I was reading Slate today and came across this link that gives some information about Indonesia's presidential election. I had heard some very interesting information about Gus Dur in the past. He came to the US for eye surgery a while back. I'll have to try to dig up my written recollection of the account I heard about him. His interaction with leaders of the LDS church was interesting to me. Too bad his presidency ended in impeachment!

Below is a note I sent to Joe Scarborough of MSNBC after a broadcast today.

=======================

Oh Joe!

You so seriously misspoke today that I had to write. You stated, in effect, that adults looking at pornography in the privacy of their own homes is their own affair. You couldn't be more devastatingly and deeply mistaken. Pornography is a poison in society and its effects are rarely contained by the body which consumes it.

John Harmer, a lieutenant governor to Ronald Reagan, has written a book titled "A War We Must Win" (Bookcraft, 1999) in which he recounts some of his legal battles against pornography and why he feels it is so damaging. It really opened my eyes to some of the legal angles of this battle.

Pornography is an addiction that destroys lives and families. The effects of this personal decay ripple out through our society. These effects are manifest in a greater welfare burden as families are destroyed and in the vilest crimes committed against the innocent. This is no personal decision!

I wish you'd help spread the message about the dangers of pornography. Society has been lulled by the message that every form of sex is a private matter. The undeniable truth is that, while the act is intensely private, the effects are public. A civil society has the right and the responsibility to reasonable regulation in these areas. These is too much at stake to ignore it for long.

The following talk given at a Brigham Young University conference on the subject describes the very real physical addiction of pornography.
http://www.byubroadcasting.org/secrets/transcript/cline_transcript.asp

The following talk, given at the same conference, describes the effect on families.
http://www.byubroadcasting.org/secrets/transcript/ulrich_transcript.asp

Both talks were given before a religious audience, but contain much information that will be very generally applicable. I hope that you'll choose to focus on this issue in future editions of your show. I sure do enjoy the work that you do!

Bradley Ross
Orem, UT

This interview is already a bit outdated, but I thought Newt had some very interesting things to say in his interview with C-SPAN. He is talking a lot about health care.

I do have one point of potential divergence with something he said in the first ten minutes of the interview. He talked about how much overcharging there is in the current healthcare system. Those that can pay (like those with insurance paying or with the government paying) tend to be charged more. This offsets the cost of those who can't afford to pay.

If we get to a system where people are able to self-audit their health spending (rather than having all payments made by an insurance company) the health care providers are still going to have to make the same amount of money to continue to pay the bills, so I don't think we will really see the massive reductions in costs Newt envisions. Instead, we will see poor people consuming less health care. I understand the benefits, but it is a tough pill to swallow.

Check your facts

I'm happy to be a regular subscriber to mailings from
www.factcheck.org. I ought to do a review of all of the documents they
have published thus far. My impression is that Kerry and his allies
(like MoveOn.org) seem to produce more blatantly false material. Is
that just my bias or is it the way things really are?