Separation of Church and State – With an Iron Curtain

Jack Kemp and Tim Birdnow

So how does state collectivism coexist with religion? Well, we – and the American Left – have the historical example of the Soviet Union’s suppression of religion as a lesson. It is a lesson for those that wish to avoid this from happening here – and also a lesson for those that want something similar to happen in America.

Tim Birdnow, in discussing Christianity under the Soviets, states:

“The Orthodox Church had always been under the thumb of the State - even in Tsarist times - and other religions were always disapproved. Also, the Russian People hated Catholicism because it was associated with invaders (primarily Poles and Lithuanians), so Catholicism could not act as a bulwark against the Communists as it did in Poland and, indeed, did in the West. Protestantism was largely unknown in Russia, being associated with Germans. It really was a matter of breaking the Orthodox authority and thus breaking organized religion there.

Russian Orthodoxy suggests it was more a religion run by the priesthood, and not very participatory. That is important, because it made the priests - who often lived better than the general public during Tsarist days and who were viewed somewhat as we view Federal bureaucrats - isolated from the public. As a result, the faithful may have believed as strongly as their Western cousins but didn't really care that much about the fate of the church itself. They had nothing to make them feel PART of it. So there was no public outcry when the Bolsheviks went after the priests and bishops, and once the structure of Orthodoxy was broken and put under the iron thumb the populace had no alternatives.

I am mindful of Stalin's boast "how many legions does the Pope have?" Stalin thought he held all the cards. How wrong he was! He tried to destroy faith in Russia, but simply drove it deeper into the minds, hearts, and spirits of his people.”
END OF QUOTE

And it should be noted that Stalin as a young man studied in an Orthodox seminary, so he understood more about the inner workings of Orthodoxy than the average Communist.

In “The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith” by Peter Hitchens, it states in
Chapter 13:

BEGIN QUOTE
Had their only concern been a need for a belief system that prostrated itself before them, the Bolsheviks did in fact have to handle the body known as the “Living Church” (see chap. 13). This group of collaborationists was composed of priests and bishops who were more than ready to place Orthodox Christianity at the disposal of the Council of People’s Commissars. But after having served the Bolsheviks by splitting and weakening the Orthodox Church, the leaders of the Living Church were arrested (and presumably murdered in prison, since no more was heard of them) in the early 1930s.
END OF QUOTE

As for the Soviet controlled “Living Church,” this is what The Orthodox Wiki has to say:
http://orthodoxwiki.org/Living_Church
BEGIN QUOTE
The Living Church (also called Renovated Church or Obnovlencheskaya Tserkov) was a theoretical, reformed "Orthodox church" set up in the old Soviet Union by the Bolshevik government after it confiscated all property of the Church of Russia. It was disbanded in 1943 when Stalin was desperate to bolster the morale of the Russian people in the Second World War.
This church had almost no following among the people, and a number of clergy who had been in the movement in good faith repented and returned to the Orthodox Church. The few who tried to exist in the state run church of the atheistic government were used by the state against those faithful to Patriarch Tikhon. The government knew the renovation (reformation) would cause division and weakening to government opposition. As the leader of the party said, "I will smite the shepherd and scatter the sheep," Patriarch Tikhon was arrested and isolated from the populace and the Church was given to the wolves. But even by the late twenties, it became of little use to the state.

The legacy of this movement, is that now all change is seen to be renovation of the faith. The Living Church used modern Russian, the revised calendar, and non monastic Bishops.
END OF QUOTE

This brings us to the next question: what about Judaism under Soviets? Although a different religion, it was a religion probably more despised by the atheistic Soviet regime, because of both Russian anti-semitism and the Communists and Secret Police members who came from Jewish families and wanted to destroy the observant practices and mentality of Judaism to create a “New Soviet Man.”

Peter Hitchens continues in Chapter 13:

BEGIN QUOTE

The same thing happened to their Jewish equivalents, the “Yevseksiy” [Jack’s NOTE: Also spelled Yevseksii] (Jewish sections of the Communist Party). These were wound up in 1929, their functionaries purged in 1937. In this case it is recorded that their chairman, Semyon Dimanshtein, was shot in captivity.
END OF QUOTE

By P. Hitchens saying the Yevseksiy was “wound up in 1929,” that means the Soviets disbanded the organization after:
http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/beyond-the-pale/english/43.html

BEGIN QUOTE

The Yevsektsii, the Jewish sections of the Communist Party, are the main instrument of the new government in applying the Marxist doctrine of forced assimilation.

SECTION OMITTED

The systematic attack of the Bolshevik government upon all organized religions also affects Judaism. The Yevsektsii close down synagogues and kheyders, confiscate religious books and objects, and conduct a campaign against rabbis, ritual slaughterers and other essential functionaries of Jewish religious and communal life. If they refuse to resign, they are arrested and deported.

The Yevsektsii also campaign against the Hebrew language. In their eyes, Hebrew is the reactionary language of the Jewish bourgeoisie, whatever its content, and has to be eliminated in favor of Yiddish, the language of the Jewish proletariat. Hebrew schools and printing presses are closed.

At the end of the 1920s, Hebrew becomes the only language which is officially outlawed in the Soviet Union. Jewish religious education is now impossible.

SECTION OMITTED

With the almost complete elimination of organized Jewish religious and communal life, the Yevsektsii have become redundant and are dissolved in 1930. During the Stalinist purges of the late 1930s, most of its members are accused of having had "nationalist tendencies," and are deported or killed.

END OF QUOTE

Conclusion:

Note the use of the terms like “deported or killed” in relation to the leadership of both the Russian Orthodox Church and the Jewish religion in the Soviet Union. In 1945, as the Red Army approached the Vistula River outside Warsaw, Stalin urged the patriotic, very Catholic and pro capitalist Polish Home Army to rise in revolt against the Nazis. To their shock and dismay, Stalin then refused to use his troops, planes or artillery to attack the Nazis as they destroyed the poorly armed Home Army guerillas. Stalin did this in order to destroy the last of the brave Poles of faith so that he could create a New Socialist Man and post war leadership coming from the religiously indifferent or atheistic proletariat.

In America, Bill Ayers and the Weathermen wanted to kill 25 million “die hard capitalists” (capitalists and believers in God are not mutually exclusive categories) http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/election/480 who wouldn’t comply with his New Socialist State. But it is perhaps more realistic to say that a “progressive” program of outlawing many religious practices, such as signs and mangers on church property, saying “Merry Christmas” or “Shannah Tova” (“Happy New Year” in Hebrew), referring to religion in almost all school or government or business writings would be the beginning. Seminaries of all religions could be closed – all using a legal fiction based the letter of Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists which is already treated by many liberals as having the force of federal, if not Constitutional law.

If some readers think I am being extreme in my accusations, these leftists/atheists are the people who have opposed decades old crosses in memorials on federal land in La Jolla, the Mojave Desert, and in Utah honoring fallen state troopers. Even the artifact I-beam cross from the ruins of the World Trade Center, now placed in the Ground Zero Memorial Museum site has been vigorously opposed, as has been a street sign in Brooklyn saying “Seven in Heaven Way” (to honor fallen 9/11 firefighters from the nearby firehouse). These are a few of numerous attacks by the left in attempts to shame people from displaying their faith publicly. What makes anyone think the left would not do much more to inhibit displays of Christianity and Judaism if they had one or two more votes on the U.S. Supreme Court?

The left, with the inspiration (if I may use that word here) of examples both old and new, is salivating for an opportunity to create its own version of the Dred Scott Decision aimed against People of Faith.

Raising Standards, Wrecking Fields

Timothy Birdnow

Here's one of those stories that flies under the radar. New York is looking to make RN's hold Bachelor's degrees.
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-ny-bill-require-bachelor-degrees.html

Why is this important, you may ask? First, there is no crying need demanding that nurses have Bachelor's degrees. This is part of the modern myth of higher education, that having more formal education is somehow necessary in the modern world, despite the fact that much of what is taught in colleges and universities is crap of absolutely no use in the actual practice of one's chosen field. Why does an RN need to pass College Algebra? What use is an asymptote to the dispensing of medicine, the checking of heart-rates, the administration of injections? It has no use, and forcing a nurse to get a degree will simply take time away from actually learning the task at hand. And don't forget that there will be many politically correct courses required, which are worse than useless.

No, this only serves to shrink the labor pool, which in turn limits access to health care and drives cost even higher. Who is going to pay for these RN's to get a Bachelor's?

It empowers government control even further. These nurses will have to turn to government for student loans (and remember Obama nationalized all student loan programs) or face disbarment and have to switch careers to working in bars or as janitors. They will be more dependent on the State, meaning they will be more likely to support the Democrats.

And it will give millions of dollars to higher education, the source of many of the problems here in America and one of the worst special interest groups around. Colleges gouge their students, charging outlandish rates and providing sub-par educations to boot. They are cesspools of political activism masquerading as education and scholarship. They take large amounts of taxpayer money and yet many students graduating from college can barely read and write. They purposely attempt to convert their young charges, handed over by parents who hope to instill a more inquisitive and active mind, and pollute them, teaching all manner of stupidity as fact and indoctrinating the kids into views that are shocking and offensive to the people paying the tuition. They are arrogant and contemptuous places. Yet nobody ever challenges Big University.

There is such a thing as being over-educated. Formal education can detract from common sense in catastrophic ways. A glance at world history should teach us this; the worst presidents, for instance, were the most highly educated. Take Woodrow Wilson; a college professor, Wilson was also largely a fascist, instituting all manner of governmental spy programs. Take the Espionage Act of 1917 http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Espionage+Act+of+1917, which made it unlawful for any person to publish any information the President judged of such character that it is or might be useful to the enemy."

Wilson believed his gigantic brain was superior to those of the Founding Fathers, and he believed that he and his cadre of the "best and brightest" could plan and run everyone's lives. If anyone was single-handedly responsible for the horrors and atrocities of the 20th century, it was Wilson, who blundered at every turn.

Had Wilson been less smug, less intellectually arrogant, he would have known better. Education often eradicated common sense.

Yet that is precisely what we have been moving toward for a long time. A BA or BS is as necessary in the modern world as a high school diploma was in the 1950's (and probably of less educational value) simply because we have made it so. College does some educating, but mostly it acts as a tool to indoctrinate new liberals.

Now I'm not saying there is not a role for higher education; after all, I have a college degree and my brother holds a Ph.D. and actually teaches at the University level. But it's not for everyone; better for many to attend trade schools, or to learn on the job. But both of these options require starting at the bottom, and kids are being told they shouldn't have to do that these days. So you get the fools who wind up at Occupy-Fill-in-the-blank protesting because they came out of college up to their eyeballs in debt and can't find a job paying the^0 grand to start. They were lied to by Big University. They were told they were the best and brightest, the shining intellectual luminaries, and then they learned the real value of an education in Women's Studies or Racial Existentialism. But instead of blaming the Universities and the government they blame, drumroll please! Wall Street! How do they make this leap in logic? They make it because that is what they were learning in college. It's the first reaction to any stimulus.

And so now New York wants to turn the nursing profession into Occupy Barnes Hospital. Doubtless the overarching plan is to develop a system like that in education itself, a powerful nurses union that acts as one of the pillars to the Democratic Party.

It's time we stop this stupidity. Education is failing in America, failing at all levels, and the answer always seems to be more of the same. Do we really want more educational requirements when we can't teach basic reading and writing?

But then, this was not and never has been about standards, but about power.

This will do absolutely nothing to improve health care in America. It's purpose is purely political. We will lose many excellent nurses because of this.

The Mountains of Vesta

Timothy Birdnow

Nasa'S Dawn spacecraft has found an enormous mountain on the asteroid Vesta - and big chunks of that very mountain are found all over the Earth!

From Nasa Science:

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/30dec_spacemountain/

Dec. 30, 2011: When NASA's Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around giant asteroid Vesta in July, scientists fully expected the probe to reveal some surprising sights. But no one expected a 13-mile high mountain, two and a half times higher than Mount Everest, to be one of them.

The existence of this towering peak could solve a longstanding mystery: How did so many pieces of Vesta end up right here on our own planet?

For many years, researchers have been collecting Vesta meteorites from "fall sites" around the world. The rocks' chemical fingerprints leave little doubt that they came from the giant asteroid. Earth has been peppered by so many fragments of Vesta, that people have actually witnessed fireballs caused by the meteoroids tearing through our atmosphere. Recent examples include falls near the African village of Bilanga Yanga in October 1999 and outside Millbillillie, Australia, in October 1960.

"Those meteorites just might be pieces of the basin excavated when Vesta's giant mountain formed," says Dawn PI Chris Russell of UCLA.

Russell believes the mountain was created by a 'big bad impact' with a smaller body; material displaced in the smashup rebounded and expanded upward to form a towering peak. The same tremendous collision that created the mountain might have hurled splinters of Vesta toward Earth.

"Some of the meteorites in our museums and labs," he says, "could be fragments of Vesta formed in the impact -- pieces of the same stuff the mountain itself is made of."

End Excerpt.

Dawn has found Vesta to be fascinating. The asteroid is really a small planet, differentiated into a core, mantle, and crust just like a full sized planet (unlike other asteroids which are generally just a mix-and-match of material. It's circular shape and discernable landscape give Vesta the designation Dwarf Planet rather than asteroid. It is believed Vesta was on it's way to becoming a planet when something disrupted it's formation.

Vesta, at 330 miles in diameter, is second only to Ceres in size as asteroids go. Smaller than many of the Kuiper Belt Objects (KBO's) it is composed of rocky material like a terrestrial planet, unlike the KBO's which are primarily ice and frozen gases, similar to comets. (Pluto and her moon Charon are considered KBO's, as are many newly discovered bodies beyond Neptune such as Svedna.)

The problem with all asteroids is that they are subject to too much gravitational influence from Jupiter. Jupiter disrupted the accretion process that led to the formation of large planets, thus leaving a whole lot of debris in an orbit between Mars and Jupiter. Another terrestrial planet could have formed there - and possibly one capable of sustaining life; the asteroid belt is on the edge of the liquid water band, albeit at the outside of that band. Of course, without an atmosphere, liquid water is impossible on the asteroids, and there is a fair amount of ice out there. Actually, liquid water could be possible inside an asteroid; perhaps life formed in caverns? We won't know until we get a good look, and that is likely to be a while.

But we're getting our FIRST look at them, and what we are learning is that we have much to learn. These are exciting times.

A Round of Gulf for Obama

Timothy Birdnow

Our old friend Al (neither Gore, nor Quaida) forwards this American Thinker piece:

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/12/gulf_coast_rebound_defies_obamas_doomsaying.html

Seems the Gulf Coast economy has come roaring back, despite the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

What the government did was shameful; Obi Bam Balogna and his minions made the Gulf sound like Oil-megeddon, as if the beaches were black with tar and so slick (and oily) that Bill Clinton himself could not compete. The reality is that only a couple of places saw any tarballs at all, and the great crisis passed quickly and rather painlessly. But the Anointed (with oil) Obama still spoke as if the Second Trumpet of Revelation had sounded:

"The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed." (Revelation 8:8-9)

This justified his Gulf drilling ban, and wrecked the economy of the Gulf resort communities. Most of the beaches along the Gulf were just fine, but the government strangled them. It should be noted that the Gulf states have been trending Republican in recent years, and that Obama won only Florida of all those states in the 2008 election.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/

So, Il Duce could punish his enemies, drive gas prices high, and put the oil industry under his bony little thumb all at once!

But the Gulf has come back economically, despite his best efforts.

The Gulf is the resort community of choice for common beachgoers; it's close to the Midwest and Texas, and relatively inexpensive. Given the wonderful economy bequeethed us by Barack Hussein, people were willing to face tarballs and sticky sand for a few days in the sun rather than pay the higher prices for a trip to the cold Atlantic or colder Pacific. Had this happened during prosperous times the Gulf recovery would likely be sluggish, held back while other areas did windfall business. But in a struggling economy those with the money to go went there rather than elsewhere - especially with the great deals being offered to vacationers.

And, despite Obi's best efforts, the fishing came back, as did the rest. You just can't keep a good Manitou down!

The U.S. economy is something far larger than anyone can really conceive, and the worst the government can do ultimately can't keep it down. That's not to say government can't do terrible damage; clearly, the doldrums we have suffered in the last three years are a result of insane Keynsian policies. But this won't last forever.

Which is cause for some concern; when Adolf Hitler was elevated to power, the economy of Germany began a huge recovery, a natural part of the business cycle. Hitler claimed credit, and went on to clamp down, turning himself from Chancellor to Fuehrer, absolute ruler. Should the U.S. economy rebound next year, Obama will be re-elected, and a new wave of poverty will be waiting - and his socialist schemes will be implemented.

This is going to be a close thing, folks.

Apocalyptic Year-End Prediction

Timothy Birdnow

We are reaching the end of 2011 and the predictions for the upcoming year will start to fly. They are going to be many and varied, and some credible while others ridiculous. Mine won't, I hope, be ridiculous, but it may be a bit apocalyptic.

Here goes!

I think that 1.Iran will develop a nuclear weapon and 2.the United States will deploy missile defense in Israel.

The Great Bambino, Barack Hussein Soetero Obama, or his replacement will order the deployment of our "Star Wars" missile defense as the only action short of starting WWIII. From what I am given to understand, Iran has a good deal of it's nuclear program in deep bunkers, perhaps too deep for a simple airstrike. They have spread the program out, meaning multiple targets will have to be attacked. The Chinese are backing Iran.

As Robert Romano points out at Net Right Daily:

http://netrightdaily.com/2011/12/china-a-paper-tiger/

But not so fast. China has warned that it would protect Iran if it came to war. In an interview with NTDTV.com, Chinese general Zhang Zhaozhong has said that “China will not hesitate to protect Iran even with a third world war.”

China is currently Iran’s number one destination for oil and gas exports, making it a strategically important country for the Chinese. In fact, the relationship goes back many years. In the Iran-Iraq War, Iran bought Chinese weapons, and is considered to be a Chinese satellite.

But would an attack on Iran’s nuclear capabilities really provoke China? It may depend on how much time and money the Chinese have spent developing those capabilities over the years. Several Chinese firms are said to be aiding the program’s development according to the Obama Administration, lending credence to the fears.

After all, why would the Chinese invest billions in developing a program just to watch it all go up in smoke?

But even if China were not to defend Iran’s nuclear weapons program, it might still take other moves in retaliation. For example, its long dispute with Taiwan comes into view and might be seen as leverage to deter an attack on Iran.

Both U.S. allies, Israel and Taiwan are largely isolated and are said to depend on American security guarantees for their very existence. If it ever comes to war, the U.S. has promised to assist both nations.

Which makes what happens in Iran all the more important, especially if one believes that China and the U.S. would both honor their commitments. Could Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon lead to conflict between the two powers?

That is a possibility that should have all Americans concerned.

End excerpt.

And don't forget the Russians; they are selling intermediate-range missiles to Iran, and have been aiding their program with machine parts for centrifuges and nuclear material. The Russians have been backing Iran as a counterweight to U.S. forces in the Middle East, and the Russian strategic plan to dominate energy flow to Europe depends on Iran.

The Obama Administration has taken no visible moves to prevent the Iranian government from obtaining nuclear weapons (except. perhaps, the Stuxnet virus) and seem content to allow Iran to have the ultimate weapon. Iran has been working dilligently to develop delivery systems as well.

Which makes a possible future deployment of a Star Wars system all the more reasonable. But it would have to be deployed closer to Israel to protect her, methinks. This would get the Russians off our backs about missile defense (at least temporarily) and would "solve" the Iranian problem for the time being. It would be a last-resort effort from Obama, but it's the way he does things; kick the can down the road.

And that is precisely what that would be doing. Missile attacks may be averted, but an Iranian nuke could still be smuggled into Israel. Much like Virgil Salozzo in The Godfather, killing Tel Aviv is the key (actually Salozzo's key was killing Don Corleone); everything else falls in line once that is done. There are numerous ways to deliver nukes; they really aren't THAT large physically. They could be brought in by ship, by truck, etc. But Obama doubtlessly still believes that he can tAlk the Iranians out of nuking Israel, and this stop-gap would solve a number of problems. It's the way he works; wait until options have run out then take the only course left.

I am mindful of the Biblical description of Armegeddon; the Anti-Christ makes a pact with Israel, protecting her for a period of time. When the War breaks out it is fought not with missiles and bombs but with regular standing armies "and all the armies of the world" as Revelation puts it. A missile defense would make this scenario likely.

And of course a large American presence would be necessary to safeguard the system. They could double as policement during the time of "peace".

Visions of Ezekial and Revelations aside, this would be a logical if not sensible move, and I would not be surprised if Obama would announce this some time next year. Logical but not sensible; such a technological dragon would be an obvious magnet for terrorists, and would bring the Muslims from all over to attemtp to smash it.

Now, deployment of such a system is hideously complex and I may be dead wrong in my assumptions. Perhaps it can't be placed in the region? But I suspect it can, and I suspect that, just maybe, Obama will do exactly that, rather than launch a world war. The man has a yellow streak running so far down his back he could be anchored in the middle of the Atlantic and not fear drifting away; he'd have a yellow tether reaching back to Michelle in Chicago. This guy would never dare play brinkmanship with the Russians and especially the Chinese. Who will buy up the mountains of debt he's amassing if he cheeses the Chicoms off?

At any rate, that's my crazy year end prediction. Note that I've gotten all the goodies in; Biblical prophecy, atomic weapons, high tech gadgets, the anti-Christ, the end of the world, the Russians and Chinese, and of course radical Islam. Sorry I couldn't work in the Bildebergers or the Council on Foreign Relations, but you may infer they are involved in this, too! And of course, don't forget George W. Bush, who also failed to act, thereby making this all possible!

Take a bow!

Curbin Durban

Timothy Birdnow

Good news from South Africa, according to Phyllis Schlafley.

http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2011/dec11/11-12-28.html

What news you ask? Mostly nothing!

Unified Theory of Climate

Ron De Haan forwards this article appearing at Wattsupwiththat:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/29/unified-theory-of-climate/#comment-846549

Abstract

We present results from a new critical review of the atmospheric Greenhouse (GH) concept. Three main problems are identified with the current GH theory. It is demonstrated that thermodynamic principles based on the Gas Law need be invoked to fully explain the Natural Greenhouse Effect. We show via a novel analysis of planetary climates in the solar system that the physical nature of the so-called GH effect is a Pressure-induced Thermal Enhancement (PTE), which is independent of the atmospheric chemical composition. This finding leads to a new and very different paradigm of climate controls. Results from our research are combined with those from other studies to propose a new Unified Theory of Climate, which explains a number of phenomena that the current theory fails to explain. Implications of the new paradigm for predicting future climate trends are briefly discussed.

End Abstract

Weiner in a Bun

Jack Kemp has a new version of his Weiner bisexuality story at American Thinker this morning.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/12/tell_all_book_about_anthony_weiner_will_reveal_attraction_to_men.html#ixzz1hs9oDp6C

Let's be Frank; Weiner has always been good for endless pun-ditry, and is certainly up to the challenge here. Don't miss this excellent piece!

To read the original Weiner article here.
http://tbirdnow.mee.nu/anthony_weiner_said_he_is_turned_on_by_guys

Anthony Weiner said he is turned on by guys

Jack Kemp

In the non-surprise of the year, the New York Post reports today (internet link lower int he story) about the former Queens Congressman who appeared in naked photos that:

BEGIN QUOTE

Anthony Weiner proposed a threesome with texting pal Traci Nobles and a man, according to a new report.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/anthony_weiner_wanted_threesome_lsWQP7yVeLiUcO1wawrddO#

The Queens Democrat made the suggestion in the midst of his texting and tweeting adventures that eventually forced him to resign his congressional seat in June, RadarOnline.com reported today.
http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2011/12/anthony-weiner-threesome-with-another-man-mistress-traci-nobles

The revelation came from conversation excerpts that Radar obtained from Nobles' proposal for a tell-all book.

After proposing a threesome, Weiner told Nobles, "I'm not really talking about other chicks... How about with another guy?"

"Hmmmm, haven't done it before," Nobles said.

Anthony Weiner in June when he admitted to "inappropriate" exchanges with six women before and after getting married. A new report says he suggested a threesome with a woman and a man.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/anthony_weiner_wanted_threesome_lsWQP7yVeLiUcO1wawrddO#

"It can be hot," Weiner replies.

"Are you turned on by other guys?" Nobles asked.

"Well it depends on the guy, but generally yes," Weiner said.
END OF QUOTE

You can read the rest of this at http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/anthony_weiner_wanted_threesome_lsWQP7yVeLiUcO1wawrddO#ixzz1hrB45UYQ

The article also had Weiner talking of "masterbating in (US) House restrooms. The publishers of an upcoming book by one of Weiner's female texting partners are leaking advanced details, one story at a time.

I believe I can speak for all conservatives and Republicans when I say, "President Obama, I've heard rumors that you want to drop Joe Biden from your ticket. Please pick Anthony Wiener as your Vice Presidential running mate for 2012."

Lebensraum, Evolution, and Environmental Fascism

Timothy Birdnow

Readers of this website are familiar with Mark Musser's work. Mark and I both share an interest in this topic, and he and I have corresponded ever since I wrote Return of the Old Gods; a Challenge for Green Evangelicals http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/08/the_return_of_the_old_gods_a_c.html at American Thinker some years back. His book Nazi Oaks is outstanding, a must read for anyone serious about understanding the Left and Environmentalism in particular.

It was Mark's explanation of "Blood and Soil" that came to mind when I read that research paper about Environmental Determinism, and so it we have Mark to thank for it. I cited him in the blogpost at AT
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/12/green_is_the_new_brown.html

At any rate, he discovered the article quite independently at Junkscience, and left the following comment there - and e-mailed it to me as well!

Here is the e-mail:

"The very architect of Lebensraum, Karl Haushofer, following the German father of National Geographic (pun) Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904), who believed that history was largely a natural evolutionary movement of peoples (volkisch) looking for space (raum), believed in environmental determinism along with other Nazis. They thus emphasized soil rather than blood. However, other Nazis like the SS Walther Darre (and even Heidegger) believed that blood or race plays a more independent role in developing a culture within its own space. The two views collided in the 1930’s when the Nazis developed their environmental policies. Walther Darre’s version of blood and soil won out, but there was a compromise between the two groups which both could accept – the green idea of sustainable development. Thus, sustainable development as an applied political policy was first tried in Nazi Germany under the blood and soil slogan. The early German green Riehl was the father of sustainable development, but the Nazis tried to put into practice – which is precisely what Lebensraum was all about. “Living Space” essentially means living room for sustainable development.

After the war, Haushofer tried to distinguish his own version of Lebensraum from Hitler’s, claiming that only Rudolf Hess in the hierarchy of the Nazi Party understood it properly. Haushofer and his wife then committed suicide in 1946."

End quote.

This gives you an idea of the level of scholarship employed by Mark in his book; as I have said, it is a must read. You can purchase it from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Nazi-Oaks-Mark-Musser/dp/1597551929 or you can find Mark's work on the web at American Thinker, Accuracy in Media, or a score of websites.

Also, William Kay is another excellent source for material about Nazi Environmentalism and the Browning 'O the Green. His website is www.ecofascism.com.

Like Ross Perot's Crazy Aunt in the Basement

Jack Kemp

Remember when Ross Perot referred to our National Debt (then amounting to $3.9 billion) as being like the "crazy aunt we keep down in the basement" during the 1992 Presidential campaign?

Well, Charles Hurt has a new crazy relative from Washington, DC, comparison. Below is the link and the opening sentences.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/27/hurt-congress-christmas-relative-from-hell/

HURT: Congress — the Christmas relative from hell
By Charles Hurt
-
The Washington Times

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Last week’s dramatic, down-to-the wire legislative hokum to “rescue” millions of Americans from a $1,000 tax increase on the stroke of the New Year reminds us once again how Congress really is that whining, self-absorbed nightmare of a relative that every family must endure.
And it is here, around the holidays, that they are always at their basket-case worst.

That’s because it is a season when most Americans take a little time off from work, gather with family, watch a little football and exchange gifts with the ones they love.

For the psychologically unfit, such as those who populate Congress, this is pure torture. Not only are they incapable of sharing joy with others, the thought of other people’s happiness exhausts and pains them.

Most offensive of all, it is simply a season that threatens to be about someone or something other than themselves.

So, the doorbell rings. And in she walks, mascara smeared down her cheeks, launching right away into another harangue about all the slights of the past year. At first, everyone tries to listen. But eventually, little unintended glances and innocent comments cause her to spaz out and wildly feign anxiety attacks at the dinner table.

And so it is with Congress. All year long, they have been useless and unemployable mooches. Then comes Christmas and they are seized by the reality that nobody likes them and that everything really isn’t all about them.

"Blood and Soil" Returns in Green Movement

Timothy Birdnow

Blood and Soil - the Nazi slogan for environmental determinism which argued that climate and landscape shaped the evolution of different peoples - has returned!

http://judithcurry.com/2011/12/26/reducing-the-future-to-climate/

Those of us who have argued that the Green Movement is inherently Fascist have been vindicated!

(Hat tip: Tom Nelson www.tomnelson.blogspot.com)

Peter Hitchens reads his brother's Rage Against God

Jack Kemp

As a result of listening to the audiobook of the late British atheist Christopher Hitchens' autobiography "Hitch 22," I heard the author positively mentioning one passage from his brother Peter Hitchen's writings (while also insulting Peter's return to his Christian faith). Thus I was motivated to downloaded the unabridged audiobook written - and read - by that brother, "The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led me to Faith" by Peter Hitchens. If one has a new Audible audiobook account, this could be one of your first three free books allowed. The book can also be had for a low price in electronic book form. If you have received a gift certificate this Christmas or Hannukah, that too would aid in purchasing this.

As far as I've gotten, Peter Hitchens talks about his youthful atheistic/socialistic rebellion, followed later by his description of traveling in the Soviet Union as a privileged foreign correspondent, staying in the best of locations while poor Soviet workers went to state run bars where they had to bring their own jar to drink from, along with their own snacks. Sugar was impossible to buy because people used it to make their own bathtub vodka. This section is followed by Hitchens' growing disillusionment with his socialistic faith and his decision to start attending church services, as well as marry his girlfriend in a church. One of his journalist 'friends" chides him at a Washington press conference about Peter's deciding to attend church. Although Hitchens doesn't phrase it this way, it is as if Peter has decided to become a snake handler who speaks in tongues - all the time denouncing the Liberal Church of Global Warming.

This partial description is hardly a review, more of just an introduction. I haven't absorbed enough of the scope of this book to write a review now. But this book is, as Peter Hitchens alludes, a fine foil to the sour writings of his late brother Christopher's "God is Not Great" and "Hitch 22."

Since "The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led me to Faith" is primarily about the author's Christian faith, it may be best to have a Christian review it. I can understand and appreciate much of it. The loss of religious belief in the post WWII period and non-teaching of the young is as common among my fellow Jews as it was among Peter's Christian community in both England and the U.S. of that same time period.

This is a rare treat: the skilled and full of insights writing of a Hitchens brother that isn't an anti-God screed. It addresses many of the same issues the late Christopher Hitchens wrote about but comes to some very different conclusions about both God and man.

First Saturday then Sunday

Jack Kemp fowards this disturbing film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWpIWDjQLUU&feature=related

Any fool who doesn't see that the Islamic World means us great harm is beyond delusional.

What Liberals Believe

Timothy Birdnow

Paul Shlichta has a great analysis of the differences between liberals and conservatives at American Thinker this morning.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/12/the_roots_of_liberalism_and_conservatism.html

My college thesis was on the evolution of modern liberalism, and I can say that Mr. Shlichta has nailed it here; he points out that conservatives believe in Original Sin, the Christian belief that Man is inherently evil and will do the wrong thing BY NATURE so must have checks and balances, and the liberal view of the inherent goodness of Man. The liberal view is essentially utopic; they believe that the human condition is perfectible, and that Man can create his own paradise. (We see that in the movies all the time; I recently watched the old move "Starman" and the aliens had a perfect society, which led me to remember other films such as Cocoon. The fundamental assumption is that a sufficiently technologically advanced species will have paradise. It's a fundamentally wrong assumption; we cannot simply "grow up" and end our problems, because our problems are part of our physical existence. We are Fallen.)

This desperate desire for a man made paradise drives liberal denial of reality, as Shlichta points out:

"In contrast, liberals accept the concept of human rights -- and have an admirable record of fighting for some of them -- but deny the existence of original sin. They do not believe that there is anything wrong with humanity that proper nurturing and education won't cure [2]. Instead, they tend to believe in evolutism, a quasi-religious belief that humanity is guided by a driving force (like the black slab in Kubrick's 2001: Space Odyssey) that will lead us toward an ever-higher form of life and intelligence. Therefore, if we follow the right path, we will inevitably come to a happy world with peace and security for all.

However, there is no experimental evidence that the black slab or shining path really exists. I therefore contend that liberalism is as much a faith-based religion as Christianity. As with any religion, it has a demonology -- Wall Street, big business, and the rich and powerful. Once we get rid of these demons (after stripping them of their wealth), we will all be kind and prosperous.

To exorcize these demons, and to supervise our nurture and education, liberals believe that the common herd needs shepherds to guide it. This is in keeping with the doctrines of evolutism; some of us will be more evolved than the rest and will be the fittest leaders [3]. Therefore, despite constant professions of universal equality, liberalism is essentially elitist and tends, as Djilas pointed out, to produce a class system of its own.

Liberalism has even flirted with a variety of gods. The rationalists of the French revolution tried to make mankind its own god. Others have worshiped Historical Necessity or Gaia [4]. But these are unsatisfactorily abstract, so contemporary leftists tend to choose dictator-gods like Chairman Mao or Kim Jong-il"

End excerpt.

Indeed, the concept of the strong man goes back to the early days of the Liberal movement. It's part of why Rousseau admired Islam so much; a "whole" world where everything was governed and improvement could simply be imposed from above. Today you have people like Cass Sunstein; his recent book "Nudge" suggests that most people want to "do the right thing" (if by right thing you mean create a world socialist utopia) and that government should give them a nudge to get them moving in the right direction - until the time for nudging is over and heavy compulsion is necessary. Sunstein's Stalinistic shoulder poking is predicated on this rainbows and kittens worldview, the utopian nightmare of the godless liberal who would make us believe in Santa Claus and sit on his lap or ve vill be shot!

The conservative view of Original Sin suggests that any human shepherd is likely to lead the flock astray because he is as flawed as those he is trying to lead. This is true; consider the pedophilia scandal in the Catholic Church, or any one of a number of scandals involving Protestant Ministers, or just plain-old corruption in any organization. (There are more cases of pedophilia by lay teachers in public schools than there were among Catholic priests.) The Shepherd doesn't always deliver the sheep in prime condition; sometimes he sells a few for slaughter while out in the fields. It is what is wrong with the liberal accusations against Christians of being "holier than thou" and of hypocrisy; they purposely refuse to believe in the non-perfectibility of Man, and so delight in pointing out the failures of Christians as examples of bad people rather than weak sinners. They see their own lack of standards in some regards as excusing themselves from the same standard (remember Saul Alinsky's "hold them to their own standards" admonition?) Of course, as the elite shepherds they themselves are entitled to an occasional indescretion...

But the Churchmen are given no such leeway. The fundamental assumption is that they are BAD because they have usurped the authority to lead, and must be doing so for their own purposes, their own power, rather than the purity of the greater good, which the liberal believes is self-evident since they themselves believe that way. The same is true for any conservative leader, for anyone who thinks there are any limits on the absolute freedom of mankind, for anyone who just dares to say "the Emperor has no clothes". Evil does not exist in Man, except where a man opposes the liberal worldview. How can they be anything other than evil, if they oppose the enlightening of Man and the exercise of his greater social and physical development?

It's not a rational intellectual system, but rather a secular substitute for religion. It IS a dogma of Faith. Liberalism is perhaps the ultimate dogma of Faith in that it demands the believer to believe in Man as a mass of tissue, as a series of conditioned responses, as a pure algorithm to be molded and shaped by a purely human sculpter. Most other religions tell of a Supreme Being, a Creator with superior wisdom who asks certain things of us, things we in our weakness cannot understand. Liberalism asks it's adherents to believe that Man is but a puny ant, a machine, a mechanistic system, and yet that he is also divine, the shaper of himself, the self-willed god. It is insane at it's core. As has been attributed to Chesterton "when a man stops believing in God he will believe in anything" and that is precisely what the liberal does. There is an enormous leap of faith involved in becoming a liberal.

On the other hand, one needn't be religious to see that liberal tenants are daft, and do not work. I know a number of good conservatives who are also atheists; they simply have eyes and trust them over what some stuffed-shirt self-styled expert tells them. Yes, they do believe their lying eyes! A rational being understands that Man is flawed, perhaps fatally so. The human condition can only be advanced through dilligent labor, through eternal vigilance. An educated and informed public is the bane of tyrants, and so we believe we should encourage real education, the dissemination of true information, the empowerment of the public. They should be armed, to act as a check on the aggressions of those who would be their masters. They should be the ones who determine their own destiny, for the many would likely seek the greater good as they perceive it and want it. A republican form of government is the best, conservatives believe, because it tempers passions, opposes interests, yet guarantees representation. Liberals love either totalitarian dictatorships or pure democracy, which inevitably leads to totalitarianism. They ultimately do not trus the public that is so good in their view, because the public refuses to accept the rule of the liberal. It's a fascinating dichotomy; Man is inherently good, and we're going to force them to believe it! We'll crush all the evil bastards who stop us from teaching the goodness of Man!

In the end, liberalism is a parasite, something that feeds off of the good works of others. Jewish concepts of law for deliverance, Christian concepts of salvation, all are stolen by the liberal, hijacked to the Cause. Charity comes from the Judao-Christian tradition. So does freedom. Who ended the slave trade? It wasn't hippies.

And science wasn't started, promoted, or developed by Occupy Wall Street, either. The search for Truth comes from the search for God. Copernicus was a Catholic priest. Newton an Episcopal one. Liberalism, despite it's profession of reliance on science and acceptance of the supremacy of human reason, is essentially a superstition, and leads away from an understanding of what is real. Just look at Global Warming, or Darwinian theory, or modern psychology; science is a tool for the left, something to be twisted and manipulated for their particular purposes. Yet the liberal will boldly claim it is the opposition who is somehow anti-science or anti-rational. They are the kings of projection, putting their own faults on those they oppose.

At any rate, Mr Shlichta has written a fine piece; be sure to read it!

The Nativity

Isaiah 11:4

"but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked"

Malachi4:5-6

"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."

And there was silence in the Heavens for over 500 years.

A Reading from the Book of Luke, chapter 2:

[1] And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.
[2] (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)
[3] And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.
[4] And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)
[5] To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.
[6] And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.
[7] And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
[8] And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
[9] And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
[10] And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
[11] For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
[12] And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
[13] And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
[14] Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
[15] And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.
[16] And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.
[17] And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.
[18] And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.
[19] But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.
[20] And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.
[21] And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.


To all our readers, friends, family, and indeed the entire world, we here at Birdblog wish you a very Merry and blessed Christmas on this, the day of the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Christmas and the Cross

Timothy Birdnow

Here's a little Chrismas poem I wrote this Christmas morning:

Christmas and the Cross

A prisoner of his own fault
ensnared in vain and doomed default
Man walks this world in pain and loss
His only hope is Christmas and the Cross

I looked about in sore despair
A world so wore and full of care
winds unfurled; at sea were tossed
Yet all still flee from Chrismas and the Cross

How can it be if there be God
that Man should suffer iron rod?
I pray my plea to Heaven's gloss
A way must be to Chrismas and the Cross

my brain so full of this assault
my train of thought in much tumult
My bed disquiet, I pitch and toss
I can find no rest, no Christmas nor the Cross

But He endured though much to bear
and took the chore of judgement chair
His birth the sages did emboss
the pages spoke of Chrismas and the Cross

for Christ did come and without halt
to save the sum with no exalt
and Man is freed from that dreadful cost
Yes, there truly is a Chrismas, and a Cross

Now free from my iniquity I soar with no real care
I now can see the Christmas tree, so beautiful and fair
A Savior born on this bright day, the veil torn across
salvation come on Christmas day, and finished with the Cross!
And finished with the Cross...

The Girl Scouts try to redefine "Girl"

Jack Kemp

In America, as in other countries, there is a small number of children who have gotten the idea that they were born into the body of the wrong sex (boy instead of girl, girl instead of boy). These children cannot be easily convinced otherwise and many of them are going to school dressed as the opposite sex. "Dr. Phil" did a show about this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR1hV4ERlEE where he mentioned that some of these children will outgrow this attitude to become heterosexuals, some will commit suicide (not that surprisingly, their rate is higher than the general population) and some will eventually grow up to live as transgendered adults.

I am far from an expert on this issue, but would assume that parents who love their children and want the best for them cannot just impose gender appropriate behavior on this small percentage of gender confused children and expect the problems involved to magically disappear. But there is a border line between tolerance of some child's immediate needs and intolerance of the majority of children's needs. You'll may never guess who has decided to cross that line.

One day recently while going to America Online to check my email, I opened the main page of AOL, with its news stories from the Huffington Post. But that day there was a featured story was about a boy who believes he is a girl - and his mother's efforts to place him in a Girl Scout troop, an activity that can involve sleepaway trips into the woods. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/21/girl-scout-troops-transgender-child-disband_n_1163971.html?ref=gay-voices&ncid=webmail2 ; The Girl Scout troop is church-affiliated and the two adult ladies who lead it have been told:

BEGIN QUOTE

The Girl Scouts of Colorado subsequently released a statement through the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) in support of Archuleta and her excluded daughter, noting, "If a child identifies as a girl and the child's family presents her as a girl, Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout."

Added Rachelle Trujillo, vice president for communications of the Colorado Girl Scouts: "If a child is living as a girl, that's good enough for us. We don't require any proof of gender."
END QUOTE

The troop is "affiliated with the Northlake Christian School in Covengton, Louisiana" - and the leaders have decided to not listen to the organization's "regional (and national) leaders," deciding to disband their Girl Scout troop rather than accept this biological boy into their midst. One strongly suspects a number of the mothers and fathers of these girls would not allow their daughters to go on a sleepaway camping trip in the woods as the Girl Scouts attempt a social engineering experiment.

The mother of this psychologically transgendered boy, in a statement to match the mental confusion of her son, stated:

BEGIN QUOTE
"But the Girl Scout leader told us he can't join because he has 'boy parts.'... But no one would know he's a boy unless they pulled his pants down."
END QUOTE

There you have it. This mother has either guaranteed no one will pull "his pants down" - or if they do, it is someone else's fault/responsibility if problems arise in the troop, not the mother of boy or probably even the responsibility of the other parents. To say she hasn't thought out the possible problems is an understatement. This mother is all but saying, in an indirect way, that the children are the only ones responsible for whatever happens, i.e., the parents have no right protect and guide their daughters away from a highly volitile situation. There are other girl's organizations which may take a different attitude towards having trangendered child in their membership. An investigation by any parent of a young girl is in order before their daughters join.

If you have ever read the original book "Auntie Mame," later made into a popular movie with Rosalind Russell, you'll see the book talks of a "progressive school" where children prance around nude. That particular text wasn't

dramatized on the screen because Hollywood knew that American families would not accept it. Now we have the Girl Scouts trying to impose a "progressivism" on young girls that even madcap Auntie Mame wouldn't consider mentioning (although I'm not sure she wouldn't privately advocate). Rosalind Russell acting as a flamboyant woman with a long cigarette holder in a movie is one thing. Exposing our young children (pun intended) to a flamboyant bohemian lifestyle is quite another.

The Girl Scouts webpage at http://www.girlscouts.org/ has pictures of smiling little girls engaged in wholesome activities. Their national headquarters contact information is:

Girl Scouts of the USA
420 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10018-2798

Phone (800) GSUSA 4 U [(800) 478-7248] or (212) 852-8000

Some readers here may have need to speak to them.


A NOTE FROM TIM:

This whole transgendered thing is typically modern; it believes we have no real free will. That children may think certain things and even may have certain inborn tendencies does not mean they ARE that thing forever. It's the old Nature versus Nurture argument. Parents have the job of teaching their children, enculturating them, helping to shape them. Children have underdeveloped brains, and neuroplasticity means those brains can be molded. But we are saying that they are hardwired, and that is that. There is a diabolical purpose to this modern concept; to remove the influence of parents over their children.

I think it's appalling that a parent would allow a child to simply choose his or her own path based on how they feel. That's how criminals, perverts, and the like are formed. Limits have to be laid down, and the child has to learn to conform. The child not given this sort of discipline winds up far more miserable than the one lovingly corrected and guided. That mother is doing no favors for her son.

Why So Liberal?

Timothy Birdnow

Writing in American Thinker, Ted Belman asks why a majority of Jews are so Liberal, and indeed, often Marxist. http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/12/the_jews_the_communists_and_the_democratic_party.html

The standard answer is that it is a reaction to past injustice, but Leftism is the king of injustice, both to the Bourgeous and the Proletariate. Rationality would have turned Jewish people away from this long ago. No, I don't think the answer lies there.

Looking to my own ancestry, I can make some sense of their liberalism; the Irish learned to suck what they could from their British overlords, learned to live off the public dole brought by the Brits. Indeed, at times like the great potato famine they HAD to accept public assistance, and living off the work of others becomes a habit. And why not take government assistance, if the government in question is imposed from without? You may as well grab what you can, because the "foreigners" appointed over you sure will. Ireland developed a character molded by subservience. Much like African Americans, they figured they should grab what they could of the leavings. This leads to advocacy for socialism, for the welfare state, for most left-wing ideas. Also, Ireland is an island, which means land is limited. This is important; if a man has three sons he either has to divide his farm among them, or give to one and leave the other two to fend for themselves. But in a place where there is no where else to go it becomes quite difficult to fend for onesself. Opportunities diminish as population increases - at least in an agricultural community. There was a reason why so many Irish immigrated to America.

Couple that with the endless civil strife, and the Irish tendency towards organized crime (born of the rebellion against foreign invasion, just as the Corsicans or Sicilians) and the desire for some sort of order leads to an acceptance of a political view that imposes order, nay, stasis, on the body politic.

So, the Irish, having accepted the welfare state, seeking a way to find opportunity in a world where he is unlikely to do so, and seeking some peace and stability, has often joined the ranks of the Left. They carried these tendencies to America, and now they are inbred. Just look at Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, etc.

Granted, the Catholicism of the Irish didn't help. Dependence on the Church, meaning an outside entity, acts to stress communal life rather than rugged individualism. Protestantism is more personal, more private, and means that it can be practiced in isolation. Catholicism requires a priest, a church building, and the willingness to accept outside authority.

Many Catholics tend to be liberal the world over. But that alone does not explain it.

The Jews clearly do not fit the mold of the Irish in any way. Judaism is not a centralized, apostolic faith. It more resembles the Protestantism of rugged individualism. Also, the Jews are not stuck in a state of isolation as were the Irish. And they have always been very self-sufficient so they have not learned to feed off the public trough.

The other part of my ancestory is German, and many Germans in the old country are quite liberal, although most in America tend towards conservative. Germany was, after all, the birthplace of National Socialism, and the Marxists almost proclaimed Germany a Soviet Republic (Philipp Scheidemann, one of the leaders of the Social Democrats, hearing a mob advancing on the Reichstag, simply went on the balcony and proclaimed a republic - later known as the Weimar Republic, then returned to his dinner inside.)

Germany has a couple of reasons for being liberal. First, Prussia stares into the gaping maw of Asia, with an enormous plain full of all manner of invaders. Prussia was at the edge of the Mongol no-man's-land; the Golden Horde, after conquering Russia, razed the lands between themselves and the West and maintained it in a state of destruction to act as a buffer. Poland, Ukraine (which actually means borderland) Byeolorus, Hungary, were all kept in a state of destruction, and there were occasional raids from Russia to keep them that way. Prussia, the eastern province of the Holy Roman Empire, was eternally in fear of raid or attack. What happened to the lands of eastern Europe were horrendous; once as civilized or moreso than the West, they were driven into near savagery for a time. Russia itself would adopt the statist ways of their overlords, and the east Europeans would end up as beggars, eager to feed on the table scraps of others. It's understandable why the eastern Europeans would find socialism appealing, coming as they do from that historical perspective. But why Germany? The east Germans militarized as a result. They accepted limits on their freedom so that they could defend their lands. They knit themselves together for the cause.

Later, Germany would become the home to a number of schools of thought involving various degrees of socialism, culminating in that son of the abyss, Karl Marx. Germany was the best educated land on Earth in the 19th century, and the German philosophers known as a sort of mirror of the Golden Age of the Greeks. Men like Nietchze had labored tirelessly to remove a belief in God, which opened the door to socialism and communism by making men the mere biproduct of mechanical processes. If Man is but a series of conditioned responses, and does not contain a special worth stemming from the Divine Spark, then he may be molded in any image he wished. Individuals no longer mattered; what mattered was outcome. The liberal concept of the inherent goodness of Man meant that the molding of Man can only be a good thing - even if some rather abusive methods must be employed.

It is no coincidence that socialism, atheism, and Protestantism were born in the same place. Protestantism had good aims and bore good fruit, but the success of Lutheranism taught a valuable lesson, that one could openly break with the past, with authority, and get away with it. Protestantism flourished because of the printing press (another German invention) and THAT lesson was not lost on the Left. The Protestants won the propaganda war with Catholicism, but would end up losing it with lefism. Removing the moderating influences of Christianity led to the darker impulses of human nature - and particularly of the German character born of warfare and the need to maintain their bloodlines against a string of potential replacements - and you ended with a land eager to accept the new gospel preached by Nietzche, by Shopenhaur, etc.

So why are so many Jews liberal? One answer may lay in the fact that most of the Jews who traveled abroad came from the lands heavily influenced by liberal thinking. Russia, German, Polish, they came to America and brought their thinking with them. Like Sicilians were inevitably followed by the Mafia, so too the Jews would be followed by the socialists. It was the way it was done before, and the notion that America is a new land, without the need for the old coping mechanisms, simply couldn't penetrate.

Then, too, the enforced communal nature of Jewish communities, where the Jews had to huddle together quietly in fear of a capricious and unfriendly Gentile majority, reinforced the notion that they were only safe and prosperous in communal settings.

I suspect there is much more to the story, and I am certainly no expert in this field. Any suggestions?

Yes, Virginia, there is a God at Canada Free Press

Timothy Birdnow

I do some Christian apologetics and an analysis of the classic Christmas "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" in a piece at Canada Free Press.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/43459

From the article:

"In 1897 little Virginia O’Hanlon wrote a letter to the editors of the New York Sun asking the following question:

“DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
“Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
“Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’
“Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?


Editor Frances Pharcellus Church wrote a reply now immortalized in Christmas Lore.

His reply is interesting indeed. Far more than simply a feel-good answer to a little child, the aptly named Church (son of a Baptist Minister) gave a model answer in apologetics:

[...]

"Church was addressing something far larger and more insidious than the failure of faith in a magical overweight elf. He was addressing the most fundamental question Humanity has ever had to address, one with profound consequences, one every person must ask; “Please tell me the truth; is there a God?”

Yes, Virginia, there is a God.

Santa Claus is a fable cherished the world over. Throughout all nations his position is unchallenged in the hearts and minds of children, and adults play along to keep the magic alive as long as possible. He goes by many names; Santa, St. Nick, Kris Kringle, Father Christmas. He looks a bit different in different lands, but always he is the same, bringing gifts, spreading joy, encouraging goodness and charity. He is an archetype of all that Mankind wishes to be.

And his loss, the ending of belief in Santa, is traumatic; a death of innocence."

End excerpt.

It's a nice reminder of the real reason for this season. We celebrate something far larger than the shortest day of the year (as the pagans had celebrated it prior); we celebrate true hope, for there is a way out of this!

As Longfellow so eloquently put it:

"And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Military allows Muslim headgear

Timothy Birdnow

The military caves on wearing Muslim headgear.
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=380593

How far will we bend the rules to satisfy certain people? Will the Amish be allowed to wear long beards and ride into battle via horse and buggy? Will we next let nature worshippers parade naked with green paint splashed on their bodies? It used to be understood that there were requirements for joining an organization (and the military is entirely voluntary) and that if you didn't or couldn't meet those requirements you didn't join. Military service is not a right, it does not appear in the Constitution as either an enumerated right nor as a required duty. It is a privilege to serve one's country, and if you wish that privilege you must follow certain standards. You have to get a shave and a buzz haircut. You have to wear their clothes and not those you find more fashionable. You have to be in shape - or get in shape. You have to obey orders.

My late uncle was not allowed to join the military. He was blind in one eye, and when he went to the recruitment station he had suffered an unusual problem where the side of his head had swollen, making him resemble a football. It was purely a temporary problem, but the classification 4F came down and he was not allowed to serve. He wanted to, but was told no. By modern reasoning, physical ailments should be no bar to service.

Nor should behavioral; Obama ended "don't ask, don't tell" which itself was a radical departure from the old code of dismissal for homosexual behavior. Now a soldier can be openly gay, can make advances on fellow soldiers (within reason), can do as he or she pleases. It used to be that sex was understood as something to be kept within certain boundaries because it is a powerful human drive and allowing it to run amok leads to problems with discipline and unit cohesion. But, just as the schools dismiss the "archaic" notions of discipline and behavior, so too does the modern army, which seems to think machines are the key to the future. They are - to a point. But in the end it's the men behind the machines that make the military strong, and we are systematically undermining the foundation of our proudest institution.

Now Muslim JROTC kids are going to be allowed to wear their ethnic/religious headgear at official functions. This is a demand for submission from America, to give the Muslim special rights.

Political correctness is killing us.

Romney Hides Tax Returns

Jack Kemp

You Tea Party Nation subscribers may have seen this one already, but just in case you haven't, Judson Phillips asks what is Romney hiding and who among us thinks that Obama wouldn't bring this up from Day One of the Presidential campaign?


Jack



http://www.teapartynation.com/forum/topics/what-is-romney-hiding-and-why-is-he-hiding-it



What is Romney hiding and why is he hiding it?
Posted by Judson Phillips on December 23, 2011 at 8:04am in Tea Party Nation Forum

Mitt Romney may be the Manchurian candidate 2.0. Barack Obama was famous for not releasing any details about his past life, but now it looks like Mitt Romney is taking it one step further.

What is he doing?

Mitt Romney is refusing to release his income tax returns. Not only is he refusing to release them, he says he will not ever release them. In 1994 he challenged Ted Kennedy, when he was running for Kennedy’s Senate seat, to release his tax returns. Kennedy did but Romney never did.

What is Romney hiding?

We all know Mitt Romney is not the sharpest knife in the drawer but you do not have to be a rocket scientist to figure out he is handing team Obama a golden opportunity.

If Romney becomes the nominee, team Obama will wear him out on this, as will the media. Of course, the media will conveniently ignore the large segments of Obama’s life where he has refused to release his records, but they will be all over Romney. They will blast Romney, who is one of the wealthiest men ever to seek the Presidency, for being rich and out of touch with Americans.

The other alternative is that there is something Romney needs to hide in those financial records. But with the Party of Treason in charge of the government, does he really think some how those records won’t be leaked? If there is something Romney really does not want released, does he not think that the Obama IRS has already given copies of his tax returns to the Obama campaign?

As we ask what is Mitt Romney hiding, the obvious question is what did he think was so important to hide that he wiped out all emails from his tenure as Massachusetts governor? If a major tragedy befalls us and Romney does become the nominee, we will hear more about this, but for now the drive by media is mostly silent.

As he was leaving the Governor’s office in 2007, Romney’s aides bought the hard drives on their computers and Romney replaced all of the computers in the governor’s office as well as the servers. In other words, there was no archiving of the emails that were sent by not only Romney but the members of the Governor’s staff.

What was so damaging to Romney that he felt the need to make certain no one found out about it?

That would be a great question for Newt Gingrich to ask in the one on one debate that he has challenged Romney to. Unfortunately, Mitt Romney, the cowardly liberal, will not debate.

The failure to debate is just another sign of Romney’s shortcomings. He cannot debate. All he can do is come up with his memorized talking points and even his really bad memorized jokes.

If Mitt Romney will not man up and debate Gingrich, what is he going to do with Obama? Team Obama will start taunting him to a debate every day, much as Gingrich is doing and he will have the drive by media behind him.

If Romney is the nominee, we can count on four more years of Obama.

Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas is a conservative GOP nominee to kick Mitt Romney into retirement and do the same for Obama in November.

Making a Climate Offer they don't Refuse

Timothy Birdnow

The U.N. Climate Change Conference at Durban has been taken over by a bunch of juvenile delinquents.

http://www.eagleforum.org/un/2011/11-12-21.html

From Eagle Forum:

"During the last hours of COP 17, it was young people who held disruptive demonstrations in the hallways of the conference center. It was YP who heckled the head of the U. S delegation Todd Stern during his remarks in the plenary session, and it was YP who held a press conference demanding action, "We want money and we want it now!" Even though these YP were not in the room where delegates were meeting, they were disseminating information and making demands of delegates via Twitter and Facebook.

UN elitists have no shame in creating and using the fears of children. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recalled a tragic story of a child in Kiribati who could not sleep soundly for fear he would be stolen away in the night by a rising ocean."

End excerpt.

Also, the U.N. refused to allow attendees to leave without something tangible in a desperate bid to maintain some sort of legitimacy for this money-wasting exercise:

"The 17th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP 17) held in Durban, South Africa ended at 5 a.m. on December 11th, running two days past the scheduled conclusion, making it the longest climate conference in UN history (16 days). COP 17 President Nkoana-Mashabane could have ended the conference at any time with just the sound of her gavel, but she, along with United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres, chose to keep delegates working overtime through Friday and Saturday nights until the desired outcome was achieved. Delegates held hostage, suffering from sleep deprivation and scheduling deadlines (i.e. flights home) will eventually agree to anything.
Google Ads are provided by Google and are not selected or endorsed by Eagle Forum


Climate change conferences have been deadlocked since COP 15 in 2009. The U.S. has refused to sign onto anything legally binding until all countries are held accountable for their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including so-called "poor" developing countries like China and India, which are now number one and three in worldwide emissions. The U.S., a developed country, is number two.

The UN elitists needed to have movement in this regard to give legitimacy to any future meetings. COP 18 is already scheduled to take place in the oil rich Arab State of Qatar in 2012. The 2012-2013 budget for the COPs is $122,504,000 with the U.S. being assessed at the highest rate of 22% (approximately $27 million).

The conference was still at an impasse at 3 a.m. Sunday morning between developing countries (India, China, Brazil and S. Africa) and the European Union. India insisted that the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" (CBDR) be stated in the text. The CBDR principle assumes that rich developed countries have been primarily responsible for GHG emissions and should be punished by GHG caps, while poorer developing nations should be exempt. Finally at 4 a.m., delegates "huddled" and a compromise was reached by inserting one phrase, "an agreed outcome." The full sentence reads:

The COP "decides to launch a process to develop a protocol, another legal instrument or 'an agreed outcome' with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties through a subsidiary body under the Convention hereby established and to be known as the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action."

COP 17 made decisions on four fronts:


Platform requires a working group to establish legally binding requirements for all Parties by 2015 to go into effect in 2020;
Creates the architecture of the Green Climate Fund (a fund of $100 billion per year to be given to developing countries by 2020), but it does not name specific funding sources;
The commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol was extended five to seven years past its current expiration date of 2012;
Sets up a new UN Climate Technology Center to facilitate technology transfers to developing nations, finding ways around Intellectual Property Rights (patents) barriers."

End excerpt.

The purpose of the entire "emergency" of Climate Change is to redistribute wealth and establish the framework for world government. It really is that simple. Internationalists do not favor a loose confederation of free states but rather want an international order with power held firmly by a ruling elite, and with a socialist economic order. They will tolerate a fascist-type economic system of crony capitalism as a means to eventually get there (like the Marxists used to say "first brown then red") but make no mistake; Internationalism is about socialism. This is a program that has been in the works for well over a hundred years.

Frankly, COP should cop a plea; they are ultimately swindlers, criminals looking to steal money. This is an enormous protection racket, far superior to any such scheme devised by Cosa Nostra or Al Capone.

Thanks, Duke!

Where's the Tropospheric Warming?

Timothy Birdnow

This from SEPP:

Satellite Global Temperature Measurements:

November 30 marked the 33rd year of the data record of using satellite data to calculate atmospheric temperatures. Published monthly, these data are the most comprehensive and rigorous collection of global temperatures in existence. When adjusted for volcanic cooling events and unusually strong El Niño warming events, the data from the lower troposphere show little global warming over the entire record. The lower troposphere is precisely where the climate models predict the warming should take place, especially above the tropics. The recorded warming is largely above 60 degrees North Latitude, especially the Arctic.

University of Alabama, Huntsville, scientists Roy Spencer and John Christy are to be congratulated and esteemed for their scientific efforts and scientific integrity in consistently publishing the results of their findings, regardless of short warming or cooling periods.

The notes accompanying the release of the data state: "While Earth's climate has warmed in the last 33 years, the climb has been irregular. There was little or no warming for the first 19 years of satellite data. Clear net warming did not occur until the El Niño Pacific Ocean 'warming event of the century' in late 1997. Since that upward jump, there has been little or no additional warming."

"Christy and other UA Huntsville scientists have calculated the cooling effect caused by the eruptions of Mexico's El Chichon volcano in 1982 and the Mt. Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines in 1991. When that cooling is subtracted, the long-term warming effect is reduced to 0.09 C (0.16° F) per decade, well below computer model estimates of how much global warming should have occurred."

Of course, these measurements contradict the land surface measurements of temperatures so widely cited as proof of human-caused global warming. Please see links under "Challenging the Orthodoxy."

Deadly Laboratory Bird Flu Strain Research Funded by USA

Ron de Haan

A Dutch team of scientists has developed an extremely deadly strain of the bird flu virus, H5N1, a virus so dangerous that it kills 60 percent of those who get infected.

The research was undertaken at the Erasmus Medical Center at Rotterdam by Ron Fouchier and just five mutations in two key genes created the virus with a potential to cause a devastating human pandemic that could kill tens of millions of people.

Fouchier however claimed the creation of the flue strain could be used to develop a flue vaccine in case this strain would develop along natural mutations.

From the Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/alarm-as-dutch-lab-creates-highly-contagious-killer-flu-6279474.html

“Some scientists are questioning whether the research should ever have been undertaken in a university laboratory, instead of at a military facility”.

“The discovery has prompted fears within the US Government that the knowledge will fall into the hands of terrorists wanting to use it as a bio-weapon of mass destruction”.

That’s a remarkable response because it was the National institutes of Health, a US Government organization that funded the research. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institutes_of_Health

AP Associated Press comes with the news that details about the killer virus won’t be revealed.
http://life.time.mk/read/99e754c139/858012eb11/index.html

No one can guarantee though that the university research has not already been copied and distributed.

Based on today’s environment of world-wide connectivity, beginning with 10 infected people arriving in Los Angeles, the simulation predicts that the pandemic will spread quickly throughout the continental United States, peaking about 90 days after the initial introduction.

Here is an animated video of a potential US contamination model.http://www.lanl.gov/news/images/bird4x3red.mov

Over the past years the WHO triggered a massive scare about the bird flu strain and lowered the threshold of what is called a pandemic.http://www.seablogger.com/?p=13753

This forced Governments all over the world make massive investments in medicine and flue vaccines which in the end were not needed and had to be destroyed.

Hopefully this “scare’ will spare us from another massive investment to prevent a pandemic or a deliberate introduction of this virus by some tyrannic idiots who want to “save the planet” from human kind.
With people like John Holdren (Population Bomb) in the position of Science Czar in the current Obama Administration everything is possible. Especially if you don’t believe in coincidence.

Ron De Haan http://rarereaders.seablogger.com/2011/12/labaratory-bird-flu-strain-could-kill-millions/

Protect Middle East Christians petition

Jack Kemp

In the Middle East - the birthplace of Christianity - the continued existence of Christianity's most ancient communities is threatened. Americans cannot sit by silently - we must press political leaders to make protecting the basic rights of fellow Christians in the Middle East a national priority. I have just sent a letter to President Obama as part of a national campaign to encourage him to protect at-risk Christians in the Middle East. This is an important opportunity to remind our President that Americans care deeply about the persecution of Christians under Islamic extremism. Please take a moment to join me and send a letter yourself - it takes just one minute. Go to: http://campaigns.csi-usa.org/index.php?id=1Obama

Salvation Army Troop Withdrawal

Jack Kemp

This is a fine article from Amer. Thinker for Christmas time. Now that gay organizations oppose the Salvation Army, I'm gonna drop some money in the next red kettle I see.


http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/12/salvation_army_troop_withdrawal.html#ixzz1hAWYsJ7F

December 21, 2011
Salvation Army Troop Withdrawal
By Tom Thurlow

A funny thing happened on my way to shop at Target yesterday: there was no Salvation Army guy with the little red kettle collecting money! What gives?

At the front door of our local Target store, just as the shopper enters the store, is a sign that pledges "distraction-free shopping" -- and then the shopper gets all the distraction he would ever want. Seems a bit contradictory, but this has been Target's policy for a few years, and I am only now noticing. For once, I want more distraction, at least at the front door. It's Christmastime, you know.

In fact, Target isn't alone. Some CVS stores, Best Buy, Home Depot, and some Giant Food stores have recently banned or limited the Salvation Army kettles.

The latest controversy has to do with gay and lesbian issues. The lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community is calling for a boycott of donations to the Salvation Army kettles. What was once a few voices here and there is now a chorus in the LGBT community to boycott. Because the Salvation Army is really a hybrid Christian church/community outreach/disaster relief organization, it won't hire people for its staff unless they are practicing Christians, and that excludes sexually active gays and lesbians. And despite the position on hiring, Salvation Army does not dole out relief on the basis of faith or sexual orientation.

And donating to the kettle does a lot of good. According to the Salvation Army's website, among other activities, the Army operates senior citizen centers, provides meals for the homeless, operates community food banks, runs youth camps, and provides emergency disaster relief.

But what about the day-to-day stuff they do? Is there any political indoctrination in, say, a typical soup kitchen run by the Salvation Army? Maybe a homophobia oath before getting fed? In hopes of answering this and other questions, I went to the local Napa feeding center to see for myself. And no, they weren't offering any of the local highly-rated Napa wines, much as I would not have minded that.

This would be my first trip to a free soup kitchen. What would it be like? My template was Charles Dickens. I pictured a bunch of desperately poor and hungry people, all being given the watery oatmeal like what you see in the poverty TV commercials. Some, like the orphan Oliver, would be asking for more but being told to get lost. I also envisioned some well-dressed guy with an effeminate voice being told to "scram" and take his lifestyle with him.

At first I thought this might be a rough crowd, so I'd better try to fit in if possible. I decided to un-tuck part of my shirt, and I spoke with incorrect grammar, just to be safe.

But I was pleasantly surprised by the people and staff there. No need to fit in. I tucked my shirt back in. The lunch crowd formed a long line, but there was no cutting or bullying. The servers were polite and non-discriminatory, even smiling at me when I said "thanks." And while the food wasn't really bad, it reminded me of hospital food.

I tried to notice the smell of booze on people's breath, and I didn't smell any. I asked another diner nearby and she told me that the few times people come in drunk or high, they get kicked out. "This is a church, after all," she told me.
The only way to describe most of the people eating there was that they had had some rough miles. Many of them called each other by name and asked how they were doing. Family was a big topic. As I conversed with some of them, they laughed at my jokes, so obviously I was among intelligent people.

There were a couple of people nearby who disapproved of the taste of the food, but they were in the distinct minority. I wondered, "How can you possibly complain about free food?"

As I left, I faced a dilemma: how much tip to leave? Is it proper etiquette to leave a tip when you just got a meal for free? This is something I was never taught in prep school.

Then I talked with the woman in charge, and she answered my questions about volunteering there. She told me that although Salvation Army feeding centers are independent, most are open to volunteers doing any kind of help. The only thing needed in volunteering was a good attitude and an ability to work without constant supervision. I will definitely be back to volunteer.

To be fair to Target and the other stores banning or limiting the bell-ringers, most have a policy where the corporation donates to the Salvation Army. For example, Target's website reports that it supports Salvation Army by granting money and making in-kind donations.

But that isn't the same. It kind of reminds me of President Bush's statement about how we could help the country after the 9/11 attacks. He said -- and this is a crude paraphrase -- just "go shopping." But we wanted to have a hands-on helping experience. Whether it is buying war bonds or collecting rubber or rationing butter, Americans wanted to personally do something to help the war effort. I remember once back then, trying to explain to my unpatriotic spouse that instead of my doing the dishes, we needed to ration water to help the war effort. (It didn't work.)

But those of us who care want to directly help the Salvation Army pay for their soup kitchens, food banks, rehab centers, disaster recovery work, everything. It is simply no fun to just shop at Target, or other stores, knowing that a part of our money goes to the Salvation Army. We want to personally hand money -- or even our credit card -- to the red kettle. As the Apostle Paul wrote, "God loves a cheerful giver," and people like to give to the Salvation Army. Paul didn't write about cheerfully giving indirectly.

So this Christmas season, we should give generously to the Salvation Army, directly through their kettles. We should also make an extra effort to shop at the stores that allow these kettles in front. Those kettles could soon be a thing of the past. Remember, the Boy Scouts were once non-controversial.

Shroud of Turin Authenticated by Researchers

Timothy Birdnow

I never thought I'd see this in the Huffing and Puffing, but here it is; the Shroud of Turin is likely authentic, according to Italian researchers!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/20/shroud-of-turin-jesus-burial-cloth-authentic_n_1161363.html?ref=religion&icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-nb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D121982

For those who do not know, the Shroud is a relic from antiquity that has a photographic negative on it of a man with wounds very similar to those of Jesus described in the Bible. When viewed with the naked eye the Shroud is hard to make out, but when a photo is taken the undeveloped film shows striking detail of a man with wounds on his hands and feet, a major wound in his side, and wounds on his head consistent with the "crown of thorns". There are all manner of wounds on the back and shoulders indicating scourging. The attention to detail (if it is a forgery) is staggering. For example, the wounds on the hands are actually on the wrists, where nails would have been driven through the gap in the bone to support the weight of the condemned; the hands would simply have torn under a hundred and twenty pounds or more. Not many Medieval people would be aware of that little detail.

Carbon dating of the Shroud determined it's origin between the Thirteenth and Fourteenth centuries, but the Shroud was damaged in a fire about that time and was repaired, so the cloth taken for the dating is suspect. Pollen tests indicate that the Shroud had been in the Holy Land, and the image of a flower on the Shroud itself has been identified as a flower that blossums in march or April near Jerusalem. Blood stains on the Shroud have been confirmed, but the DNA is too degenerated to identify and it is impossible to tell the blood type. Imbedded rock particles were shown to be limestone identical to limestone near Jerusalem.

Faint writing appears on the Shroud, and researchers have determined this inscription:

"In the year 16 of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius Jesus the Nazarene, taken down in the early evening after having been condemned to death by a Roman judge because he was found guilty by a Hebrew authority, is hereby sent for burial with the obligation of being consigned to his family only after one full year"
(According to Albin Michel in Nouvelles découvertes sur le suaire de Turin, Paris,) Coins on the eyes match coins issued in that period.

If this was a forgery, it was the most masterful one in history.

Now, one need not believe the Shroud is anything but a forgery, or even a case of mistaken identity, and the Catholic Church does not require the veneration of relics, although that is an old custom. In the end, if the Shroud is shown to be completely false it does not matter to Christian faith. There really is no way to prove it's authenticity, just that it's consistent with what could have been the burial shroud of Jesus. In the end it is something that can inspire Faith. We walk not by sight, but by Faith, as the Bible says, and so we will not find any "proof" to justify that faith, or it wouldn't be faith.

In the end, this is something to justify what one already believes. To those who know the truth it is but another brick in the wall off their beliefs; to the nonbeliever it is just more foolishness and superstition. No one can or will change their minds because of the Shroud.

But at worst it makes a fascinating historical puzzle, and makes it clear to us that we really do not know as much as we like to think we do. If 21st. Century Man cannot explain how Medieval forgers made this amazing thing, how can we claim to "know" there really is no God?

As Shakespeare observed in Hamlet "there are more things in Heaven and on Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy" - philosophy meaning science, not psycho-babble. The more we learn, the more we realize we know so very, very little.

azing Early WWII American Myopia

Jack Kemp

After quoting this New York attack by a U-boat in January, 1942 in the continuation of a political discussion via a letter to my dentist, I took down from the shelf my copy of "The War," the companion book to the Ken Burns six DVD series "The War."

On Page 22 text, in a section called "The Battle of the Atlantic," it states:

BEGIN QUOTE
On the evening of January 13, 1942, a German U-boat surfaced silently off Manhattan. Its commander was astonished but gratified to see that more than a month after Germany had declared war war on the United States,America's largest city was still ablaze with lights. Using those lights to silhouette his target, he sent a torpedo racing into the hull of an American oil tanker, then slipped back beneath the sea and moved south in search of further prey. Within twelve hours, he had sunk seven more unarmed vessels.

The United States was totally unprepared for this kind of war. The British pleaded for armed escorts to accompany the convoys that formed their lifeline, but there were not yet enough ships to provide them. But by the end of January, U-boats would sink twenty-five tankers along the East Coast. Still, from Boston to Miami, city fathers stubbornly resisted the idea of blackouts. Turning off the lights would hurt tourism, they said. The last light would not wink out until May.
END QUOTE

There you have it. The mayors knew Roosevelt was keeping the stories of the freighter and oil tanker sinkings out of the newspapers for wartime propaganda reasons. The mayors figured wealthy people could still come to NY, Miami or Boston. After all, people just scraping by in the tail end of the Depression weren't the tourists in those cities, anyway.

And there is further proof of most people's denial and indifference to a war on their beaches. In what was called "The Atlantic Pearl Harbor," the former best selling book "Operation Drumbeat," by Michael Gannon, states on page 93:

BEGIN QUOTE
"Reuben James was the first vessel of the U.S. Navy to be lost in World War II (NOTE: This happened on convoy to England duty, on October 31, 1941). Said U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Harold R.Stark: "Whether the country knows it or not we are at war." Though the bereaved families mourned the loss of more than a hundred bluejackets, the nation at large, noting that no draftees were on the casualty list and that death at sea was a risk taken by every career Navy man, showed more interest in the forthcoming Army-Navy football game. As playwright and White House familiar Robert E. Sherwood put it, "There was a sort of tacit understanding among Americans that nobody was to get excited if ships were sunk by U-boats because that's what got us into the war the other time." One voice perhaps more sensitive to the human losses was that of balladeer Woody Guthrie, who sang:

Tell me what were their names?
Tell me what were their names?
Did you have a friend
On the good Reuben James?

END OF QUOTE

This last quote has put the American public's perspective into focus for me - Americans who don't read conservative or military websites and don't want their sense of security upset - even as it is now upset with bombing and machine gun attacks at places like Ft. Hood, Times Square and a military recruiting station in the South. Most people care only about what immediately effects them and have very limited interest in what could possibly go right or wrong further along in time. Or they dismiss attacks as the result of "backlash to the racist policies by George Bush" - as if those willing to attack the United States have stopped because Obama is now in office.

But back in 1942, as now, there have been too many cumulative attacks occurring for a majority of people to dismiss them as an inconvenience. And the number of people in the all volunteer military of today is significantly larger than it was in 1940, representing a much stronger connection to communities across the U.S.

By late July of 1942, the U.S. Navy was training personnel in the latest British style submarine chasing methods.On July 13th of that year, "the USS Landsdowne, in combination with Bomber Squadron 59, dispatched (sunk U-boat) U-153 off Panama. The fifth and last U-boat to be destroyed during the six-month-long concentrated U-boat campaign in American waters was U-576, sunk on 15 July off Diamond Shoals (North Carolina) by a joint force of two Navy aircraft from Squadron VS-9 based at Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, North Carolina, and the Naval Armed Guard of the merchant ship SS Unicoi." (page 384, Operation Drumbeat). Also, the Civil Air Patrol, essentially a civilian volunteer unit, while flying along our coast in the early days of the war looking for German U-Boats, actually had pilots who had home-made single bomb holders at the bottom of their planes. One was reported to have sunk a U-Boat. Many pilots risked their lives by returning from patrols to land with a bomb still in place underneath their planes, a potentially fatal risk in a hard belly landing on a runway.