent tax on every drink. Of course, Seattle already has a sales tax, so every drink is already taxed. This is an additional tax. Call it a tax penalty for drinking coffee, like the cigarette tax.

John Burbank of the Economic Opportunity Institute (doesn’t the very name make you think this is a guy who wants to take your money and give it to someone else?) says that “If people are willing to spend an extra $3 to get a tall double latte with vanilla flavoring then they should be willing to pay an extra 10 cents for kids.”

Huh? If you work hard and want to spend $3 to relax, you should have to pay a kid for it?

Regular coffee will not be taxed. So, this is a Yuppie tax. I should say another one. There is a socialist behind every bush in America. I mean, I know that is Oregon, but come on.

While roaming around the Internet on this subject, I did stumble on a nice site at www.theoregonconservative.com. I didn’t know there were any, so this is heartening. Give them a click.

Ben Domenech has a great satellite picture of hurricane Isabel posted on his blog. Go look.

When I drove up to North Crowley High School this morning, the whole front plaza of the school was covered with Christian students surrounding the flag pole and praying. I couldn’t even count them all. My arms broke out in goose bumps. Maybe there is hope for America. Ephesians 6:14-15 says “Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.” Our high school students are standing firm.

Robert Sloan, still the president of Baylor University, had the best week end in recent memory. First, the regents met and overwhelmingly voted to keep him on. So he must be on the same page as the regents if not the faculty. Even one of the regents who joined in the opposition last week changed sides to vote for Sloan. It has to be an embarrassing moment for the Faculty Senate that voted no confidence in him. Won’t it be fun to see who gets a contract for next year! It has to really make the alumni opponents angry, not to mention Mr. Reynolds, the former president who sounded off in opposition last week. Then, Baylor beat SMU in football. Mr. Sloan must be walking on air. It is only fair that Baylor beat SMU, since it is SMU’s former basketball coach that got Baylor into most of the present hot water. At any rate, Robert Sloan gets the Survivor Of The Week Award.

I'm sorry I am so behind in blogging. I have been really busy. I'll try to catch up.

Today’s QUIT WHINING MOMENT is brought to you by paraplegic Jim McGowan. Jim was stabbed and paralyzed from the middle of his chest down. He is confined to a wheelchair. Now thirty years later, he recently made a successful parachute jump, landing in the middle of a lake. Jim lives alone, cooks his meals, washes his clothes, and cleans his house. He drives a specially equipped automobile. He has written three books. Jim provided the photography for a book on the history of wheelchair sports. Now, what was your problem again?

I like Jack Straw more and more. Yahoo News reports that British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has accused French leaders of suffering from an anti-American "neurosis".

Straw evidently made the comments to the BBC. But, he didn't stop there. He also stated that "A great many of the difficulties that have faced the relationship go back to the profoundly different experiences that we had in the war, with, quotes, Britain standing alone, and quotes, France capitulating and surrendering to the Germans."

In other words, Straw said the French were hard to get along with because they were cheese eating surrender monkees while the British were brave defenders of freedom. Or, maybe he meant the French were sensitive because they had belly flopped in the war and tried to make up for it with swagger now.

Straw said Chirac wanted people to take notice of France in a way they hadn't had to in the preceding years. Well, he is getting his wish in America. Americans are taking notice of the opposition of France all around the world in every possible venue, as well as the criticism and snobbery expressed in the press and in public speeches. They have responded by refusing to by French goods or to travel there. I can only hope that our government tunes up its opposition to Chirac.

Thanks to Instapundit for the heads up on the story.

Johnny Cash has died. That old Christian gentlemen just couldn't go on without his wife, June Carter Cash. He wrestled a lot of demons during his life, but found peace with God. Now he and June are reunited and, as he sang, the circle is unbroken.

In a further sign of progress in the Kingdom of Saud, the Committee for the Progagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has banned Barbie dolls. The are offensive to Islam. In fact, Saudis are so upset by the dolls that they call them Jewish Barbie Dolls. Saudis are more paranoid about Jews than Baylor is about conservatives.

And you'll love this. One of their spokesmen said the doll was modeled after a real life Jewish woman. She must have been the one who called all the Jews in the World Trade Center and told them to leave before the 19 Saudi terrorists attacked it.

What is that stuff called that those guys smoke over there? It must be powerful.

Turki al-Hamad is a columnist for Asharq al-Awsat, a London newpaper. He is a native of Saudi Arabia. He is also a critic of the Saudi brand of Islam, saying it promotes violence. This has offended Saudi clerics. How do they respond to this slanderous accusation? They issued a fatwa calling for his murder.

Two years ago at this time, I went to the quick oil change place on the way to work. When I walked in, a man was staring at the television that was mounted high on the wall. I saw an airplane crash into a tower. The man started desperately dialing his cell phone. I said “what in the world is that?” He told me, and added that his daughter was attending college a few blocks from the WTC and he could not get her on the cell phone. It was the start of a day of horror. I never saw the man again, but I prayed on the way to the office that he would find his daughter safe and sound. I thought of my own oldest daughter and prayed for her safety away from me as well.

Thus started a new era in American life. It must have been a little like life after Pearl Harbor, in the sense that Americans, who had previously felt invulnerable, now realized they could be attacked on their own soil. As Americans do, we got busy. We buried the dead, cared for the wounded, cleaned up the mess, debated the issues, and retaliated.

Despite all the political correctness that some have tried to force down our throats this last year, many have come to the realization that we have enemies determined to kill us and end our way of life. We have often realized that we were misunderstood or unappreciated, but few of us knew we were hated, despised, and targets of torture an death. More of us need to realize this.

In my personal life, I learned long ago that people do not respect you if they can run over you. Sure, nice people don’t do that. But there are many people that aren’t nice. Radical Islam is not nice. They want to wipe us from the face of the earth in the same way Texas homeowners want to kill fire ants: kill them all and let God sort them out.

Remember the fallen today and everyday. Remember the victims who were just working, supporting their families, trying to accomplish something, who were dispatched from life without a moment of regret by their killers. Remember the wives who have no husbands, the children who have no fathers, the friends who have only holes where friends used to be in their lives.

Be a patriot today. Support those who protect our country.

God Bless America.

Please.

As I predicted, the howling has begun to replace Baylor University president Robert Sloan. The action in Waco has become amazingly intense. The Faculty Senate voted “no confidence” in Mr. Sloan. A Faculty Senate has no power. This is just a vehicle to express their opinion. They believe the president is violating the “sanctity of academic freedom”, the constant cry of the disgruntled professor. Since a bunch of Baylor science professors signed a document supporting evolution, at a supposedly Bible believing institution, I thought they had a large amount of freedom.

Five of the regents have also issued a letter calling for Mr. Sloan to resign. The detractors have now enlisted former president Herbert Reynolds. Mr. Reynolds complains that the university is being taken over by a “small coterie” who will bring about an “autocratic milieu”, violate soul competency, and cause a general loss of freedom. These are all code words for “religious conservatives”.

I met Mr. Reynolds years ago at the Baptist General Convention of Texas and, frankly, cannot imagine anyone more autocratic. But, you have to admire his vocabulary. It is not everyday you hear the words “coterie”, “milieu”, and “autocratic” in the same paragraph, especially in Waco. At the convention the year I met him, he called my pastor a “sycophant”. He and William Buckley could compete.

If you’re not from around here, or not Baptist, you might not know that Baylor is paranoid that a conservative might sneak on board. (Soul competency is good unless it leads you to become a conservative). In all the panic and confusion of the current mess, or should I say, milieu, a rumor has begun that the regents plan to appoint Ed Young from Houston. Mr. Young is pastor of the huge and successful Second Baptist Church of Houston. Most people would be proud to have him. The problem is, he is a conservative.

Since Baylor has a self perpetuating board, or should I say a small coterie endowed with rights of succession, how could that bunch of liberals ever get around to appointing a conservative? They will not. It is just hysteria.

Mr. Sloan has his supporters, however. They have put their money where their mouths are, donating $1 million to the university. Remember what they say: money talks, “you know what walks”.

Nonetheless, the regents will be tempted to fire Mr. Sloan and make a fresh start. The best way to bury a scandal is to bury all those connected to it, guilty and innocent. Look for a load of shovels to appear.

Tell my wife I was right! That Pampered Chef stuff is too expensive. The founder of the Pampered Chef company just paid over $6 million for a 17,000-square-foot hilltop house on 1.9 acres in east Hinsdale, a suburb of Chicago. It is the highest sale price ever paid for a house in that suburrb. How many apple peelers is that?

Mark Byron has moved from Blogger to Type Pad. You can read him here. Read him every day if you can.

I guess the Shiite Muslims decided the Sunni Muslims were responsible for bombing their mosque. Gunmen opened fire at a Sunni mosque right after prayers. Some are in denial about the competition between Muslim sects. Walid al-Azari said the gunmen wanted to harm the unity of Islam. Would that be the unity where Sunnis in Iraq brutally suppressed Shiites for decades? Would that be the unity where the two sects routinely bomb and shoot each other in Pakistan? For example, in April 2002, Sunnis bombed a Shiite mosque, purposely planting the bomb in the women’s section, killing 12 women and children. (This is a thing that really bothers me about Muslims. They routinely target women and children for killing.) Would that be the unity where the Taliban blows up schools and homes where they don’t like the behavior of Muslim women? Which unity would that be?

Sorry about being a day late on the Hill execution. Being in deposition during the day has my timing off.

Out on 7th Street, a little west of downtown Fort Worth, sits an ugly off-white building with a huge sign that says Montgomery Wards. Different people have been trying to do something with this building for years, but it is too expensive to develop. Enter the government. After a $2 million federal grant and a $13 million federal loan, we will have the Montgomery Plaza Shopping Center. I could never figure out why they didn't blow the thing up and build something pretty, or just put in a park. Now we will have a $15 million shopping center courtesy of the taxpayers. So, when you fill out your tax return next year, and write that check, just think of us here in Cowtown. You'd think we had Robert Byrd working for us or something.

Don't you know it's killing John Kerry that Howard Dean has a 21 point lead over him in the race for the Democratic nomination. Watch for major back biting. Here is a great quote from Kerry, who suffers from a political multiple personality disorder. He said "George Bush's vision does not live up to the America I enlisted in the Navy to defend." But, it probably lives up to the America he joined Vietnam Veterans Against The War to criticize and protest. How can you claim to be a fighting patriot and be a member of a group trying to denigrate that very war effort. Can you say Cybil?

Are you a gambler? Do you want to make a bet? Paul Hill will be executed tonight for killing an abortion provider. I be there will be no death penalty protestors there.

The first crack has appeared in the wall of obstruction raised by the Texas Democratic Senators. It is a big crack. John Whitmire is going home, leaving self imposed exile in Albuquerque to return to Houston after 5 weeks of cowardly hiding. First, Whitmire snuck off home for Labor Day weekend. There he learned that his constituents, while possibly opposed to redistricting, prefer him to stay and fight on the Senate floor rather than run and hide like outlaws. Since he is the senior Democrat, his breaking of ranks is important. Predictably, the remaining senators are criticizing him. Rodney Ellis cmplained that he had a new baby at home that does not know what he looks like. That is nothing to brag about, Senator. Go home and be a father. Go to work and be a man.

Yasser Arafat is calling those who blow up school buses full of Jewish children "Palestinian Activists".

The Road Map for peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is approaching a critical point. Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas seeks a showdown with Arafat over control of four security forces. Abbas seeks to control terrorism and move forward with peace. Arafat, the old terrorist, does not want to give up the option. He has declared the Road Map dead.

Israel is tired of the current situation. It wants Abbas to move forward toward peace, or to take control. Abbas seeks a vote of the legislature to decide. The legislature seems reluctant to vote. They do not want to cross Arafat and his party, but do not want to give up on the idea of peace.

I vote for Abbas and Israel. Let the Palestinians decide what they want, peace or war. If they want peace, which will bring prosperity, then pursue it honestly and completely. If you want war, strap it on.

The U.S. should pull the restraints from Israel also. If Palestine wants war, we should let Israel give it to them. I personally think war is the only way to peace. If Israel wins, they should establish control of their country without interference from us or the U. N. If the Arabs win, they will kill or imprison all the Jews and take control that way. Either way, let the countries decide what they want and abide by the results.

MORE REASONS TO DISLIKE FRANCE: Two French "diplomats" have made anit-Semitic remarks in the last few days. Daniel Bernard, ambassador to England, insulted the whole country in language I can't use because my daughters read my blog. He did this in the home of a Jew! Now, that is class. Then, Gerard Aroud, the new ambassador to Israel insulted the Israeli prime minister. Oh the Gaul. How can you insult another country when your own let 11,000 mostly elderly people die in a heat wave with no assistance? Because you were on vacation! I have to disagree with blogger Jeff Cooper. We should criticize France more than we do.

Speaking of Methodists, the Rev. Dr. Samuel Kobia of Kenya has become the leader of the World Council of Churches. He is a methodist minister, but his experience is bureaucratic and political. His statement to the Central Committee was "To inspire the world we need inner strength." It would be nice if, being a minister, he could have said something about God. He could have said, we need God to give us strenghth and guidance to minister to the World. But no. It would be nice if the WCOC stood for preaching the gospel, but no. Their agenda is the liberal social agenda. Isaiah would tell them "to the law and to the testimony!"

COME TOGETHER OVER ME: Dr. Maxie Dunnam, President of Asbury Theological Seminary and Methodist leader says he hopes Methodists will learn from the Episcopalian blunder and vote against ordination of homosexuals. Dunnam says he believes it will push Methodists back toward Biblical orthodoxy. Then we can sing the Kotter song: welcome back, welcome back, welcome back!

The Aggies won their first football game under Coach Fran. To me, though, it looked like a new wrapper on the same old fish. The offense was very weak, and against a small college. Same song, second verse. The Aggies cannot seem to score.

I also did not like the showboating. The players lined up and walked in behind the coach, which was nice, but with some of the players pumping their arms for crowed response. I liked it better when they came in looking determined to play the game. Then, they lost a touchdown on a kick return because one of the blockers was celebrating too early and tripped the runner. That was incredibly stupid and showing off before you earned it.

We can only hope the team improves before meeting conference competition, and buckles down to play for the win, not for the applause.