Funny Chinese Knock-Offs

Chinese Entrepreneurs are known for coming up with bizarre imitations of Western brands. The Starbucks sign below is typical. A blogger named "Berimbauone" has a good collection here: And Your Point is ... ?: Funny Chinese Knock-Offs - UPDATE

35 Inconvenient Truths: The errors in Al Gore’s movie

Science and Public Policy Institute - 35 Inconvenient Truths: The errors in Al Gore’s movie is worth a look.
I don't have the time or the educational background to make an informed decision about all 35 points made here. I'm reasonably sure that "The Science and Public Policy Institute" is a think tank funded by business interests threatened by Gore's Science Project.
But I, too, can make prophecies, just like Saint Albert The Goracle of Music City Tennessee.
Here's my prophecy: "An Inconvenient Truth" will be seriously debated for another decade, but the giggling level will begin overwhelming the debate in about five years. In 20 years it will be shown with midnight screenings of "Reefer Madness".
For previous prophecies on The Eschatology of Saint Albert, follow the links backward from here.
(If you'd told me two months ago that Al Gore would be my #1 blog topic, I'd have said you're nuts. I think I need counseling to get over this guy.)
Everyone have a great weekend, especially the surprisingly regular readers in California, Ohio, and England. Yes, England. (I love my Stat Counter ! ! !)

A Plethora of Political Plots

There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who think there are two kinds of people in the world, and those who know that there are actually four kinds of people in the world. Michael Kinsley can be found here, doing his best to explain the difference between Republicans, Democrats Progressives, (how movement toward Feudalism can be called "Progressive" eludes me) Libertarians, and a new breed that he calls Communitarians.

Howard Fineman attempts another definition of Libertarians and makes some of the same points about independent voters in Newsweek; click for his article about Libertarian Ron Paul.

Both articles tie in well with three political tests that I've linked to in this post....The World's Smallest Political Quiz has been around for a while. See the grid above. It's a handy device for measuring where a person's political beliefs fit on a liberal/conservative vs. statist/libertarian map. This quiz has a lot of critics, and I agree with the critics...The questions are biased in favor of the Libertarian quadrant, in order to make test takers realize the error of anything other than a Libertarian worldview. The thing takes about 30 seconds to take and is worth the effort, since, as Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living...."

For further clarification, you can take a survey called The Political Compass. The main novelty of this one is the definition of terms - "conservative" and "liberal" are used in the European sense. That is, a liberal is someone who is willing to leave everyone else alone, and can be in the same room with someone who disagrees with him....Also, Libertarians are directly contrasted with Authoritarians, not Communitarians (Kinsley's term) or Statists (The World's Smallest Political Quiz's term). Notice that in the example below, by the standards of The Political Compass, there are almost no Liberals running for office this year.

















Also, readers of earlier Whited Sepulchre posts will be delighted to see that, according to this chart, the location of Tom Tancredo's head hasn't changed.

Let me burden you with one more. This one is called The Moral Matrix, and instead of fitting you onto a strictly political grid, they try to get you to understand "why you think what you think". This test asks how much control you would exert over the economic order and the moral order.






















All of these articles and tests over-simplify the emotional, environmental, moral, (and maybe
even hereditary?) elements that come into play when someone is in a political discussion, or even the fraction of a second spent in a voting booth.

They're fun to take, though, and will help give you perspective on one of life's annoying questions....How can the 75% of the nation who disagree with you be so wrong?

More Iraq photos

Here are more pictures from Robert Crump in Iraq, standing outside and inside Saddam's "Hands of Victory" arch.

The Infamous Chinese Dog Story

My History Professor brother emailed asking for a copy of what you see below. He wants to use this story in a lecture about "saving face". It's an email I sent from China about two years ago, and I've only slightly modified it to explain who's who, and I've changed a few names.

I was doing Quality Control in a factory in Xiamen, China at the time this was written. I'll eventually post another old email explaining about the washer/dryer wanting some Peking Duck. That's all you need to know to appreciate the following:

Hello All,

Am writing this Sunday afternoon at the apartment. The Internet is down, but I now have a DVD/CD player. Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising” is playing. Life is good. The washer/dryer refuses to release one load of T-shirts and socks. It either wants a love offering of Peking duck, or feels that my clothes are really nasty.

I’ve seen a traffic fatality every trip to China.

Friday night’s traffic event was also memorable…. Walter (Quality Control) got very irritated with me when I asked about it again Saturday night, because the situation made Mr. Chen “Lose Face”. Karen (Sales) thought the whole thing was hilarious. Or maybe she’s a good salesperson, and always empathizes with the customer. Or maybe she’s descended from my Notoriously Disrespectful Fujian Province Ancestors, who were nearly wiped out during the Ming dynasty for circulating scrolls and tablets comparing the Emperor to a Countryside Eunuch.

Friday night, we’re driving back into town, and Mr. Chen is going about 90 in a 50 zone. A huge wild dog crosses the highway. Chen can’t turn left (there’s a truck in that lane) and he can’t turn right (pedestrians). So he grits his teeth and slams into the dog, hits him with the middle of the front bumper. We were flying, and so was the dog, and I’m sure the dog died instantly, but it was horrific.

There was total silence inside the car for at least a minute. Gou (Chinese word for dog) was all over the bumper and grill, and was working it’s way up the hood. Karen was in the back seat, and didn’t say a word. To mention the accident would make Mr. Chen Lose Face in front of #1 customer. Walter was equally silent, for the same reason. Mr. Chen can’t even turn on the windshield wipers to remove what used to be a Gou, because there’s a customer and two employees in the car (The “saving face” and “losing face” thing is beyond me. These are very proud, status-conscious people.)

At this point, I’m already thinking of how to write this situation down so that one day somebody will believe it. (Remember the scene in “Pulp Fiction” where John Travolta accidentally blows Marvin’s head off inside the car, and Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson totally freak out? I think most of us felt like that on the inside, but had to maintain a polite, Presbyterian/Buddhist silence on the outside.)

Small portions of The Former Chinese dog are starting to creep down the passenger side window. Everybody’s staring straight ahead, ignoring “The Elephant In The Living Room”, so to speak. Another 30 seconds of total silence. Nobody’s even breathing. Mr. Chen is embarrassed beyond belief. Chen hasn’t slowed down at all, and he’s got a Gou hood ornament.

My last resort in this situation is to make a bad joke.

I take a deep breath, and for the benefit of the English As A Second Language people in the back seat, I say “I….HOPE….THE….DOG…IS….OK.” (we all speak to each other in loud capital letters)

There’s still total silence. You could almost hear crickets chirping. Nobody says a word. Face is being saved. Nobody says much of anything till I’m back at the apartment, and they definitely don’t mention The Gou.

The next morning, Walter, who is a good kid but a little dim, pulls me aside and says “Aaron, we could not say anything in front of Mr Chen, since he is factory owner. You ask if dog was ok. I’m very sorry, Aaron…..but…. I…. think….. the…. dog…. died.”

All details of this can be verified with Karen. As most of you know, you can’t make this stuff up.
Keep them cards and letters coming !

Where Right, Left and Center Agree - Free Trade

An Economics professor from George Mason University explains why free trade brings the greatest benefit to the greatest number....

Daniel B. Klein: Where Left, Right, and Center Agree

He's basically saying the same thing that I said here, but doesn't get as worked up about it.

Here's a sampling from his article....
Today, the extent of the market is vast. That's one reason why humanity is better off than in the past. People in China are part of a great chain of beings, a chain that works to make stuff for humanity. Humanity would be happier still if the market were free of protective duties and quotas.
Economists don't agree on much. But almost all economists favor freedom of trade. It is an exceptional consensus in economic opinion.
However, "the man in the street" is less supportive of free trade. That's because he hasn't thought through the ways in which Americans benefit by foreign efforts, and how buying from foreigners is connected to their buying from Americans. Opposing trade with China is like opposing trade with Ohio.

But I'm still deeply disturbed that Starbucks won't let me transport any of their coffee. They apparently use shipping companies with lower rates than mine, despite the amount I spend with them every morning of my life.
Therefore as of today, October 24th 2007, I've modified my current trade agreement with Starbucks:

1. Quotas are now in place. Starbucks will only receive 50% of my Double-Espresso business unless they allow me to transport some loads for them. It's only fair. The only other way they can have a quota increase is to assure me that I'm purchasing coffee that is grown, processed, packaged, and poured in Fort Worth, Texas. Except for the pouring, none of those other industries currently exist in Fort Worth because of unfair foreign competition and a mythical concept called "natural advantage". (It's just some Voodoo Economics concept about the weather.) But I'm prepared to hold out in the name of justice.
2. I will be lobbying Congress to put a 20% protective tariff on all coffee imported into Fort Worth. This will protect Fort Worth jobs in the infant Fort Worth coffee industry. Granted, these jobs don't exist yet but look what protection did for the infant sugar industry, starting back when Thomas Freakin' Jefferson was President (and our infant sugar industry is still protected). If we as a nation can overpay for sugar every year by $400,000 per job saved, we can attempt the same for Fort Worth coffee. Starbucks must now "Think Globally, Grow Locally".
3. I am proposing that we model our remaining "Globally Sourced" coffee quotas on the regulations that are now in place for cotton. A precise quota will be allowed into Starbucks from each nation that currently allows me to haul freight for them. At this point, the number of eligible nations is....One. But to protect my infant shipping industry in additional nations and to encourage them to allow entry to my business, I am requiring Starbucks to bring in 2% of their coffee from each of the following countries: Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Lichtenstein, Canada, and The Vatican. The current Starbucks practice of limiting their coffee purchases to Equatorial regions isn't just unfair, it's racist. And if we can require the Asians to frantically move their fabric businesses around to whichever nation has some quota left at the end of the year, then the Latin Americans and their buddies in Ethiopia can do the same.

Administering this program will require a swarm of regulators and inspectors to appear every time a Fort Worth Starbucks receives a shipment of coffee. These inspectors will be paid by tax increases, since I'm not about to pay more than $2.00 for a Double Espresso. Plus, I'm the one who has to pay drivers and buy diesel. It will be like the current cozy relationship between ethanol tariffs and Archer Daniels Midland.

Think of it as jobs saved.

I'm waiting by the computer to receive the praise and gratitude of a grateful nation. And Lou Dobbs.

Signs of The End Times

Click HERE to see the latest sign that The Apocalypse Is Upon Us.... If this is true, is there hope for humanity?

"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
-William Butler Yeats

Photo compliments of Citizen Arcane

Fire in California, Water in Lousiana, Schwarzenegger, and Blanco

Laura's Miscellaneous Musings has a post making unfavorable comparisons between the disaster control effort in New Orleans with the current disaster control effort in California. She also makes some unfavorable comparisons to the situation that developed in the Super Dome with the current one at Qualcomm Stadium. You'll have to dig around the links (hit the one for wringing his hands - it's worth it) to find unfavorable comparisons between Louisiana's Governor Blanco and Schwarzenegger.

These are totally different disasters, but the contrast is stark.

Anyone digging around in there will also make unfavorable conclusions between Laura's site and this one. Lordy, this lady is good at what she does. I disagree with some of her positions, but everything she writes is linked to almost every possible source that's out there. It's a fun site to click around in.
The picture below is from the L.A. Times. The first comments currently posted below their article link the tragedy to 1) Global Warming, and 2) Greedy developers.

Yeah. Right.

Political Correctness in China

An example of Chinese Political Correctness. They sometimes try so hard, and mess it up so bad.

This picture is compliments of Grouchy Old Cripple, a blogger in Atlanta who makes me sound like an NPR disk jockey.

samizdata.net

The Samizdata website has been running a "quote of the day" almost since it came into existence. Reading them all at once is like too much candy, but try a few anyway.
"Samizdata" is a reference to the secret publishing of banned literature in the U.S.S.R. These people are beyond brilliant. Plus, they make me look like a Socialist.
Slogans/quotations Archives Samizdata.net

Extraordinary Rendition, Part 2

Sunday Forum: Two problems with torture
This is from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and ties in somewhat with my previous post on torture. Worth Reading. The author, Stuart Herrington, is a retired Army Colonel and interrogation expert.
He doesn't have to tie his argument to any movie plots (see link to previous post) or Harvard professors.

Bad Traffic, In Perspective

This is what Robert Crump, one of our new employees, had to drive through in Iraq. This gives a new perspective to all the problems we have with Central Expressway, 635, the Fort Worth Mixmaster, or South Hulen.

Blessing of The Bikes

My friend David Mallette captured the front page of the early Sunday Star-Telegram, and was front page of the travel section in the regular Sunday section. He wrote a great article about motorcyle road trips around the Fort Worth area - St. Jo, Marble Falls, and all over Arkansas.
Star-Telegram.com 10/21/2007 Heaven on wheels

The link above has complete info on the best routes, best places to eat, and which spots are biker friendly.
David is the only person I know who would talk a security guard into allowing motorcyles onto a pedestrian walkway so he could get the perfect picture of Christ of The Ozarks blessing his bike. I'm sure that David is a great person to ride with, in spite of his fear of slippery slopes.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Alan Dershowitz, and Extraordinary Rendition

I saw "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" this afternoon. Good movie. It's a 7 on the 10 scale. But instead of focusing on Elizabeth's continuing to learn how to run a country and the defeat of The Spanish Armada, it concentrates on a romance that didn't happen with Sir Walter Raleigh. And Cate Blanchett's clothes.
Raleigh romance begins at court when he presents her with a couple of Native Americans, a box of pirated Spanish gold, some tobacky leaves, and a box of taters.
Then they go into a situation we know as The Babington Plot. Several (Catholic Sympathizing) conspirators try to win the release of the (Catholic) Mary Queen of Scots, overthrow the (Protestant) Elizabeth, and set Mary up as Queen.
They fail. Which gets to my point.
Elizabeth's spymaster, Geoffrey Rush, excuse me, Francis Walsingham, gets his hands on some of the captured plotters. He knows there is a plot to overthrow the English government. He knows the (Catholic) Prince Phillip of Spain is probably involved. He knows there are other plotters running around loose, waiting to assassinate the Queen.
I'm going off Movie History here. Possible mistakes in my timeline.
Spain could be sailing over for an attack, with "the Inquisition in the bowels of their ships". Thousands of English subjects will die. Walsingham needs information from the captured plotters, and he needs it fast.
There's a torture chamber in the dungenon. What would you do?

This is the situation that Harvard Law's Alan Dershowitz was pondering shortly after September 11. There's a ticking time bomb set to go off in a major U.S. city. We've arrested people who know the location of the bomb, but they aren't talking. What do we do? He floated an idea called a "torture warrant", an idea that rightfully sent much of the free world into a tizzy. (see link above.)
So the bomb is ticking. What should we do?

What we do now is known as Extraordinary Rendition, i.e. the U.S. doesn't torture, but we have friends who do. We haul the suspects to Saudi Arabia.
We outsource it, a process that probably started with (ahem) the Clinton Administration. Here's a quote from Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies":
Snatches, or more properly "extraordinary renditions," were operations to apprehend terrorists abroad, usually without the knowledge of and almost always without public acknowledgement of the host government.... The first time I proposed a snatch, in 1993, the White House Counsel, Lloyd Cutler, demanded a meeting with the President to explain how it violated international law. Clinton had seemed to be siding with Cutler until Al Gore belatedly joined the meeting, having just flown overnight from South Africa. Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides for Gore: Lloyd says this. Dick says that. Gore laughed and said, "That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass." (pp. 143-144) excerpt thanks to Tigerhawk
What Dershowitz has proposed makes a lot of sense.

We're doing this stuff already. Like it or not. And it's being done with absolutely NO accountability. It should at the very least require some type of warrant, as in the Alan Dershowitz suggestion.
There's yet another movie out on this subject, simply called Rendition. The reviews aren't good. I hope that doesn't kill the discussion.

Robert Crump brought back 450 photos from Iraq and I posted this one first

Here's an Iraqi scorpion on a dollar bill. Photo compliments of Private Robert Crump, U.S. Army, now with us in Fort Worth TX.

Oral R.U. Without Dick ?

Oral Roberts University may lose Dick "Richard" Roberts, the current university president.
A THREE-RING CIRCUS
Three instructors have been fired, there are allegations that current ORU first lady Lindsey Roberts likes 'em young, that money has been misplaced, and that documents have been shredded. The University comptroller has been fired. In a faith-healing gone bad, three blind men were made lame.

Oral Roberts, the university's founder, started his career with small tent revivals and faith healings. This grew to a multi-media empire, including radio, TV programs, and Oral Roberts University. Because of a unique fund-raising vision of a massive Christ, Roberts also inspired one of the great rapper names: MC 900ft Jesus

My first exposure to these clowns was through my grandmother. She had been crippled by a severe stroke, and lived with us most of the time. I can remember her watching this charlatan's TV programs, and watching Roberts "heal" shills from the audience. "I just wish I had that kind of faith," she would say, after Roberts would shriek that her illness was still with her because of her unbelief.

This is from the Associated Press article that ran in the Startlegram:
Oral Roberts, who lives in California, said last week that the allegations against his family had blindsided him, "but we have been through some tough experiences in building Oral Roberts University in the 1960s, and we have surprised them all and have built a university that we believe is for the glory of God."
The Roberts family ministry grew from Southern tent revivals to one of the most successful evangelical empires in the country, hauling in tens of millions of dollars in contributions a year. The university reported nearly $76 million in revenue in 2005, according to the IRS.
The elder Roberts founded the school, known for its 60-foot-tall bronze sculpture of praying hands, in 1963. He famously told viewers in 1987 that God told him to raise $8 million for the university or he would be "called home."

There is a "Scandal Vulnerability Assesment" document tied to the lawsuit brought by the three dismissed instructors. Scandal Vulnerability? As if there's a side to these goobers that's remotely ethical? How would you go about looking for an Oral/Richard Roberts scandal? They're Faith-Healers, for heaven's sake. You couldn't throw a stick at ORU without hitting a scandal. If I'm a Whited Sepulchre, these guys are Gleaming Charnel Houses.

In a recent statement, Richard Roberts told a congregation that "God told him to deny the allegations". Would he have not done so otherwise?

Addition on November 23, 2007.....Click here and here for updates on the Oral Roberts University mess and a related mess.

And for the final comment I intend to make on these clowns, click here to read about Richard Roberts' pitiful resignation. And a few more comments about Big Daddy Oral not having the faith necessary to get off his deathbed and walk.

Jeff Jacoby Responds

Yesterday, Jeff Jacoby, Libertarian Demigod and Op/Ed journalist for The Boston Holy Globe, graciously responded to my "Public Schools, Private Schools, and Carl Carter" post. He had written a column in The Globe deploring the government's near monopoly in education. I loved the article and linked to it, but with a lengthy caveat that a little Guvmint intervention was for the best - they forced school integration in the 60's, for instance, correcting a grossly unjust situation.

Jacoby's email was polite, but devastating. This was the key sentence....

But just remind me -- who was it that segregated the A. W. James Elementary School in the first place?

It was, ahem, (cough, cough) The United States Government. The aspects of education they were best at repairing were the parts they had screwed up.

And that's why he's published through The Boston Holy Globe, and I'm published through a company laptop. I'll try not to depart from proper small government principles ever again.

The Whited Sepulchre, having been spanked, regrets the error.

Public Schools, Private Schools, and Carl Carter

My first 12 years of education were almost totally segregated.
Carl Carter, my 2nd grade classmate, and whose family had the courage to integrate A.W. James Elementary school in Drew, Mississippi, has been the subject of a history book, "Silver Rights", and a children's book "The School is not White". Can a movie be far behind?
Carl was the only minority in my 2nd grade class. His mother had decided that he and his sisters were going to have the best education possible. Tradition be damned. Carl Carter was our Jackie Robinson.
During my 3rd grade year, a 1st through 12th grade private academy was formed to circumvent the government's intent to integrate the public schools of the Mississippi Delta. White children left the public schools by the thousands. Carl Carter and a few of my white friends stayed behind.

I got a good education at the private academy. I got a great background in English, despite my tendency to use too many parenthetical expressions, commas, and cliches. (I read better than I write....) As a public speaker, I can usually hold a crowd's attention. Ruby Sue Issa taught us a lot more than history in our Social Studies classes. My faults are not because of my school or my teachers.
But even as a middle-schooler, I knew something was wrong. At one point, I sat down with my parents and discussed transferring to the Public School. I told my parents that the private school just wasn't right. I didn't say it was evil, I didn't say segregation was wrong. I didn't have the ability to articulate what I felt. I simply knew that something wasn't right. But then I talked myself out of transferring, simply because it was unheard of.
We weren't too upscale, but if your parents had the money and you were white, you went to the private academy. By the time I graduated, I was once again totally comfortable with the place.
Then one of my sisters went through a similar phase. She tried a different academy, hated it, and came back.
When my youngest sister started making the same noises, my folks decided to move to a town with good public schools. The schools happened to be integrated. My sisters and brother weren't bitten by anyone.
(My old school has since re-invented itself as a "Christian" academy. I hope they will find a way to integrate the place sometime soon. After all, it's 2007, and there's no shortage of minorities there to use as integrators....)
Then, having moved to Texas, I found myself with a daughter who needed educating, and sent her to a (barely) integrated church school through grade 6. My mother thoroughly enjoyed the irony of my kid attending a private academy. For middle school, she was in an integrated charter Arts school. High school has been the traditional public school. (But not the high school in my own beloved funky East Side neighborhood. That school is a Gladiator Training Center. I might be extremely liberal on some issues, but I ain't stupid.) Various strings got pulled to get her into the best public high school in the area, a public school that is nowhere near my house. I'm both happy with the decision, and proud of it. We didn't move to a White-Flight suburb.

Wait a minute....

Where the heck was I going with all this? My intent was to sit down and write a brief intro to the link below, which is a great Boston Globe article about keeping the Government out of the schools as much as possible. See below......But then I led off with Carl Carter and his family.
Don't leave educating our children to the government - The Boston Globe
I hope you read Jeff Jacoby's article.
Before I started writing this, I agreed with the whole thing. Now, I still agree with individual sentences, and most of the paragraphs, but I have to rein in my Libertarianism there. I can't agree with the entire article.

I still hate the idea of an educational monopoly. Or any other monopoly.

I think bi-lingual education is a joke. (No matter how little money I have, I'll always be able to pay some unfortunate victim of bilingual education to mow my yard.)

The overall public school expense to society, as comparated to a private school, is ridiculous.

But Jeff Jacoby erred in this article when he didn't give the government a slight tip of the hat for integrating A.W. James Elementary school. It wouldn't have happened any other way, and Carl Carter's life would have been immeasurably impoverished without the government's intervention. (But if I still lived in Mississippi, would I now avoid A.W. James Elementary as a "Gladiator Vo-Tech", like my parents did?)

It's funny what you can remember when you sit down and start typing.

(That sentence would have been a nice sentimental ending to this post, wouldn't it ? But I can't resist throwing in this....Jimmy Carter and I sent our daughters to Public Schools. Bill and Hillary didn't. Therefore, they're racist Arkansas Hillbillies. There. That feels better.)

Hong Kong and China

H.D.S. Greenway column on Hong Kong during China's Cultural Revolution - The Boston Globe
writes about Hong Kong becoming one of the wealthiest places on earth, despite being a relatively small rock surrounded by water, while China had an abundance of resources and starved it's people.....
A similar comparison can be made to Taiwan and China - The two nations had similar demographics at the end of WWII. Same people, same language, and similar culture. Taiwan was a relatively small rock surrounded by water. Taiwan prospered. China stagnated. (It didn't hurt Taiwan when the Chinese Nationalists took a huge chunk of China's gold reserves with them when they escaped to Taiwan. But it didn't help for that long, either....)
But many still see Collectivism as pure and holy, and Capitalism as evil. How can anyone look at the history of the previous century and still buy into that?
Hong Kong doesn't have the space to continue producing more and more wealth for it's citizens. China could eventually match Hong Kong in quality of life, if it doesn't pollute itself to death trying to catch up too quickly. One million people a month are moving out of poverty since China's opening of the first four Free Enterprise Zones in the 1980's. (Guess where people scrambled to live?)
I look forward to the day when they bulldoze the tomb of Chairman Mao and put up a Pizza Hut.

What Ann Coulter Got Right. Or Didn't.

Here's a different perspective on the latest Ann Coulter eruption. It's from a Jewish blogging duo calling themselves The Hedgehog Blog - one writer is apparently kosher and the other isn't....
http://hedgehogcentral.blogspot.com/2007/10/ann-coulter-is-not-anti-semite-shes.html
Their post, along with emails from friends, made me start thinking about all the extreme opinions I've read this week about Coulter.
For those who aren't aware of the Coulter Controversy because they didn't use TV, radio, newspaper, internet, or telegraph in the last week in an effort to decrease their carbon footprint, click here for the most concise summary that I could find. Video included.

There are several "Christian" ways to look at Coulter's statement that "Christians want Jews to be perfected", and her assent to the statement that America would be better if it were a Christian nation....

1. There's the easily stereotyped ultra-fundamentalist Christian point of view: the Jews can be lumped in with all other non-believers, like Muslims, Buddhists, Agnostics, Atheists, and members of The Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster, who have rejected Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. Ann Coulter is wrong. The Jews aren't even "imperfect" Christians, and their status as God's Chosen People gets them nowhere - Jews who don't convert are going to hell.
2. Moving a couple of clicks over on the continuum gets the theological traveler into Ann Coulter territory - there are evangelical Christians who believe that the Jews were God's Chosen People, but unfortunately they rejected Christ. Christianity (God's current ideal for humanity) is an outgrowth of Judaism (a failed prototype), and therefore Christians are "Perfected" Jews. Observant Jews who follow the Old Testament Law (see the Coulter interview) can still get a free pass if they're super cautious. They might not go to hell.
3. Then there are embarrased but still borderline evangelical Christians who might honestly claim, if pressured, that the Jews aren't "saved". If they've even thought about the issue outside of their church. Once these Christians get outside of pulpit range they are embarrased by the Coulter episode, much like they were embarrased by Southern Baptist Convention President Bailey Smith's 1980 statement that "God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew". These Christians have been socialized, think of themselves as tolerant, perhaps belong to Country Clubs, and have never been filmed in an end zone holding a "John 3:16" sign. Ann Coulter isn't right or wrong, (who can make sense of all this preacher stuff?) but she is merely guilty of bad manners - she brought up religious issues in a political setting. (Incidentally, the Bailey Smith quote was later amended to include "God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew, except the prayer to be saved." This way all the Jews might not go to hell.)
4. The Mainstream Protestants are next. Many of them aren't even aware of the New Testament scriptures that motivate the Christians in groups 1 and 2. Most of their ministers will soon write editorials or preach sermons deploring Ann Coulter for racism, insensitivity and anti-semitism, but in reality condemning her for airing the old Family Secrets in public. There probably isn't a hell for the Jews to go to. Or anyone else.
5. Then comes the Progressive Christianity Outpost point of view. These are people whose Christian experience has been strongly tied to social ministries: they feed the hungry, shelter the homeless (as Jesus instructed) and they fret about social justice. Deep down, they know there isn't a hell, but wish God made one so Ann Coulter could go there.
6. I'm intentionally cutting short any amateur projections of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox viewpoints. I've not seen that much written by them about Ann Coulter and the Jews. Both churches have a long, long anti-semitic track record, and might be lying low. But I suspect they're collectively giggling and congratulating themselves for not producing an Ann Coulter.

The question is this: If a Christian belongs to groups 1, 2, and 3, he or she seems obligated to spend every waking hour converting everyone possible. Jews, Muslims, and everyone else. We spend a brief flicker of time on earth, and then there's eternity, right? The fate of unperfected billions of souls depends on the beliefs they develop during this brief flicker. If Jesus was the divine Son of God, Christians shouldn't waste a minute watching Super Bowls, working at real jobs, shampooing dogs, or educating their children. It's all about eternity and who gets to be perfected. Shouldn't groups 1, 2, and 3 (if that's the way the world works) be more unashamed, like Ann Coulter? Or do they not really believe it?

But aren't groups 4 and 5 trying to have it both ways if they condemn Ann Coulter? After all, what she claims to know about God's abandonment of the Jews and salvation, she learned from the story and teachings of Jesus. What does Ann Coulter not understand?