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Two UNC students were speeding down the highway
at well over 98 mph.

"Hey," asked the student at the wheel "Any cops following us?"

The other turned around and had a long look at the road behind them.

"Yeah, looks like it"

"Are his flashers on?"

The second turned around again...... Lemme see....
"Yup....nope....yup....nope....yup....nope....yup..."
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A note left for a pianist from
his wife: Gone Chopin, have
Liszt, Bach in a Minuet.
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This was funny. . not funny . . funny. . not funny. . !
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The Czechoslovakia Solution [Excerpts]

Has anyone ever considered that the Palestinians have no jobs because both
the Palestinian Authority and Hamas has squandered billions of dollars in
aid on weapons instead of building a financial infrastructure to provide
jobs for their people.

Why doesn't anyone face the truth? The main obstacle to improving conditions
for the Palestinian people is the Palestinian people. Specifically, their
overwhelming decision to elect Hamas to represent them as their government.

Hamas refuses to work with Abbas because it refuses any compromise that
doesn't lead to Israel's destruction.

[U.S. Secretary of State] Rice said she and Abbas had discussed ways to
"make possible a life for the Palestinian people that is not subject to the
kind of daily humiliations that we know have been associated with the
occupation. That is my program here." Hey! Let's get real. The main reason
the Palestinian people elected Hamas is because the Palestinian Authority
did not provide an economy either.

Rice's comments sound like Yasser Arafat had scripted them. "Daily
humiliations" associated with "the occupation"? What occupation? The only
territory under Israeli "occupation" is Israel. Israel unilaterally pulled
out of Gaza, forcing their own Israeli settlers out, and gave the
Palestinians free reigns over that territory. They showed their gratitude by
raining missiles down on every civilian target near enough to hit.

Recent moves by the U.S. Secretary of State have Israelis scratching their
heads in confusion. Noted a despairing columnist in the Jerusalem Post,
"Rice had previously insisted that Israel endorse the transfer of weapons to
Palestinian security forces to strengthen the PA. Although reluctant, Olmert
agreed to do so in May on the grounds that "'we need to help Abu Mazen.'"
Rice has announced that the U.S. will also fund the expansion of the Abbas
Presidential Guard from 2,500 to 6,000 troops. By any other name, the U.S.
has forced one "appeasement after another."

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52539
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The War of All Against All
Evolution and Altruism


November 28, 2006


In the new novel The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, an unnamed catastrophe has wiped out most of humanity. What remains is a colorless, lifeless shell where "long lines of charred and rusting cars," filled with incinerated corpses, sit "in a stiff gray sludge of melted rubber."

The survivors find themselves living in what Thomas Hobbes called "the war of all against all": scrounging for food while avoiding their fellow men, many of whom have turned to cannibalism.

Among the survivors are the unnamed protagonists of the novel: a man and his 10-year-old son who was born after the catastrophe. As the father tells his son, "I was appointed by God to [take care of you]. I will kill anyone who touches you."

At the same time, he wants to preserve his son's goodness, which is next-to-impossible in this post-apocalyptic wasteland. In the novel's world, the boy's survival depends on his father eradicating his altruistic impulses. The man must teach his son that being willing to "give that little boy half of my food" is a bad idea.

McCarthy's protagonist isn't the only one who has trouble reconciling our survival instinct with our capacity for altruism. As the philosopher David Stove pointed out, altruism—the willingness, that is, to sacrifice for others—is obviously disadvantageous in what Darwin called "the struggle for life." In a world where the goal is to pass on your selfish gene, helping someone else pass on theirs makes no sense.

While Darwin himself never acknowledged the difficulty posed by altruism, his acolytes and disciples did. Their responses led to the creation of the discipline known variously as "evolutionary psychology" or "sociobiology."

Whatever it's called, the evolutionary "explanation" for altruism is basically the same: It's really selfishness in disguise. When the son offers to give away half of his food, it's not goodness—it's a kind of enlightened self-interest. We do what we perceive as "good" for others so that they, in turn, might do the same for us and, thus, increase both of our chances for survival.

Of course, the transaction being described isn't "altruism" at all; it's called "cooperation." It's the stuff of zebras and baboons, both of which live in large groups for mutual protection and neither of which would knowingly sacrifice its life to save another's.

But in the Darwinian scheme, true altruism "has no place in nature." When you start from the assumption that our behavior is the product of "selfish genes," then you must agree with the sociobiologist who wrote "scratch an 'altruist' and watch a hypocrite bleed."

Little wonder that Stove called Darwinism, especially sociobiology, a "ridiculous slander on human beings." Darwinism not only cannot account for what is most essentially human—that is, things like altruism and music—it insists on denigrating them, as well.

In contrast, Christians understand that while we are born with the capacity for selfishness and even cruelty, we are also capable of caring for others. Because we are created in the image of God, we not only don't have to be at war with our neighbors, we can willingly die for them, as well.




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