What's wrong with a private Christian Dorm?

Today, as reported in the State Journal, there was a ground-breaking ceremony for a new private dorm for the UW. This particular dorm is going to be a part of the Pres House and run by the Presbyterian Church. Most intelligent, clear-thinking people see nothing wrong with this and even think it is a good thing for the Campus.

Annie Gaylor, from Freedom From Religion, is not one of those people.

Apparently, she thinks that a privately funded and run dorm is still a bad thing if it happens to promote religion and faith.

"It creates walls between students, this idea that they need to be
protected from the real world and cocooned together," Gaylor said. "Is that really why you come to a university, to be with people like yourself?"

Funny, I thought that you go to a University to get a quality education so that you can become a productive member of society. The idea that having a dorm where students of a particular faith or conviction is going to create rifts within the student community is ridiculous. By that logic, we should do away with all student orgs that seek to identify groups that have things in common. In the real world, outside of college life, people seek out peers with common interests to associate with, so why is it wrong for Christians to do it? Would Gaylor also oppose the formation of a dorm for homosexuals or some other minority group because they too would be seeking out like-minded individuals and "cocooning" themselves from Campus life?

I want to know just what Gaylor is afraid that residents of the new dorm will protect themselves against. What does she think is so essential to life that they risk not being able to find on Campus here at UW?

Gaylor's comments are another example of arrogance by some on the left. It is an attitude of superiority over those who have a religious, namely Christian, faith. It is an attitude that I find offensive quite honestly. I find it offensive that Gaylor and others like her assume that because someone believes in God and admits it freely that there is something wrong or backward about them.

It is that type of attitude that runs counter to our University's ideals, not a group of Christians coming together in a spirit of faith and community.

Zarqawi confirmed dead

After escaping death and/or capture by Coalition and Iraqi forces multiple times he has finally been killed by an air strike... May he have the worst possible afterlife...

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/08/iraq.al.zarqawi/index.html

While I'm guessing the reaction of some insurgents will mean some revenge type reprisal attacks. Insurgent attacks from Zarqawi's faction of the insurgency likely will dip for a while until someone else steps up to the AQ Iraq leadership plate... Until then the international side of the insurgency will probably suffer in its effectiveness.

Overall though, since the conflict is basically Coalition forces and the Iraqi government vs. a hundred different insurgencies that also fight each other we will probably not see any dramatic changes in the level of the overall insurgency (since it is mostly home-grown and not AQ sponsored) after Zarqawi's death.

On the political side of things I'd expect a short term boost in Bush and Blair's poll numbers, and hopefully a bit more patience from the American and British public to stay the course until the Iraqi government tells us we are no longer needed.

I'd like to hear all of your reactions so pls post away…

Here are a few asshat reactions that I thought were disturbingly amusing on the BBC forum:

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thre...060608 112128

"I regard Al-Zarqawi's death as a great loss to the people of Iraq, this will mean the invasion of that country by US and UK continues. This mean that Iraq people will leave under US and UK colonisation for the entire life.

Romero Tshetshengwane, Pretoria"

"Strange. Bush's approval rating has plummeted to it's lowest ever and suddenly an Al-Quieda leader has been killed. VERY convienient

james nobody, weymouth, United Kingdom"

"...has the world gone mad? how is it justifiable to murder anyone? doesn't everyone have a right to a fair trial? and how many innocent children were killed in this air raid? the CIA seems to think they can kidnap and torture anyone they think might be a terrorist. what's next? i think Bush is the madman...and i say this as an american.

Kerry H, London"

We Shall Never Surrender

Around May and June of every year I always contemplate one of humankind’s darkest hours, which bore perhaps not coincidentally one of the greatest political orations of all time.

The day this oration took place was June 4^th, 1940. Its deliverer was the infamously drunkard, ranting, yet famously resilient Prime Minister Winston Spencer Churchill.

Most of the British Expeditionary Force and the French 7^th Army had just been miraculously evacuated from Dunkerque after France and Britain were dealt one of the greatest defeats in military history by a victorious Nazi Germany. It was not a question of if the rest of France would fall, but when… What was uncertain to the British public, however, was how their government would respond… In a speech to Parliament, Seventy-One years ago today, Churchill made brilliantly clear what the UK would never do and why. His immortal words are linked below…

http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/Dunkirk.html

UW Budget Solutions: Stick it to the Students

Once again the UW Board of Regents will be raising our tuition. This time at an average of 6.8% around the state. It may seem odd, but when I started at this University 5 years ago, my first tuition bill was only around $1,800. Now it's over $3,000.

What's most troubling, however, is not that our tuition is increasing, but the pathetic reasons why it goes up.

One Regent stated that when state aid goes down, tuition must go up. Excuse me? Why?

Why is it that the Board of Regents continue to take the easy way out? That's what they did. Rather than try and trim some fat off of the huge budget the UW System has, they simply pass the cuts on to us. Any large government bureaucracy has services or divisions that can be cut. I don't care what anyone says, I am sure that if the Regents really did their jobs they could find someplace to save a little money.

When private citizens or private companies see their salaries or revenues drop, they make tough decisions about what to cut from their expenses. They sacrifice to make ends meet. Only a government organization would be arrogant enough to pass the buck. It's time that the Board of Regents earned their pay and make some decisions about saving some money instead of spending it.

Bye Bye

That is all.