I learned today that Congressman Henry Hyde has died, and gone to meet his Maker.¹ Congressman Hyde once either said or wrote (I do not know which)

When the time comes, as it surely will, when we face that awesome moment, the final judgment, I’ve often thought, as Fulton Sheen wrote, that it is a terrible moment of loneliness. You have no advocates, you are there alone standing before God — and a terror will rip your soul like nothing you can imagine. But I really think that those in the pro-life movement will not be alone. I think there’ll be a chorus of voices that have never been heard in this world but are heard beautifully and clearly in the next world — and they will plead for everyone who has been in this movement. They will say to God, ‘Spare him, because he loved us!’²

I know that, if his thought be at all accurate, then surely the unborn spoke for him. I pray God that Congressman Hyde finds his rest in Heaven.

“This does not mean that we should never take action to prevent evil, or should sit back and wait for God to do something. It does mean that we should not panic, or become needlessly anxious, or jump to rash conclusions, which may cause more harm than good.” – Melinda Selmys¹

The “This” above refers to Christ’s command that we be not afraid.

Mr. Robert D. Novak believes that the only “true” conservatives are those who are for a small, limited government with a low tax burden.¹ He calls the “moral” or “social” conservatives “Republican acolytes,” and states that we are a “danger” if we support one of our own instead of a “conventional conservative.”²

I do not know if it is true or not to say that the commitment of the Republican party to the pro-family and pro-life is newer than its commitment to small, limited government. Nor do I think it really matters.

Mr. Novak is concerned the ex-Governor Mike Huckabee is not a “real” conservative because as governor of Arkansas he embraced the tax-and-spend policies that liberals are renowned for. This is, indeed, a very real concern.

But an even bigger concern is the way Mr. Novak dismisses the anti-family and pro-death stance of the more “conventional” Republican candidates. If they represent what it “really” means to be Republican, then I will have to take my vote elsewhere, and the split between “moral” and “economic” conservatives will only grow wider, for all that the family does in fact truly benefit from limited government and a low tax burden.

It is a real shame when we do not have a candidate that unambiguously supports both “planks” of the platform all conservatives should share. But until we do, I will have to work against the greatest evils, those that cost lives every day, even if progress on that front makes my finances more difficult.

That being said, the idea that the Templars became Free Masons is utterly ludicrous.

I just watch “National Treasure” for the first time tonight. While admittedly there were parts I more listened to than watched, that was more because I am addicted to Civilization style games than because the movie wasn’t good. Still, I am very confident in saying there was no sex scene in the movie, not all that much gratuitous language, and no gore. Pretty cool.

I hate Windows. I really really do. So I am particularly displeased that I spent part of Friday installing Windows 2k, only to find out that it is too old to be able to handle my processor, and so spent part of today installing Windows XP. All of this because 3ware is too lazy to port the program they wrote for getting the backplane lights to work correctly to either freedos or (better) linux. UGH. I was working with XP for all of 15 minutes (messing with drivers then running the utility) and even in that short period it managed to refresh my hatred of it.

Is that they effectively have no power. That is why even if former governor Mike Huckabee is chosen as the vice-presidential candidate for one of the pro-death candidates, which the Associated Press thinks likely,¹ the quandary I expressed yesterday² will remain in full force. I doubt picking Mr. Huckabee as his vice president will represent a true and substantial shift away from the pro-death, anti-family stance that Giliani represents, nor that Mitt Romney is really pro-life.

Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson has joined the list of candidates that I would have a hard time justifying voting for.¹ I am not sure that I can vote for a pro-choice republican, even as a vote against the democratic candidate who would be worse. I suspect it might be better, in the long run, if I were to vote instead for some 3rd party to help remind the republicans that they need “values voters” if they want to win elections.

The New York Times reports that there is a study released in the Journal of the American Medical Association stating that there are health benefits to being overweight.¹ Those classified as being “overweight” have a lower risk of death than any of the other 3 groups (”underweight,” “normal” and “obese”). Apparently such persons, at a Body Mass Index between 25 and 30, have a lower risk of death from some diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, infections and lung disease, that outweighs their risk of death from other diseases. These results apparently persisted even after factoring out smokers, which I am under the impression are the bulk of lung disease deaths.

Some researchers apparently think this means we should redefine “normal.” Others think that the differences in health short of death outweigh the likelihood of dying sooner. Go figure.