To the guy who came here looking for "bear homo gay penis" from Yahoo, you'll actually have to try a search that makes sense if you want results. I mean, were you looking for gay bears or what? I'm so confused.

But it happens to be untrue. The Afghan election worked so well that, there being insufficient bad news out of it, the Western media's doom-mongers pretended it never happened. They'll have a harder job doing that with Iraq, so instead they'll have to play up every roadside bomb and every dead poll worker. But it won't alter the basic reality: that the election may be imperfect but more than good enough.

OK, that's a bit vague compared with my usual psephological predictions. So how about this: Turnout in the Kurdish north and Shi'ite south probably was higher than in the last U.S., British or Canadian elections. Legitimate enough for ya?

But look beyond the numbers: When you consider the behavior of the Shi'ite and Kurdish parties, they've been remarkably shrewd, restrained and responsible. They don't want to blow their big rendezvous with history and rejoin the rest of the Middle East in the fetid swamp of stable despotism.

Naysayers in the Democratic Party and the U.S. media are so obsessed with Donald Rumsfeld getting this wrong and Condoleezza Rice getting that wrong and President Bush getting everything wrong that they've failed to notice just how surefooted both the Kurds and Shi'ites have been — which in the end is far more important.

Check out this leap of logic.

Pro-life license plates (more precisely, pro-adoption license plates) existing anywhere ever infringe on the free speach rights of Planned Parenthoot, even though they can get their own Planned Parenthood licence plates, because . . . well just because. SCOTUS seems to agree with this logic. So now SC must either withdraw the PL plates, or produce abortion plates . . . but there are no designs, because Planned Parenthood isn't actually interested in making any.

Welcome to the United States.

Apparently, the right to free speech doesn't apply to everyone.
Especially if you happen to be pro-life.

That's the lesson the Louisiana State University Students For Life
learned recently. You see, last weekend, in anticipation of the
anniversary of Roe v. Wade, they placed 4,000 crosses on the campus
parade grounds. (The 4,000 figure represents the average number of
unborn children killed per day by abortion.)

It was a nice, silent witness to the atrocity of abortion.

But even that is just too much for some people. Around midnight
Monday morning, a group of pro-abortion students vandalized the
display, destroying 3,000 of the crosses and using some of the others to
spell "pro-choice" on the grass. All told the vandals did over $9,000
worth of damage.

Amazingly enough, one of the university police officers saw them
doing it and ordered them to leave. But he didn't arrest them. One
wonders if he would have acted similarly had he caught them
spray-painting graffiti on a dormitory wall.

The perpetrators were later arrested and charged with criminal
mischief -- a misdemeanor. But is that enough? Richard Mahoney,
president of the St. Mary and St. Joseph Memorial Foundation and
owner of the vandalized crosses certainly doesn't think so. The cross is a
religious symbol, he noted to The Daily Reveille (the student newspaper of
LSU), and "defacing a religious symbol is a hate crime."

In an amusing exercise in rationalization, John Philip Morlier, one
of the perpetrators, wrote a letter to the Reveille, defending his
actions:

"I engaged in what I believe to be an act of free speech. The
crosses were planted in an effort to join a debate, conversation. By
removing from the ground and disassembling the crosses, I was voicing a
counter point. I know that my actions were rash; however, the statement
made by the crosses was rash, inappropriate, invasive and hostile."

Where to begin? I wonder if Mr. Morlier would appreciate my own
"counter point" if I were to scratch the word "Idiot" into the side
of his car? Probably not. And yet, that's the kind of reasoning he's using
here with his vandalism-as-genuine-debate argument.

But it gets even better. He goes on to try to explain why he wasn't
guilty of a hate crime... only to shoot himself in the foot in the
attempt:

"The crosses are not an invitation to engage in a give and take
debate on the issue, rather the issue is evasively hidden behind the most
powerful symbol in our community. Those crosses were a black and while
framing of a very complex issue veiled behind the threat of hell; a wood
and glue manifestation of the self-righteous, mislabeled 'Christian'
mentality that fuels itself off of the punishment it threatens or
administers to those that it persistently persecutes."

Did you catch his misstep?

When I first learned of the vandalism and the attempt to label it a
hate crime, I had my doubts. After all, the crosses were used in the
display to represent tombstones -- objects that have taken on a secular
value in our culture. Most likely, I thought, the vandals were reacting to
them as such.

But Mr. Morlier shows that this is not so, thereby surrendering his
single best defense. According to his own statement, he DID consider the
crosses religious symbols. In defacing them, he was acting against the
spiritual message he thought they communicated.

And that sounds like a hate crime to me.

I'll keep you updated on new developments in the story.

Have a great weekend,

Brian

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Or, starting on the wrong foot.

The Jews were unique among ancient peoples, Origen argues, because they were the only society that "displayed a shadow of the heavenly life on earth." "No other God but the one supreme God was venerated" by the Jews and idol makers were banished from Jewish society. As support for this view Origen cites Deuteronomy’s laws (4:16-18 and 11:19) against making graven images, and he praises the keeping of the Sabbath and the celebration of Jewish festivals because they provided leisure "to listen to the reading of the divine laws." From childhood Jews were taught to rise above "sensible" things and to think of God "not as existing in the sensible world but to seek him beyond material things." If one would compare the Jews to any other nation, "he would admire none more, since as far as it is humanly possible they removed everything not of advantage to mankind, and accepted only what is good."

Origen, of course, also says that there came a time when the Jewish way of life, which was confined to one people and one place, had to give way to a way of life that was adequate to other peoples and other lands. Yet even as he draws a contrast between the Jews and the Christians, he steadfastly maintains that the Jews are not to be placed in the same category as the idolaters, the pagans. In defending the worship of the one God, the chief goal of early Christian apologetics, Christian thinkers consider the Jews allies. This is a point of no little importance, for it suggests that even after the coming of Christ, on the matter of central importance, the spiritual worship of the one God, Jews and Christians are one.

When Pius XII died, the New York Times commended him for his firm stance against the Nazis and his sanctity. Now he's being condemned for his weak stance against the Nazis and his odiosity.

Bemporad concluded that it is extremely difficult to express judgments on Pius XII, given the extreme threats he had to face. "It was not clear who was going to win the war, and if the Church would even be able to survive."

He was echoed by another rabbi of the delegation, Moses A. Birnbaum of the Plainview Jewish Center in Long Island, New York: "Let’s not forget that Jewish groups praised Pius XII after the war." The Jews, he added, should stay out of the discussion about the possibility of his beatification.


* * *

But the chief rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, had indeed spoken out against the beatification of Pius XII a few days earlier.

Using as his launching point the new Vatican documents that had appeared in the newspapers, dealing with the Jewish children sheltered during the war by Catholic families and institutes – documents he defined as "horrible" – Di Segni told the news agency Apcom on January 11:

"The Church has every right to elevate to the altars whoever suits it. If anything, the problem is ours, because if the Church beatifies someone it is doing nothing other than indicating a model of spiritual perfection to Christians. Faced with a Church that identifies as a spiritual ideal a subject who has behaved in a certain way, we [Jews] can, as a consequence, also decide whether and how to engage in dialogue."

Hamilton, Ontario, Jan. 28 (CNA/CWNews.com) - Canadian archeologist Russell Adams, a professor at McMaster University, has recently unearthed evidence that points to the historical accuracy of the Bible.

Adams and his team of archeologists have found evidence of the existence of the biblical kingdom of Edom at precisely the time Scripture claims it existed. The evidence flies in the face of a common belief that Edom actually came into existence at least 200 years later.

According to the Globe and Mail newspaper, the group's findings "mean that those scholars convinced that the Hebrew Old Testament is at best a compendium of revisionist, fragmented history, mixed with folklore and theology, and at worst a piece of outright propaganda, likely will have to apply the brakes to their thinking."

The kingdom of Edom, mentioned throughout the Old Testament, and a continuous source of hostility for biblical Israel, is thought to have existed in what is now southern Jordan. The group made their discovery while investigating a copper mining site called Khirbat en-Nahas.

The Globe and Mail said the radiocarbon dating of the finds "firmly established that occupation of the site began in the 11th century BC and a monumental fortress was built in the 10th century BC, supporting the argument for existence of an Edomite state at least 200 years earlier than had been assumed."

The evidence is also said to suggest that the kingdom existed at the same time that David, who Scripture recounts as warring with Edom, was king over Israel.

Living the Christian life.

It is a remarkable thing for an American to see a group of young people come together to discuss the Christian reality so avidly and to work so hard in common to put it into practice. For young Catholic laypersons in America, opportunities to talk seriously about the faith with their peers—and not only to talk about it, but to join with them in learning to live it—sometimes seem few and far between. Parish youth groups and Newman Centers often emphasize "social justice" (or even just "socializing") so strongly that they spend only minimal time giving young people a chance to learn about the contemplative and sacramental riches of the Church, the interior life without which action is empty. There are many exceptions to this rule, of course; one thinks especially of all the renewal movements springing up in this country, movements whose members are extraordinary examples of enthusiasm and devotion, not to mention deep knowledge of the faith. In large part, though, youth organizations in America tend to present a vision of the Church as only a social institution, of Catholicism as more an extracurricular activity than an integrated way of life. The Church appears nonthreatening, useful, fun.

As a consequence, through no fault of their own, many young people do not understand the most fundamental truth of the Catholic life: that because of God’s presence in our midst, we are called to and enabled to achieve greater and greater holiness, and that such growth can really only take place in a community of faith, hope, and love, in which our lives are laid bare to one another and to God—a community that recognizes itself as part of the Body of Christ. More fundamentally, it seems many are afraid to acknowledge their need for God. What makes these young Poles such a good example is their growing understanding that there is no reason to be embarrassed by their neediness, their failures, their longing for fullness in God—as there is no reason to be afraid to use the gifts He has given. What they have learned, in fact, is that by sharing their very brokenness with each other, they are opening themselves to that fullness for which they long. In other words, they are becoming followers of Christ.

"With a larger turnout than in previous years, at least 250,000 pro-life advocates marched in Washington Monday for the annual March for Life."

That was with a "Wind Chill Advisory In Effect Until 10 Am Est Monday For The Washington Area, of 4°F (actual 19°F)," after a day-before storm had left 4-5" of new snow on the Mall and nearby streets.

*** By way of comparison, a flashback: "There are no official estimates of the crowd size as the National Park Service no longer tallies official crowd counts. However, CNN reported that Washington D.C. police estimated that 250,000 people participated in the pro-abortion march [on April 25, 2004]."

On that day, in the counterprotest, I was in a T-shirt and cotton blazer, with temps described as follows: "April 25, 2004: Cloudy, breezy, and very cool conditions persisted across the D.C. area all day. Temperatures struggled to reach 60 degrees." ***

Why is it that the avowedly secular government of Spain doesn't like being called what they describe themselves at. I'll never understand.

The Hebrew Scriptures use both the singular "eloah" and plural "elohim" to refer
to God, but the plural form is used far more often. (Gen 1:1) "In the beginning
God [elohim] created the heavens and the earth." God said, (Gen 1:26) "Let us
make man."

The rabbis explain this as an elegant way of speaking of God, something like
"the royal we." But it is a very weak explanation. The Shema, the central
proclamation in all of Judaism, declares: "Shema Israel, Adonai, Elohainu,
Adonai echod." (Deut 6:4) "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one [echod]
Lord." Adonai, often translated "Lord," is plural; it actually means, "my
Lords." Elohainu, "our Gods," is also plural. A literal translation of the Shema
would be, ". my Lords our Gods my Lords one."

Three mentions of God, followed by the word "one." A perfect representation of
the Blessed Trinity. The second mention of God, moreover, is Elohainu, "our
Gods," not Elohai, "my Gods," suggesting the Second Person, who would open
Torah to the whole world.

If the rabbis had believed in the Blessed Trinity, they would have used this as
exegesis to explain their belief. It is a valid form of rabbinic exegesis.

And the exegesis goes farther. Rabbinic tradition connects the three mentions of
God in the Shema with God's self-description in the midot, (Ex 34:6) "The Lord,
the Lord, a God merciful and gracious." Notice three mentions of God, together
with the indefinite article indicating a singular, "a God." Rabbinic tradition
also connects the Shema with the "thrice- holy" Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh in
Isaiah's vision of the seraphim, (Is 6:3) "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of
hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory," In Hebrew, kadosh kadosh kadosh
YHWH tzabaot."

Jews traditionally ascribe the "kadosh kadosh kadosh" to the Hebrew use of
repetition for emphasis. But in this light we may fairly ask whether it has an
additional layer of meaning: holy Father, holy Son, holy Spirit.

And what of (Proverbs 8:23) "Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the
beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when
there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been
shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth; before he had made the earth with
its fields, or the first of the dust of the world. When he established the
heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he
made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when
he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his
command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him,
like a master workman; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the sons of men." This sounds
to me like a second divine Person. Certainly it doesn't describe a mortal man.

Grr!

We need people who speak these languages for theology, philosophy, and history. Let's get our act together people.

Problem No. 1: The United Nations rejects the death penalty. Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has had little to fear in his trial on 66 charges, including crimes against humanity. He has used it as a stage to publicly ridicule adversaries and the court — secure in the knowledge that the worst that can happen to him is that he'll get a life sentence, without parole, if the court is in a hanging mood, along with good medical care and protection from the thousands of Bosnian Muslims who lost loved ones during the carnage and would like to kill him.

Problem No. 2: "The court feels like it has to allocate the punishments based on the degree of responsibility," explained Beth Van Schaack, who teaches international law at Santa Clara University School of Law. "So individuals high on the chain of command, who are giving the orders, the highest sentences are being reserved for them." That means: If the worst Slobo can get is life without parole, his generals will get a lesser sentence, and their lieutenants should face even shorter sentences. In the United States, all the top guns would get the top sentence. But thanks to our Betters in Europe and their rigid demand for proportion, a top aide who orders the murder of thousands can expect to serve less than life without parole, because you weren't king. The Hague's longest sentence to date — for genocide — was reduced from 46 years, and an appellate court reduced it to 35 years. As a result, prosecutors won't ask for a sentence exceeding 35 years for any killer of lower rank, even a colonel. How exquisitely fair.

And supremely foolish.

Van Schaack said this system guaranteed "higher sentences for the true architects."

If so, it also assures henchmen that they can butcher families and serve as little as three years.

Nina Bang-Jensen, of the Coalition for International Justice in Washington, believes the court does good work in bringing to light the atrocities so that they will not be forgotten. She noted, "Keep in mind that before these trials, or before Nuremberg, you were much more likely to find yourself in jail if you murdered one person than if you killed 10,000." Good point. (To the extent that the tribunal punishes strongmen and tells the story that muted voices cannot, it does good work.)

But when the tribunal trivializes the murder of thousands, it sends the wrong message. The Hague's emphasis on genocide transforms the very personal act of murder into an impersonal act of politics. It changes the focus from the faces of the victims to the frame of mind of the perpetrators. Indeed, the court rulings care more about what the defendants thought than what they did.

The munchkin has finally joined us in the dreary extra-uterine world. Yay!

Thanks to Z(ed) for the link. His connections with Buddha and Kong Fu Zi (Confucius for you western types) are the kind of ecumenism I like a lot.

I don't mean by that question to trivialize the issue of election fraud. In a nation that required a Voting Rights Act to ensure all of its citizens equal access to the ballot box, few things are more worthy of serious concern. Election fraud — whenever committed, by whomever and for whatever purpose — is a threat to our political system. If we the people lose confidence in the integrity of our elections, we lose pretty much everything.

And if I were convinced that was what moved Kerry to speak out, I'd happily support him. But it seems obvious to me after two months of conspiracy theories that what motivates Kerry and many other Democrats isn't concern over election irregularities in general, but concern over election irregularities that may have benefited the other party.

He's a politician, so maybe it's naive to expect anything else.

Still, the talk has become tiresome. In listening to party loyalists obsess over how the election was "stolen," I'm reminded of something a former colleague, a white guy from the South, once wrote about the Civil War.

"For years after the war," he said, "Southern partisans vainly re-fought the Civil War battles, particularly the crucial second day of Gettysburg, as if trying to get a different answer to a math problem."

San Francisco, Jan. 24 (CWNews.com) - Energized by speakers who proclaimed the right of women and all people to be free of abortion, nearly 8,000 pro-lifers walked along San Francisco’s waterfront on January 22 in support of women and of life today.

“Abortion Hurts Women” proclaimed the banner that young women held as they walked in front of a densely packed procession of women, children and men that stretched for more than half a mile. The walkers were led by San Francisco's Archbishop William Levada and included a number of female students from local universities including Stanford, Berkeley, and the University of San Francisco.

The rally and walk were held in the face of virulent opposition from the city’s elected officials, after the San Francisco board of supervisors condemned the Walk in a resolution and a news release issued in conjunction with Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice California. “The anti-choice minority might be emboldened by the climate in Washington, DC but they are not welcome here!” said statements issued by a coalition of abortion-rights groups. More than 1,000 abortion-rights counter protestors lined the Walk route and chanted and shouted at the Walk participants.

Should they? Yeah, if they don't someone else will get the market. Always cannibalize your own products. But is it part of a vendor lock-in strategy if they don't? I think not . . . more of an architecture, and to avoid the nightmare of supporting software on 20 different processors. That's my take anyway.

Thanks to Z(ed) for the link.

"No matter how long you have been here, you are a New Yorker the first time you say, That used to be Munsey's, or That used to be the Tic Toc Lounge.... You are a New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now."
--Colson Whitehead, The Colossus of New York

Our complainer is making a very basic logical errorish something, however.

He discussed several factors that could help explain the underrepresentation of women. The first factor, he said, according to several participants, was that top positions on university math and engineering faculties require extraordinary commitments of time and energy, with many professors working 80-hour weeks in the same punishing schedules pursued by top lawyers, bankers and business executives. Few married women with children are willing to accept such sacrifices, he said.

Dr. Hopkins said, "I didn't disagree, but didn't like the way he presented that point because I like to work 80 hours a week, and I know a lot of women who work that hard."

Why does she not like it if she agrees? Does not compute.

And it should prove to be contraversial, and right in the area of my interests.
--
In the latest issue (Feb. 2005) of First Things, Father Richard John Neuhaus reviews David Klinghoffer's new book, Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History. It's not on-line yet, but Fr. Neuhaus' review is well worth reading, so I thought I'd share a few excerpts:

". . . . The argument, in effect, is that Jews reject Jesus because they are already Jews, and the mark of being a Jew is that one rejects Jesus. This is quite unconvincing in its circularity. Christian thinkers, including Paul, viewed Christ and the Church as the fulfillment of the promise to Israel not because they were engaged in tit-for-tat exegetical disputes with Jews over what Klinghoffer recognizes are often ambiguous and enigmatic Old Testament prophecies. Christians early on, and very importantly in engagement with Greek philosophy, developed a christology that entailed an understanding that all of reality, including the history of Israel, finds its center in Christ who is the Word of God (the Logos), the image of the invisible God in whom all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell (Colossians 1), and, finally, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. These philosophical and theological developments, almost totally ignored by Klinghoffer, form the matrix with which the Church -- mainly Jewish in its beginnings -- understood Israel and its Scriptures. For the early Christians, as for Christians today, the person of Jesus Christ was revelatory also of the history and sacred writings of Israel, of which he is the fulfillment.

The Other Jews

"Klinghoffer is involved in an exercise of 'what if' counterfactual historical revisionism. In fact, the early Christians, both Jewish and gentile, made no secret of the Jewish grounding of their faith. The second century Marcion who pitted Christianity against the history of Israel was condemned as a heretic. Many pagans did deride Christianity as a 'Jewish sect,' which did not prevent its continuing growth. Moreover, those Jews who did not accept Jesus were themselves involved in reinventing Judaism after the destruction of the second temple in 70 A.D. It is not too much to say that there were two competing versions of the history of Israel that were presented to the world: what became known as rabbinical Judaism on the one hand and the Church on the other.

"The very title of the book, Why the Jews Rejected Jesus, is highly problematic. Scholars generally agree that in the first century there were approximately six million Jews in the Roman Empire (for some reason, Klinghoffer says five million). That was about one tenth of the entire population. About one million were in Palestine (sic), including today's State of Israel, while those in the diaspore were very much part of the establishment in cities such as Alexandria and Constantinople. At one point Klinghoffer acknowledges that, during the life of Jesus, only a minuscule minority of Jews either accepted or rejected Jesus, for the simple reason that most Jews had not heard of him. Some scholars have noted that, by the fourth or fifth century, there were only a few hundred thousand, at most a million, people who identified themselves as Jews. What happened to the millions of others? The most likely answer, it is suggested, is that they became Christians. What if the great majority of Jews did not reject Jesus? That throws into question both the title of the book and Klinghoffer's central thesis. The question can be avoided only by the definitional legerdemain of counting as Jews only those who rejected Jesus and continued to ally themselves with rabbinical Judaism's account of the history of Israel."

Polycarp

The first four chapters, "Building a Synoptic Theory", comprise nearly half the book and are devoted to Wenham's analysis of the Synoptic problem. He examines the relationship of each of the Synoptics to each other (devoting a chapter apiece on Luke's relationship to Mark, Luke's relationship to Matthew, and Matthew's relationship to Mark). In subsequent chapters, Wenham takes a look at ancient testimony to Matthew's Gospel followed by that of Mark's Gospel. A chapter discussing the date of Peter's going to Rome is then followed by one devoted to further considerable issues pertinent to Mark (e.g. Mark being the founder of the church of Alexandria, the controversial 7Q5 Qumran manuscript fragment, and the issue of eyewitness testimony in Mark). A chapter on the ancient witness to Luke's Gospel then precedes a chapter that examines how the Gospels were written. The penultimate chapter details the importance of oral vs. written Jesus tradition by the early church. Finally, in the concluding chapter, Wenham proposes a dating for the Synoptic Gospels based on his conclusions regarding the issues examined leading up to that point.

Wenham argues persuasively, based on the external evidence, that Matthew wrote first in Aramaic, followed by Mark and then Luke (this corroborates the conclusions drawn here on Tekton; see here). It is shown why the majority of the arguments favoring Markan priority are either flawed or equivocal, and that the internal evidence suggests that Matthean priority is at least as plausible. The author demonstrates in at least a couple of instances why Matthean priority would be more likely, though he concludes in the end that the internal evidence could reasonably lead in either direction. It is the external testimony of the church fathers which seems to tip the scales in favor of Aramaic Matthew being the first Gospel, rather than the internal evidence itself. A key assertion to Wenham's dating rests on the veracity of his claim that Peter first went to Rome soon after his escape from prison in about 42 A.D. He candidly admits that he is challenging the scholarly consensus when it comes to this issue, though he does note "Of the nine major works on Peter in English this century, seven have been quite disinclined to dismiss the old view" [147]. The author, building largely off the case argued near the beginning of the 20th century by G. Edmundson, peruses the evidence for this 25 year Episcopate of Peter in Rome. If the external evidence, based on archaeological findings and the writings of the early church, were all that we had to go on, I'd consider the impressive array of evidence presented by Wenham to render the matter settled in favor of the veracity of Peter's 25 year Episcopate.

"Our kids will try to convert your kids. Your kids will try to convert our kids. This we call ecumenism." -- Fr. Neuhaus.

"She almost almost almost almost had a point"
"But not quite"
-- Anonymous.

But not quite alive. I gotta go try to put out a fire (metaphorical and Catholic). Be back soon homies.

Scandalous. I might get kicked out! We're at this web site.

I'll be in CT for a few days retreating, so I won't be able to post much/respond to your lovely comments. TTYS!

The fact is, you don't need an invitation to a royal costume party to see vestiges of the culture of Jew-hatred these days. Much worse things than the sight of a tabloid celebrity wearing a swastika are available to be heard and seen in London, Paris, and in many other European and Asian capitals, not to mention the United Nations.

As a U.S. State Department study reported last week, anti-Semitism continues to plague Europe. In particular, the willingness of many in the European media and other members of its intellectual elite to demonize the State of Israel and foment hatred of Jews continues without much notice.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, traditional European anti-Semitism was spread to the Arab and Islamic world. But in the last few decades, immigrants from the Islamic world have become a bridgehead for Jew-hatred in Britain, France, Germany and other European nations.

But rather than focus on this virus, the same sources who howl about Harry have either downplayed the rise in anti-Semitism or become willing accomplices to a movement that seeks to delegitimize Jewish national identity and Israeli self-defense. For all of the condemnations of the famous prince, anger over slights to dead Jews is but cheap talk when it is not matched by fury at Islamist and Palestinian terrorism, whose end goal is the annihilation of the descendants of Hitler's victims.

Those who truly care about the memory of Jewish martyrs don't need Prince Harry or any other intellectually challenged British royals marring the Auschwitz anniversary with crocodile tears. The fact that the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center is pushing for Harry to go to Auschwitz speaks volumes about the failure of some of those who seek to represent Jewry to understand this problem.

Strangest thing you ever saw. Must see.

Rabbi Jack Bemporad, director of the Center for Inter-religious Understanding, said "No pope before John Paul II has ever done as much, or been so concerned to create fraternal relations between Catholics and Jews. ... Coming to the Vatican from all over the world, we rabbis say thank you!"

The Holy Father drew loud applause when he greeted his Jewish visitors by saying "Shalom!" He read the entirety of his own prepared remarks, in English, during the audience.

No, we don't even have a particularly religious president right now. We just have a particularly godless godless Left.

George W., in fact, has lately become more sensitive to secularist sulking than most of those predecessors. He has toned down the telling of his embrace of the born-again religion of the Methodist camp meeting. He first set liberal teeth on edge in the 2000 presidential debates when, in answer to a question, he identified Jesus Christ as his favorite "philosopher." (This irritated more than a few of his fellow evangelicals, who regard Christ not as a philosopher but as the unique Son of G-d.) When he goes out of his way now to reassure the blockheads who insist on misreading what he says, the president is careful to refer to the divinity in more or less neutral language.

He isn't quite as bland as Dwight D. Eisenhower, who, like generals will, imagined that he spoke to G-d as (at least) an equal. Mr. Eisenhower neatly summed up the prevailing Potomac piety five decades ago: "Our government makes no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith — and I don't care what it is." Presbyterian, Pentecostal or Hottentot, all same-same.

This is not far off par for our present day. "When an American president closes an address by saying 'G-d bless America,' " writes Michael Lind in Prospect magazine, "this is not a signal that the United States is about to become a theocracy. It is the equivalent of 'may the Force be with you.' "

Brilliant! It'll reduce prices at home and end the war on terror. What a great country.

Madrid, Jan. 19 (CWNews.com) - Although Spain's highest judicial authority has ruled that a proposed bill legalizing gay marriage is unconstitutional, the country's Socialist government said on Tuesday that it is going ahead with plans to vote the bill into law.

The ruling of the Judicial Authority Council is non-binding, but the ruling could open the door for quick legal challenges if the bill becomes law. The four judges of the council voted three to one against the bill. Justice Minister Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar said he would ignore the ruling which was "without legal basis." The bill is expected to pass easily through parliament despite the judges' ruling.

Jose Luis Requero, a member of the council, reiterated that marriage could "only be heterosexual." He said, "According to arguments I have heard (in support of same-sex unions), it would be impossible to argue why two brothers cannot marry, or why a man cannot marry many women."

Apparently they're merging Netware and Linux, so hopefully we'll get some of Netware's ease of use and kickass directory service along with the power of Unix . . . for cheap?

We'll see.

I was reading a Jewish/Catholic discussion group today, and people were asking how a SSPX mass could be valid but illicit, like, what that meant. It seemed pretty simple to me, but reading on a canon brought up the fact that this distinction appears almost nowhere outside of Catholic law. Is this true? Does anyone else know of where valid and licit, that is, legal, might not be equivlent?

It all makes sense to me, so confusing.

On this day in …

* 1840, during an exploring expedition, Captain Charles Wilkes
sights the coast of eastern Antarctica and claims it for the United
States.

* 1915, during World War I, Britain suffers its first casualties
from an air attack when two German zeppelins drop bombs on Great
Yarmouth and King's Lynn on the eastern coast of England.

* 1944, the federal government relinquished control of the nation's
railroads following settlement of a wage dispute.

* 1950, the People's Republic of China bestows diplomatic
recognition upon the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

* 1955, a presidential news conference was filmed for television for
the first time, with the permission of President Eisenhower.

* 1961, outgoing President Dwight D. Eisenhower cautions incoming
President John F. Kennedy that Laos is "the key to the entire area
of Southeast Asia," and might even require the direct intervention
of U.S. combat troops.

* 1983, Klaus Barbie, AKA the "Butcher of Lyons", the Nazi Gestapo
chief of Lyons, France, during the German occupation, is arrested in
Bolivia for his crimes against humanity four decades earlier. As
chief of Nazi Germany's secret police in occupied France, Barbie
sent thousands of French Jews and French Resistance members to their
deaths in concentration camps, while torturing, abusing, or
executing many others.

* 1999, a mere three weeks after California passed a law against
cyberstalking, Gary Dellapenta is charged with using the Internet to
solicit the rape of a woman who had rejected his advances.

Or so says the guy who made the film.

Or, sketchy econ.

Normative questions deal with what is better or worse. No theory can answer normative questions. Try asking a physics teacher which is the better or worse state: a solid, gas, liquid or plasma state. He'll probably look at you as if you're crazy. On the other hand, if you ask your physics teacher which is the cheapest state for pounding a nail into a board, he'd probably answer that the solid state is. It's the same with economic theory, as opposed to economists. That is, if you asked most economists which method of conflict resolution produces the greater overall wealth, they'd probably answer that the market mechanism does.

The bottom line is that economic theory is objective or non-normative and doesn't make value judgments. Economic policy questions are normative or subjective and do make value judgments — questions such as: Should we fight unemployment or inflation, should we spend more money on education, and should the capital gains tax be 15 percent or 20 percent? It's in the area of value judgments where there's so much disagreement among economists.

The problem with statements like these is that not everyone agrees on what economic theory actually is. We may be able to agree that a price in a certain town is thus, but to answer the why requires not math, but psychology, and that becomes murky water very fast. Caveat lector.

Captured

Freed

Earlier, Church officials in Iraq had been quoted as saying that they had received a ransom demand. Father Tetrus Mosei, the vicar general of the Mosul diocese, reportedly received a phone call on Tuesday morning demanding payment of $200,000 for the archbishop's release. Catholics in Mosul were collecting funds for the ransom payment when they heard that Archbishop Casmoussa was already free.

In Rome, Navarro-Valls said that the archbishop's abduction came as a surprise, in part because he is "very well liked by both Christians and Muslims."

Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, who heads the Chaldean Catholic diocese of Mosul (Archbishop Casmoussa is the Syrian-rite leader), suggested that the kidnapping was probably not motivated by religious issues. He told reporters that criminals in Mosul, taking advantage of the unrest in the city, have begun kidnapping prominent people to generate quick profits from ransoms.

Details of the archbishop's release are unclear-- as are the reasons why his abductors would have freed him without payment of ransom. But Msgr. Thomas Habib, an official at the apostolic nunciature in Baghdad, told the AsiaNews service that he had spoken with Archbishop Casmoussa personally. And Patriarch Emmanuel Delly, the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, reported that the archbishop was resting comfortably at home, unharmed.

Archbishop Casmoussa was seized on Monday afternoon, January 17, by a group of armed men who seized him on the street in Mosul, threw him into the trunk of a car, and sped off. The perpetrators of the kidnapping have not yet been identified.

Apparently Hitler tried to kidnap Pius XII and use him as a political chip, but the general he assigned didn't do anything. It thus seems rather unlikely that Pius XII was "Hitler's Pope" as people don't usually kidnap their friends, unless you mean that he was Hitler's Pope insofar as he was supposed to be in Hitler's basement next to Hitler's hot water heater.

Thank you Jimmy Akin for finding this stuff.

Because some guy thinks the site is disgusting and is reporting them to the authorities. Umm. Right then.

Who needs free speach when you can just threaten people you disagree with?

From St. Francis de Sales' sermon on the fourth Sunday of Advent, on Penitence -- a cautionary word to many book addicts in the blogosphere:

"The second reason [why people do not profit from the word of God] is 'spiritual avarice' by which we seek to obtain a great deal of knowledge and to amass a huge stock of devotional exercises. You will find some people who never tire of amassing new writings and instructions, all sorts of spiritual advice and information, and who nevertheless do not put any of it into practice! And what is that if not spiritual avarice, a truly serious fault in the devout life?

"You will find others who must always be hearing and seeing something new. To attract attention they collect innumerable books and create libraries that are wonders to behold. 'Poor creatures, what is the purpose in all that?' They will respond: 'Oh, we are practicing foresight in anticipating our future needs. When older, we can make good use of them.' 'Oh God! do you not realize that Our Lord strongly desired to remove such avarice and anxiety from His disciples' hearts and commanded them to live from hand to mouth and to have no anxiety about tomorrow (Mt 6:34)?

"Indeed, among the ordinances which God imposed on the children of Israel was the command to collect only a certain measure of manna [Ex 16:16]..."
Yesterday 5:49 PM

A fascinating look at Annan, the French, and the corruption in the highest ranks of the UN. Thanks to Sed Contra for the analysis (or the anal, as they would say in NYU econ).

While I have not been generally as strongly opposed to Kofi Annan and the U.N.as some folks have, and while I have continued to consume French cheese and wine (both excellent, too), I have stumbled nonetheless across two more reasons to dislike both the Secretary General and the French.

First, Annan. I am a little surprised that this is not more generally known, but back in January 1994, about three months before Hutu extremists got their tribesmen to slaughter their Tutsi neighbors and family members at a pace that surpassed the killing of Jews in World War II, Major General Roméo Dallaire, U.N. force commander in Rwanda, received an informant from among the extremists who laid out the whole plan and told him where to find arms caches which had been stored for the fighting and slaughter.

Dallaire, a Canadian, urgently cabled off a plan to the U.N. in New York to his boss, Kofi Annan. With a few of his troops, well armed and with surprise on their side, Dalliare's plan called for raids on the caches to blow them up and forestall the planned slaughter for at least a little time.

Annan's answer was not just no, but the worst sort of ill-thought out no. Frontline reported it.

Dallaire was told the U.N. didn't agree with his plan to raid the arm caches and furthermore, he must inform the president of Rwanda what he had learned from the informant, even though it was the president's own inner circle that was planning the slaughter of Tutsis.

The rest is a very sad and bloody history. Except for the addition that early in the slaughter ten Belgian peacekeeping troops were captured by the extremists, tortured and killed, a fact which led Belgium to pull its troops which is what the extremists had wanted after all.

According to Philip Gourevitch's landmark We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families, the Belgians had tried to investigate the circumstances behind the deaths of their soldiers, but not only had Annan refused to testify in the matter, he refused to let Dallaire do so.

So now it is more than a decade later. How precisely did this man move on to run the U.N.? Why didn't he resign and why didn't we demand he resign. What light does this knowledge place on his behavior in the disputes over Iraq before the war?

After my article about how an imam in England said that the suggestion that there could be such a thing as a Muslim terrorist was offensive, Z(ed) was quick to note:

Yeah but according to that there also can't be Catholic terrorists in England either! Let's bomb something!

I say, let's go for it. I got time.

Please give me a few moments to collect myself my dears.

If you missed this news story last year, you gotta read what he has to say. So very logical.

"A Plenary Indulgence is granted to all faithful and to each individual faithful under the usual conditions (sacramental confession, Eucharistic communion and prayer in keeping with the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff, with the soul completely removed from attachment to any form of sin), each and every time they participate attentively and piously in a sacred function or a devotional exercise undertaken in honor of the Blessed Sacrament, solemnly exposed and conserved in the tabernacle.

"A Plenary Indulgence is also granted, under the aforesaid conditions, to the clergy, to members of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, and to other faithful who are by law obliged to recite the Liturgy of the Hours, as well as to those who customarily recite the Divine Office out of pure devotion, each and every time they recite - at the end of the day, in company or in private - Vespers and Night Prayers before the Lord present in the tabernacle.

"The faithful who, through illness or other just cause, are unable to visit the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist in a church or oratory, may obtain a Plenary Indulgence in their own homes, or wherever they may be because of their ailment, if, ... with the intention of observing the three usual conditions as soon as possible, they make the visit spiritually and with the heart's desire, ... and recite the Our Father and the Creed, adding a pious invocation to Jesus in the Sacrament.

"If they are unable to do even this, they will receive a Plenary Indulgence if they unite themselves with interior desire to those who practice the normal conditions laid down for Indulgences, and offer the merciful God the illnesses and discomforts of their lives."

The Decree asks that priests, especially pastors, inform the faithful "in the most convenient manner" of these dispositions, prepare, "with generous and ready spirit," to hear confessions and to lead the faithful "in solemn public recitation of prayers to Jesus in the Sacrament." The faithful are likewise exhorted "to give open witness of faith and veneration for the Blessed Sacrament" as proposed in such acts as Eucharistic procession and adoration, and Eucharistic and spiritual communion."i>

# posted by Squach : 11:54 AM   |  0 comments