JihadWatch posts a video of Hamas fighters (sic.) using their own children as human shields here. And one wonders why Israeli forces blow up innocents in Gaza.
Golda Meir said it best: "We can forgive you for killing our sons, but we can never forgive you for making us kill yours."
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Clear Sighted Czech Cardinal Speaks Out
Cardinal Miloslav Vlk, the head of the Czech Roman Catholic Church, is adamant that behind the failure to adopt the euro-treaty is the absence of what Europe feels natural about - Christian values.
[ ... ]
Demographically dying out, Cardinal Vlk expects Europe to become markedly more Muslim in the 21st century because of the low fertility of Europeans the majority of whom are non-believers. It is a well-known fact that countries that are secularized reproduce more slowly than countries that are more pious.
"Muslims in Europe have much more children than Christian families. That is why demographers have been trying to come up with a time when Europe will become Muslim," Cardinal Vlk claimed.
While European Muslims are living their religion, Europeans are "pagans, as they do not respect their religion". To face the danger of dying out, Europe needs to install a program of spiritual rehabilitation.
"If we do not restore Europe in terms of Christian values, we will surely die out," Cardinal Vlk said.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Review - Aristotle at Mont Saint-Michel
Thomas F. Bertonneau reviews Sylvain Gouguenheim’s "Aristote au Mont Saint-Michel: Les racines grecques de l’Europe Chrétienne" in The Brussels Journal. He quotes from Gouguenheim:To proclaim that Christians and Muslims have the same God, and to hold to that, believing thereby that one has brought the debate to its term, denotes only a superficial approach. Their Gods do not partake in the same discourse, do not put forward the same values, do not propose for humanity the same destiny and do not concern themselves with the same manner of political and legal organization in human society. The comparative reading of the Gospel and the Koran by itself demonstrates that the two universes are unalike. From Christ, who refuses to punish the adulterous woman by stoning, one turns to see Mohammed ordaining, in the same circumstances, the putting to death of the unfaithful woman. One cannot follow Jesus and Mohammed.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Mark Steyn - Gaza Rocket Science
The inestimable Mark Steyn on sharp realities in Gaza:
Read all …
So how was your holiday season? Over in Gaza, whether or not they're putting the Christ back in Christmas, they're certainly putting the crucifixion back in Easter. According to the London-based Arabic newspaper al Hayat, on Dec. 23 Hamas legislators voted to introduce Sharia – Islamic law – to the Palestinian territories, including crucifixion. So next time you're visiting what my childhood books still quaintly called "the Holy Land" the re-enactments might be especially lifelike.
The Scimitar and Cancer
One "Sultan Knish" relates that, [ht: IBA]
99 percent of Muslims are Muslims because their many times over great-grandfather was living in a village someplace when a group of men with swords marched in, and declared that they were all going to become Muslims now, or die horribly. Unless he was smart enough to get on board by being one of the men with the swords, and take home his share of the loot and slaves.
Today these people would be known as Muslim extremists. Back then they were just known as Muslims.
Spotlight on the Students
Mercatornet contributor Kevin Ryan hits the educational reform nail neatly on the head by failing to regurgitate hackneyed ideas.
Smarter teachers? More parental involvement? More computers? Better assessment? Healthier lunches? Nope. Try harder-working kids.
Smarter teachers? More parental involvement? More computers? Better assessment? Healthier lunches? Nope. Try harder-working kids.
The problem is our children are addicted to pleasure. They have become the new Lotus Eaters. Over the last forty years, young Americans have drifted along in a corrupting culture that has made few demands on them. They wallow in a wrap-around world of instant gratification. They have no chores or work at home and no parents teaching them how to self-discipline themselves and how to work. Once they reach the age of, say, twelve or grow over five feet tall, teachers have little or no authority over them. Since school failure has so few consequences, kids can sink to whatever level they choose and still hang around in school to be with their friends.
Americans have evolved a unique children-raising process, based on the pleasure-principle. Parents are eager dispensers of happiness and strain to be their children’s best friends. Teachers have been reduced to nurturing guides, devoid of real clout. This youth culture of low expectations simply isn’t working. Children aren’t built for pleasure. They are built for challenges and growth ...
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Scimitar Hatred, Defense, and Chivalry
As Pam Geller noted at Atlas Shrugs, the pro-Hamas rallies show the distinguishing irrational hatred for Israel - the neighborhood bully, as Bob Dylan rightly observed. The Scimitar ghoulishly parades the dead children of a senior Hamas leader, while the MSM forgets that the raison d'être of the Scimitar, in true model/rival doubling so well explicated by Girard, is the destruction of their seethingly loathed model: the Jewish people and state of Israel.The fact of the matter is, the Scimitar is and ever has only been an historical johnny-come-lately to the biblical faiths of Judaism and Catholicism, is and ever shall be a model-rival of the same, and constitutes itself over against the biblical faiths of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
As such, it will continue incessantly seeking the destruction and annihilation of the biblical peoples and faith till ... till when?
Israel and the West face a rising sea swell of mimetic rivalry and hatred. From what, or who? The answer is the primitive sacred, in the twin-pincers of neo-paganism, the cancer of a depleted West, and the Scimitar. Therefore, it is crucial to remember that the Catholic faith teaches the need for response. The best of Christendom must be used: measured, proportionate, sometimes regrettable, but always needful legitimate defense and chivalry.
Sunspots Again
Investors Business Daily reports what Chronicles has already noted; namely,Global thermometers stopped rising after 1998, and have plummeted in the last two years by more than 0.5 degrees Celsius. The 2007-2008 temperature drop was not predicted by global climate models. But it was predictable by a decline in sunspot activity since 2000.
When the sun is active, it's not uncommon to see sunspot numbers of 100 or more in a single month. Every 11 years, activity slows, and numbers briefly drop near zero. Normally sunspots return very quickly, as a new cycle begins. But this year, the start of a new cycle, the sun has been eerily quiet.
The first seven months averaged a sunspot count of only three and in August there were no sunspots at all — zero — something that has not occurred since 1913.
According to the publication Daily Tech, in the past 1,000 years, three previous such events — what are called the Dalton, Maunder and Sporer Minimums — have all led to rapid cooling. One was large enough to be called the Little Ice Age (1500-1750).
The Little Ice Age has been a problem for global warmers because it serves as a reminder of how the earth warms and cools naturally over time. It had to be ignored in the calculations that produced the infamous and since-discredited hockey stick graph that showed a sharp rise in warming alleged to be caused by man.
Epiphany
Before we get too far from the miracle of the Incarnation, here is one last glimpse at the tremendous job that the Franciscans do for Christendom in maintaining their Custody and welcoming pilgrims to the place of Our Lord's birth. The Shrines of Bethlehem - let wise men and women come adore Him. [ht: Spirit Daily]
Kaplan - Greek Riots
Robert Kaplan (Balkan Ghosts) says, do you want to look into a crystal ball? Pay attention to Those Greek Riots.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Ominous Yellowstone II
U. S. News & World Report tells more about the seismic activity at Yellowstone National Park. In the article, it relates that Bill Bryson interviewed Yellowstone geologist Paul Doss about the supervolcano's last eruption for the book, A Short History of Nearly Everything:(Bryson) asked him what caused Yellowstone to blow when it did.
"Don't know. Nobody knows. Volcanoes are strange things. We really don't understand them at all. Vesuvius, in Italy, was active for three hundred years until an eruption in 1944 and then it just stopped. It's been silent ever since. Some volcanologists think that it is recharging in a big way, which is a little worrying because two million people live on or around it. But nobody knows."
"And how much warning would you get if Yellowstone was going to go?"
He shrugged. "Nobody was around the last time it blew, so nobody knows what the warning signs are. Probably you would have swarms of earthquakes and some surface uplift and possibly some changes in the patterns of behavior of the geysers and steam vents, but nobody really knows."
"So it could just blow without warning?"
He nodded thoughtfully. The trouble, he explained, is that nearly all the things that would constitute warning signs already exist in some measure at Yellowstone. "Earthquakes are generally a precursor of volcanic eruptions, but the park already has lots of earthquakes-1,260 of them last year. Most of them are too small to be felt, but they are earthquakes nonetheless."
Thursday, January 1, 2009
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