Cloning and the Future

As many YFP staffers will be thinking about issues related to cloning, biotechnology and artificial intelligence, I decided it would be helpful to collect some links for those who do not know much about the subject.

Eve Tushnet--Here is our own Eve Tushnet with a series of articles against therapeutic and reproductive cloning. Interesting, but wacky. Just like Eve.

Nick Bostrom--This man is a biotech guru. This little lecture on cloning makes several excellent points. The rest of his site, as well as the half-dozen other sites he manages, is incredible.

Is Cloning 'Pro-Life'?--An article from TechCentralStation by Jim Pinkerton. He raises some interesting points, even if I don't think any of them are compelling to convince a rigourous pro-lifer. They are mainly along the lines of "Because moderate pro-lifers have accepted a given practice which resembles a type of cloning,cloning cannot be all that bad." The point is that cloning is much like in vitro fertilization, and so if you accept the latter, you cannot object to the former.

Disappointing.

Treating diversity as an end and some 'good' that should be strove for in America's college institutions may be well-intentioned, but nevertheless is misguided. Diversity is not unwanted, but many affirmative action advocates seek to increase campus diversity by tweaking the admissions criteria at the expense of admissions based on merit. Another argument is given that selective higher education institutions should attempt to rectify the ills of society. Opinion Journalist Daniel Henninger rightly debunks this ridiculous claim.

I briefly attended Yale's Martin Luther King Jr. commemoration event and was disturbed early on in the event when the two hosts, an African American and an Asian American, decided to bring affirmative action into the whole picture of the civil rights movement and what Dr. King fought for. America, they stated, was going through a tumultous period, and the ideal of diversity was being reviewed in the Supreme Court. At that point, the hosts made a normative claim about what ought to be done about affirmative action, and guess what, that claim was in favor of the policy lest Dr. King's achievements be undone. They basically advocated the continuance of affirmative action, assuming the modern and perhaps corrupted meaning of the phrase in relation to its usage in LBJ's Equal Opportunity Executive Order in 1965. Given the atmosphere of the event, I wasn't too surprised by their statements; nevertheless, I was somewhat taken back that they decided to broach something as controversial as affirmative action.

In trying to come up with a reasonable solution, if one is to treat diversity as an end in itself trumping merit, he is bound to ultimately advocate affirmative action, again referring to the more modern idea that race should be considered in the admissions process. Many advocates have been misled by the mistaken notion that the only way colleges can increase diversity is by assigning points or by creating some system of guidelines that should be followed in the actual process of evaluating the individual applicant. There shouldn't be such a system. What needs to be done on the part of colleges, is perhaps to clarify the meaning of merit, including the concept (seems so foreign among AA circles) to take into account socio-economic factors and the ability to overcome difficulties. The admissions process should exclusively stick to this principle. There are many other ways to increase diversity on a college campus besides giving the equivalent of admissions points based on race. One idea is to increase publicity of the college directed towards different ethnic groups so that the pool of applicants can be enlargened thereby increasing the chances of quality acceptances. Thus, colleges can strive for diversity by other means, but merit is still the cardinal principle that should never be sacrificed.

Marcus O'Reillyus

And You Thought the O'Reilly Watch was dead. . .

"Eminem may be the 'people's choice,' but he is as harmful to America as any al Qaeda fanatic."
---The old Philosophaster, in his latest column, demonstrates that he's missing a part of his frontal lobe.
Can anyone say "two-minute hate?"

(Kudos to Andrew Sullivan for providing the link and giving this a nomination for the coveted Derbyshire award. There ought to be an O'Reilly award for absurd hyperbole. . . .)

This article, written by Stacy Haldi who teaches history and international relatoins at Lebanon Valley College, calling for universal draft measures is appalling. She fully supports Rep. Charles Rangel's (D-NY) bill that would implement this idiotic policy.

"Almost lost in the clamor following Rangel's proposal was a simple truth: a truly universal draft would strengthen our country, our armed forces and our democracy."

How would a universal draft strengthen our country? In fact, it would hurt the nation. Supposing that this highly improbable policy were put into effect, our resources would be unnecessarily drained and the U.S. domestic agenda would be flipped upside-down. Not to mention the widespread unpopularity. At a time when warfare has become technologically advanced and tactics have replaced the need for attacks involving massive hoardes of soldiers, a draft is ridiculous. The perhaps pending war with Iraq is not a WW1 or WW2. Does one really have to pause and consider if Iraq will be defeated or not if war breaks out?

Also, I don't quite understand how a draft will strengthen our democracy. Is she positing that forcing everyone to fight even when the circumstances as metioned above do not warrant such an initiative would make our society more equal, hence more democratic? If so, she has a false notion of what it means to be an American. There is something called individual rights. For those who want to fight, good for them. For those who have other plans for their future, they shouldn't be forced especially when the situation doesn't demand them to serve.

"In the United States, minority and ethnic groups have long understood the positive relationship between military service and political rights. This is why we have seen high service rates by African Americans, from the Buffalo Soldiers of the nineteenth century through World War II, despite segregation."

Blatantly incorrect. The main motivation for these ethnic groups to serve was not because of their knowledge of the "relationship between military services and political rights" but rather because the military offered job and financial security.

"Perhaps if we had a universal draft, the administration would be more circumspect about taking on so many military commitments. Conscription forces the government to be more responsive to the public. The possibility that we, or our sons and daughters, could be called upon to fight might make us, as citizens, shake off our apathy and pay closer attention to the rest of the world. We're likely to ask: is this worth dying for? We're more likely to give this question the consideration it deserves when we may pay the price."

Doesn't this defeat the purpose of a universal draft? A draft is supposed to strengthen the military as a final resort in a time of need, not to limit the options of the military. She seems to be sending two contradictory messages first by saying that a draft is needed to fight wars and then by taking an anti-war stance by saying that a draft might be helpful to avoid wars. Confusion pervades my brain.

"Rather, pay, benefits, training, scholarships and 'a chance to see the world' were the carrots dangled by recruiters."

These are incentives that are needed in any profession especially the military. A sense of patriotic duty and the intrinsic value of an occupation are important; however, would she still be teaching if pay were inadequate? According to her argument, she probably would and should because oh-the joys of imparting valuable knowledge (questionable at this point) to budding young students is priceless.

"How good is the morale of soldiers who didn't sign up to fight and die in the desert, but instead wanted to be trained as a mechanic or to pay for college?"

How good is the morale of soldiers who didn't sign up at all but were drafted?

"To put it another way, if we want to be heard, we must serve."

I hope this isn't the case.

More Clear Thinking on Iraq

From my former boss Mitchell Cohen in the current Dissent.

As I was saying, Saddam, not Bush, is forcing a confrontation:

'It is not just a matter of this regime's fascist-like character (call it fascism-plus), although its ruling Ba'ath Party fused Pan-Arabism to the worst ideas of early twentieth-century Europe. It is not just Baghdad's brutality, although it is difficult to imagine a more vicious, vengeful regime. It is not just a question of Saddam's totalitarian aspirations at home and aggressive ambitions abroad, although Iraq's citizens and neighbors know firsthand that these aspirations and ambitions are beyond question. It is not even a matter of Iraq's dogged pursuit of weapons of mass destruction-although this is clearly Saddam's fixation, and he has demonstrated his readiness to use them against citizens and neighbors (and would be pleased to do likewise against Americans).

No, it is not "just" these things. It is their combination with the fact that this regime never keeps agreements. Virtually every major accord Saddam has reached with domestic or foreign foes-usually under pressures produced by his recklessness-lasts only until he recovers sufficiently to pursue his purposes. Ask Iranians. Ask Kuwaitis. Ask Iraqi communists. Ask Iraqi Shiites. Ask Iraqi Kurds. Recall the UN inspections.

So I conclude, reluctantly, that the options are not "war or peace," but "sooner or later." Unless there is a coup, force will eventually be needed to defang Saddam's regime. The only real questions are when, how much force, and what aftermath.'

Right on. And since Saddam has devolved into paranoiac lunacy---witness his inability to comprehend the Russian offer to save his sorry hide---it doesn't look like even his clients in Paris and Moscow will be able to orchestrate a deal to save him from himself.

P.S. When you peruse the Dissent symposium, be sure to check out Kanan Makiya's short piece. Makiya is a prominent Iraqi dissident intellectual who will undoubtedly be among the leaders of a democratic Mesopotamia, should the Bush Administration stay committed to its rhetoric and not abandon the Middle East once Saddam Hussein is removed from power. He's worth reading particularly as an antidote to the Healy-Chomsky view that, oh well, shucks, the world is full of nasty leaders, why bother singling this one out.

And Just So That We're Clear

The Cato Institute was opposed to US intervention against Slobodan Milosevic, right?

Wrong Place? Wrong Time? Wrong War?

The crux of Mr. Healy's case is that Saddam Hussein is a rational actor pursuing self-preservation, that a deterrence policy can allow us to avoid a war, and that the repercussions of even a successful war outweigh the benefits of regime change. Mr. Healy is wrong three times over.

The Saddam Hussein regime is collapsing. That's point one. It's not all that hard to see that it has reached a critical mass when he is forcing a ridiculous 100% turnout, 100% support plebiscite. Not the actions of a dictator confident of his stranglehold on power. Go read the newspapers of the Kurdish opposition of northern Iraq, and the writings of Iraqi dissident groups like the INC. The Ba'athist apparatus is tenuous at best. And when it falls, all the "destabilizing" consequences of removing Hussein are again in play, only without a strong American presence to forestall the worst of them.

Point Two. Hussein himself, if he ever was a rational actor, is not one any longer. A rational dictator trying to preserve his own power, and put in such a position as he is, would not make proclimations calling for a United Front of Jihad against the Jews, the Americans, and the British. But there you have it. And what's more, given the opportunity to tell the truth the United Nations, Hussein has opted to lie continually. What conclusions can we draw from these actions? One, he doesn't mind submitting obviously false and contrived papers, when he supposedly understands that to do so is to create a internationally valid casus belli. Two, even under the threat of war, he cannot stop himself from pursuing a weapons program.

Point Three. Which follows from point two. Saddam Hussein is forcing the war on us, not the other way around. This can't be underscored enough. He is not going to stop seeking nuclear, biological, and chemical capabilities. That means that at one point or another, there will have to be a war against him. Get it? If he's still lying, as he is, even now, he isn't going to give up ever. And at what point would Mr. Healy prefer that war take place? When Hussein, like Kim Jong-Il, is in a position to deter the United States? Thus, it's not true that Hussein is just one brutal dictator in a world of brutal dictators. He is unique in his unrelenting defiance of UN mandates, and that makes his case unique.

I'm thrilled that Mr. Healy's article included the anti-war stance of one former Secretary of State Heinz A. Kissinger. Is Mr. Healy seeking validation from the very same Kissinger who encouraged the Kurdish rebels of northern Iraq to take up arms against Hussein with promises of US assistance, only to leave them isolated targets of Hussein's chemical warfare machine? Yes, it is the same Kissinger. Is this Kissinger that Healy quotes approvingly the same scoundrel who thought it better to break his promises to the victims of Al Qaeda's 9/11 attacks rather than break off his business dealings with the House of al-Saud? Yes, it is the same Kissinger. Is this the same Henry Kissinger who's gotten fat and rich by lobbying for every dictator he could manage to throw his arms around and blow kisses to, from the most reactionary nationalist to the most sanguinary communist? Yes, it's our old pal again. Is this the same Henry Kissinger who, a class-act unto himself, actually argued for the rights of Chinese Communists to slaughter their students at Tiananmen Square? Is a pattern developing?

And Kissinger isn't alone. His many disgraced associates, Brent Scowcroft, Lawrence Eagleburger, et al., join him in opposing a war that will surely undo the Saudi grip on the oil market, and thereby vastly diminish Saudi Arabia's influence in world politics. Maybe Kissinger dreads such a scenario, but why should anyone else? Furthermore, Kissinger would naturally be opposed to a direct intervention in Iraq---it would be, after all, a repudiation of the odious client-state system that he and fellow criminal Richard Milhouse Nixon created, and that itself is the efficient cause of al-Qaeda's growth.

Speaking of al-Qaeda, Healy several times lapses into the bizarre leftist stance that a war against Saddam Hussein would necessarily aid the recruitment of al-Qaeda and increase Muslim hostility toward the West. What's wrong with such a pronouncement? First, does Healy claim that al-Qaeda recruits, too, are rational actors? Would a person not otherwise inclined to commit suicide-mass-murder suddenly leap at the opportunity for martyrdom if offered, simply because a secular Arab dictatorship had been overthrown? Obviously not; the hatred of Islamists for Western culture is not going to be extinguished by diplomatic appeasement of Saddam Hussein. They'll hate us whether we attack or not.

Second, does Healy think that if the sanctions on Iraq were lifted tomorrow and Israel immediately withdrew to the 1948 borders, that al-Qaeda would suddenly declare a truce with the West? Not bloody likely. Their psychic wounds were retroactively inflicted by the defeat of Ottoman ambitions on Western Europe. Among their demands is the return of al-Andalus (Spain) to Muslim control. But they betray every principle of that golden age of Islam. In Nigeria, as you might have heard, the Muslims who were always the favored subjects of British imperialism are attempting to impose Sharia law on a country that is at least half non-believers. Do they wish to do so because Israel occupies the West Bank? Or do they wish to do so because they believe that their god gives them a mandate to target the apostate, Jews, Christians, and most Muslims, for death? Consult this, by Salman Rushdie in the New York Times.

As well as being misogynists, haters of women, they are haters of reason, and haters of art, and haters of free thought, and haters of all the values that define liberal society, which we cannot fail to defend. They would destroy everything of value within their own cultures and societies, and think every single one of us is a legitimate target for their psychopathic rage. The Islamists or Islamic fascists are not an enemy that can be reasoned with, or deterred, or brought to negotiations. This begs the question, though---who, besides Mr. Healy, would want to?

Thanks, but no thanks

I know, that's why I linked to it at the bottom of my post.

Ostrich. Yummmm.
If Mr. Barnes wants a smart libertarian argument against the war, here is one, compliments of Eve Tushnet. I may have just possibly changed my mind about the war after reading this article. Maybe Mr. Barnes has just been reading the wrong libertarians.

Tax Cuts for the Rich

Finally, the Bush administration got some sense and decided to give more "tax cuts to the rich," as the Democrats have hailed the latest stimulus package. One common argument that I have heard, for example, tonight on Hardball with Chris Matthews from Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell is that the savings the rich will have from the tax cut are not going to be invested. This tax cut, however, is not a regular ole tax cut where supply siders argue that the money saved by those benefitting from the tax cut is going to be invested and this will cause the trickle down effect, yadda, yadda, yadda. Actually, the argument in favor is three fold:

(1) People will start investing more into companies because now, the dividend is not an irrelevant part of their investment strategy. It's not just "the money they save from the cut" that will be invested. For example, institutional investors such as Hedge Funds will start investing more into stocks because those often pay off dividends, which are a great hedge against a tanking stock market. You still make some money even when the capital values start depreciating, which cuts your losses. So, not just the saved capital will be invested, but rather new capital will be invested. A lot of investors have been holding back with the stock market. Now, they won't. They will use money that they had invested elsewhere to invest in the stock market. This isn't just standard trickle down economics. This is waterfall down economics.

(2) Companies will be encouraged to give profits back to shareholders rather than use them for bad mergers (for example, this was what WorldCom did with Sprint and MCI mergers). This is essentially the Larry Kudlow argument. Before, companies would think, "Well, the stockholders aren't even going to see much of these dividends anyway, so why even give them back. It will all go to the government." Now, companies that didn't pay dividends will. For example, Oracle announced yesterday that they will start paying dividend because of Bush's plan.

(3) This will help prevent future stock market bubbles like the one we saw with dot-com's. Because investing in companies that pay dividends will now be lucrative (because the investor's share in the profits, ie: dividends, will no longer be taxed), this will force companies to turn profits, unlike in the Internet bubble when it seemed that the more unprofitable a company was, the higher the value of its stock. Investors will now be more likely to invest in companies that pay out dividends, which means those companies that don't turn a profit, and hence, don't pay dividends will be at a great disadvantage. In the old days, investors did not see much of the dividends because of the tax. Now, they will see real profits rather than just mere breadcrumbs.

As for the "tax cuts for the rich" issue, well, that's what happens when the richest 1% of Americans pay 50% of all taxes. This is what happened when certain lower brackets were fased out. The rich, while their taxes fell, now shared a greater burden of all taxes. These policies were actually done to avert class-warfare debates. The lower classes no longer had to pay income tax, so everyone won, right? Well, the remaining people who pay taxes are the wealthiest. So, it is only logical that tax cuts go to those who pay taxes. I know, I know. Logic is beyond the Democratic party.

Libertarian doves are really ostriches

I've been sorely let down by my ideological compatriots in the last week. On two of the libertarian email lists to which I subscribe, the Libertarian Campus Activist list and the Connecticut LP Activist list, I've received posts of columns from the Guardian (the UK's #1 radically anti-American paper). On the campus list, the moderator posted an op ed by one of his favorite columnists-Robert Fisk. Yup, Robert Fisk. The guy who is so stupid that the term "fisking" has developed to refer to logically annihilating a stupid article.

For more of that garbage, I looked to Mises.org's lovely Does Oil Require Blood? It began with the obvious premise that the war is only about oil. From there, Lew Rockwell argued against the Bush Administration's Marxist motivations for the war to conclude that the best way to get oil is to remove the sanctions on Iraq. What sounds more plausible? That the Administration is trying to free the Iraqi people from a dangerous dictator while protecting national security? Or that the conservatives are actually secret Marxists who think that American capitalism will be bankrupt without an infusion of conquered resources? Since the former position is the one the Administration advertises as well as the most plausible, I think it's a safe bet that the latter one is false.

The vast bulk of libertarian foreign policy writing I've read has been so absurd to move past the label "dove" to that of "ostrich." Instead of a substantive position for how to deal with our problems without going to war, libertarians prefer that America bury her head in the sand until the problems go away. It might be somewhat unfair to criticize libertarians for doing this when it is also the strategy of the liberals. However, I expect idiocy from leftists, not libertarians.

The only good libertarian critique of the coming war on Iraq is from Gene Healy, which appears in this month's Liberty Magazine. (This issue is fantastic. There is a detailed analysis of the state of the Libertarian Party which is very informative and helpfully critical.) Look for a detailed response at a later date, i.e., when I get back to campus.

What Your Tax Dollars Pay For

The Holy Swamp of Rome

This just in from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: 34,000 Catholic nuns, roughly 40% of American nuns, have experienced sexual abuse or harrasment, some of it at the hands of church officials. The relevant report was completed in 1996, but, the article says, suppressed. No surprise there.

What is a church to do?

And you thought only Lefties didn't know Statistics
Lest you thought that this was Mr. Koffler's personal Blog on O'Reilly and Allah... Here is an (old) article from Walter Olson on Slate about wacky Social Science on the Right. I usually thought that it were crazy Leftist professors who would do anything, including misuse statistics, to grind their political axe. Apparently, Right-wingers do it just as well. My solution? Get rid of social science departments everywhere. Oh wait, that won't work... they'll just all go work for the government. Damn.

Allah Update
There's a Moorish woman in Don Quixote who converts to Christianity, but continues to refer to God, even in her communications in Spanish, as Allah. So it can't have some Islamic-only connotation. Again, why don't they just say God? I get pretty annoyed when Orthodox Jews go around talking about "Ha'shem." This is every bit as irritating.

O'Reilly Watch
Alright, I'll get you started. Checkout the "Factor" website.
And take a look at the featured stories. Janeane Garofalo's beaming visage on top in a feature about entertainers against war. Bill Moyers's beautiful features at the bottom. And all the other stories are: 'Lesbian chic in high schools,' Dorm Porn, more Dorm Porn, Porn at Indiana Univ. (there's a switch!), and more Dorm Porn.

I dare you to read some of these interviews, and while you're doing it, make sure to imagine O'Reilly's halting, stammering, awkward locution. Nobody can talk about sex and make it sound as clinically disgusting as he does.

I Hate O'Reilly/We All Want to Change the World

I beseech everybody who sees this and who has access to this blog to watch out for O'Reilly's many, many prurient features on porn, sex, gay sex, and drugs. Now, I like a bit of good filth as much as anyone else, but I can't stand a pin-striped Christian moralist who pretends to be speaking to the nation about its wayward soul, and is actually and obviously drawn to the tawdry and the obscene like a leech to human flesh. He goes out of his way to find stories that aren't politically relevant, and his shabby prose is hardly worthy of the title of cultural criticism. I know I can't be the only one who bursts out laughing when this guy makes visibly awkward statements about subcultures that he can't understand but also can't take his eyes off of.

If Trent Lott's fall proves anything, it's the rising power of the blogosphere. We can expose O'Reilly for the smut-peddler in moralizer's clothing that he is, but only if we all pitch in.

Jews and Abortion/The Prodigal Rabbi O'Reilly

Well now I know for sure that Curious Bill was just making up all that stuff about Conservative Judaism taking a position against abortion rights. Here's the relevant Jewish ethical doctrine, common to all the denominations: the life of the mother takes precedence over the life of the fetus in every case, without exception. Moreover, a fetus that puts the life of its mother in jeopardy is treated as an agent attempting to murder the mother. A Jew has something like a Kantian "imperfect duty" to prevent murder, and abortion in a case where the pregnancy is either certain or very likely to kill the mother is at the least justified, and, perhaps (depends on the rabbi you talk to) obligatory.

Thus, every denomination, including the orthodox, and even including the hasidim, would support at least substantially limited abortion rights. The denominations differ in what they consider appropriate access to abortion facilities, along lines that you could fairly easily predict (Reform is most open to it, Conservative less so, and Orthodox the least). The Jewish denominations also differ on the point at which life begins, but it's definitely not at conception.

Why would O'Reilly claim that Judaism is basically anti-abortion when the precise opposite is true? Is he just dishonest? Well, yes, but that's not the whole story. My hunch is that, since he is a conservative Catholic, he assumes that all theologically conservative religious denominations would take the same view of abortion as that of his church. Thus, he concedes that Reform (a.k.a. Liberal) Judaism is pro-choice (while failing to mention that Reform is the biggest denomination after non-observant), but falsely claims that the other denominations are pro-life. These are the most charitable interpretations I can come up with. Maybe he was knowingly lying in order to score debating points against his guest. That wouldn't be out of character at all.

Mr. O'Reilly is an ignorant, mendacious, conceited, unread peasant. The fact that his show enjoys the popularity that it does is further confirmation of H.L. Mencken's intuition that nobody ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American people.

And Speaking of Religion/
O'Reilly Watch Cont'd

The other night, Big Bill ran an interview with a minister in some liberal protestant denomination who works for Planned Parenthood, and O'Reilly repeated the lie, which he has told on several other occasions, that mainstream American Judaism is against abortion. This is just not true. First of all, Judaism doesn't have official doctrine on the subject in the same way that Christian churches do. Doctrine, such as it is, is laid out by the rabbinates of the various denominations. There is a traditional rabbinical teaching that killing the unborn child of a pregnant woman (a woman who wants to give birth) is a much, much lesser crime than murder, and this serves as the usual basis for doctrine on abortion.

O'Reilly conceded that Reform Judaism is explicitly in favor of abortion rights, but grossly distorted that point by implying that the Reform denomination is just one among many. It's actually the biggest by a huge margin. He also claimed that Conservative Judaism is pro-life. And that's a 'liar, liar, pants on fire' situation. (Conservative Judaism, by the way, has nothing at all to do with political conservatism. O'Reilly also seemed to imply that it did.) I'm not entirely sure what the Orthodox teaching is, but it's more likely than not that they accept at least limited abortion rights as well.

If you are pro-life, then your cause isn't served by such a mammal as Mr. O'Reilly. And if you're pro-choice, take heart in the appalling garbage that one of your most vocal opponents is spewing.

P.S. This guy is also so intellectually dishonest that he pretends not to have a declared position on abortion, just like he pretends not to be a conservative. Is he fooling anybody? (Write to me if you've been fooled.)

P.P.S. During the same show, Bill did a feature on gay orgies at luxury hotels. Have you noticed how often he does stories like that? Dude, just get your fetishes out in the open. You'll feel better once you do.

P.P.P.S. That might just be Rupert Murdoch telling him what to do for ratings.

And Speaking of Allah
It's Arabic for God, right?

But the Greek word, which the New Testament uses, is theos. Or, in Latin, deus.
Or in Old Testament Hebrew, Yahweh, Eloheinu, Hashem, Adonai, Shaddai,
and several more, including a couple of unpronouncable glyphs.

Nevertheless, when Jews or Christians speak in English, they refer to God as God (well alright, a handful of really pious members of the flock write G-d, but that's beside the point). They do so because God is the English word for God. So if Allah is nothing more than Arabic for God, why insist on using the Arabic word? Or does it have some kind of special Islamic significance that's not covered by "God"? From what I understand, Palestinian and Syrian Christians pray to Allah as well, so it wouldn't seem to carry any specific connotations.

For Our Millions of Readers:

A Philosophical Question:

Which is a stupider car ornament, a) the traditional Jesus fish, or b) the following, which I saw driving home today on a car that had several more a lot like it: "Allah gives and forgives/ Man gets and forgets"?

P.S. Does anybody know where I can find a Darwin turtle?