18th March 2024
The Spectator.
Let’s play a guessing game: I’m a dangerous force threatening Americans’ health, safety and way of life. We largely rely on government agencies to monitor and manage me. What to do about me is still a matter of debate, as is the severity of the menace I actually create. The media is likely sensationalizing the threat. A new study suggests I’m “not as bad as originally thought,” that reports of the devastation I’m causing were “premature,” and that if you’re outside a specific subset of people I disproportionately affect, you wouldn’t know I exist. Still, there are interactive maps to track my movement, and I’m reported to be related to a new, “hard-to-eradicate, super” strain invading from a foreign country.
What am I?
Yep, you guessed it. I’m a feral pig.
Posted in Think about it. | No Comments »
18th March 2024
Read it.
A gathering of conservatives in the southern Belgian city of Mons came under attack on Sunday afternoon in an organised assault by left-wing militants, with one youth leader suffering head injuries after being set upon by approximately fifteen ‘antifascists.’
Members of the conservative Libéraux Démocrates party were assaulted shortly after a political meeting in the historically left-wing Francophone city near the Grands Prés shopping district. Party literature was also stolen and masked activists took pictures of attendees’ car registrations.
The attack occurred after the meeting, while activists were travelling for food with party president Tony Kacikowsky, who was assaulted by a gang of 15 in what observers described as having the appearance of a coordinated effort.
People don’t remember that the Nazi Storm Troopers were organized to defend against the Socialist and Communist ‘street fighters’ who, like BLM and AntiFa, started the whole process.
But nobody learns history any more, so we are condemned to repeat it….
Posted in Dystopia Watch | No Comments »
18th March 2024
Read it.
groupthink-inflected whims of morally demented and empirically discredited experts?
The answer should be easy, but the question typically isn’t put that way. Rather, it’s: “Don’t you care about your child’s mental health?” And if the answer is, as it must be, “Yes,” then it follows that you must trust the mental health professionals.
Liberal norms currently prohibit questioning the wisdom of mental health experts. But, until very recently, liberal norms also prohibited questioning the wisdom of chemically sterilizing and surgically mutilating gay and autistic children who’d fallen down the wrong TikTok rabbit hole. Abigail Shrier, whose book Irreversible Damage highlighted the horror of such self-evident barbarism, is now asking whether a field of self-anointed soul-experts—who are still getting such an obvious question so perversely wrong—could also be wrong about everything else.
See Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | No Comments »
18th March 2024
Read it.
The CRE implosion is picking up steam.
Check out the grim stats on Pittsburgh.
Unions are also a problem in Pittsburgh as they are in Illinois and California.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | No Comments »
18th March 2024
Lumina makes a probiotic that allegedly replaces your existing mouth bacteria with equivalents genetically modified not to produce lactic acid.
I haven’t used it so I express no opinion on it. But it’s important, so I’m spreading the word.
Posted in News You Can Use. | No Comments »
18th March 2024
Ars Technica.
If you have a dog or cat, chances are you’ve given your pet a flavored chewable tablet for tick prevention at some point. What if you could take a similar pill to protect yourself from getting Lyme disease?
Tarsus Pharmaceuticals is developing such a pill for humans—minus the tasty flavoring—that could provide protection against the tick-borne disease for several weeks at a time. In February, the Irvine, California–based biotech company announced results from a small, early-stage trial showing that 24 hours after taking the drug, it can kill ticks on people, with the effects lasting for up to 30 days.
Wonder if it would work on Democrats….
Posted in News You Can Use. | No Comments »
18th March 2024
ZMan does an eye-roll.
Joseph de Maistre famously observed, “False opinions are like false money, struck first of all by guilty men and thereafter circulated by honest people who perpetuate the crime without knowing what they are doing.” We get a sense of that in the weekend media drama over Trump using the word “bloodbath” in a speech. He used the word in reference to what would happen to the auto industry under a second Biden term, but the media left out the part about the auto industry.
The result was a media frenzy based on the false claim that Trump was promising some sort of homicidal revenge if he did not win the election. One media pinhead after another went to their favorite platform to repeat the claim. In some cases, they did so on video platforms as the video of Trump giving the speech in which he used the word was playing in the corner of the screen with the sound muted. So much for the second half of that de Maistre quote about honest people perpetuating the crime.
It probably would have gone like so many other fake media narratives in that normal people without access to the megaphone would have spent days clarifying what was said but by that point the media would be onto the next lie. This time the world’s richest man noticed and posted about it on Twitter. Joe Scarborough deleted his post about it, but others kept up the lie. Nancy Pelosi made the rounds stammering through the claim that Trump is promising a homicidal rampage.
UPDATE: Fallout Continues Over Trump “Bloodbath” Media Hoax
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | No Comments »
18th March 2024
Read it.
A 26-year-old Haitian national has been charged with raping a 14-year-old girl at a Massachusetts hotel being used to house illegal immigrants under the Gov. Maura Healey administration.
Cory Alvarez was arraigned on the charges of child rape on Thursday, March 14, at the Hingham District Court. The alleged assault took place at the Comfort Inn in Rockland, according to a press release issued by police. Rockland is located about 22 miles south of Boston.
Patrol Lt. Thomas MacDonald of the Rockland Police Department told The Epoch Times that since the state secured the 100-room hotel as a shelter for illegal immigrants in October, the police have taken on a heavy volume of calls related to the property.
My, what a surprise….
Posted in Dystopia Watch | No Comments »
18th March 2024
Read it.
In Houston, a scandal recently broke when it became public that the police department had closed the investigation of over a quarter of a million crimes with a code indicating the case was being dropped for lack of manpower. The cases closed included thousands of murders and sexual assaults. The department did not inform victims or their families that the investigations had been closed. While the disclosure has roiled Houstonians, it should be of no surprise to anyone that law enforcement agencies generally do an abysmal job at solving crimes.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | No Comments »
18th March 2024
Posted in Think about it. | No Comments »
18th March 2024
Read it.
At dawn or dusk, Kristy Brow used to enjoy alone time walking in the woods on her 21-acre property in Highgate, Vermont, a small rural town near the U.S.–Canada border.
Lately, however, she’s cautious—she’s worried about potential encounters with illegal immigrants along the remote logging trail.
“I don’t go out by myself anymore—especially at night,” said Mrs. Brow, who runs a dog obedience business from her home.
Democrat administration = life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | No Comments »
18th March 2024
Washington Free Beacon.
A California synagogue axed its leadership and is struggling to retain members after leasing its facility to a Muslim group that brought in an anti-Israel speaker who compared Israel to Nazi Germany.
Hamakom synagogue, a conservative congregation of around 900 families located in an upscale Los Angeles suburb, says it was trying to ease tensions between the Jewish and Muslim communities when it decided to lease its space this month to the Islamic Society of West Valley, a neighboring Muslim faith group that needed space to hold services during the holy month of Ramadan.
Hamakom entered into an agreement with the Islamic Society that allowed it to take over the synagogue’s main campus, pushing Jewish members onto a smaller satellite branch. In anticipation of the lease’s commencement, the synagogue’s leadership covered up pictures of Israeli hostages captured by Hamas during its Oct. 7 attack on Israel, according to photographs reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, sparking anger among Jewish congregants.
My, what a surprise….
Posted in Living with Islam. | No Comments »
18th March 2024
The Antiplanner.
Someone recently asked me what I thought were the nation’s worst-managed transit projects. I suggested the Honolulu rail was number 1, the Maryland Purple Line was number 2, and BART to San Jose was number 3. But maybe I underestimated the insanity of the BART-to-San Jose line.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | No Comments »
18th March 2024
Read it.
Every year, migrants and refugees transfer billions of euros from Germany to family members in their home countries, with the Bundesbank estimating this to be at least €6.8 billion per year.
I suspect this is dwarfed by the amount of money sent to Mexico every year by ‘migrants’, legal and illegal.
Posted in Think about it. | No Comments »
18th March 2024
Read it.
In the last year Greece has spent about $400 million on a unique Israeli combat system. The new Fire Weaver Fire Control system uses Orbiter 3 UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) to seek out targets and automatically have a Spike NLOS missile launched from an aircraft, ground vehicle or ship to hit the target. Israel developed this system over several decades and it is now widely used in the Israeli military.
Posted in Think about it. | No Comments »
18th March 2024
Gates of Vienna.
Wind turbines are widely disliked by the general public in all countries where they are erected. They are a blight on the landscape, and their noise when operating is unpleasant, and even harmful, for those who live nearby. They are notorious for killing large numbers of birds, including endangered species such as eagles.
Recent research in Sweden has revealed that wind farms cause even more environmental damage than previously thought, notably through the erosion of toxic chemicals from the blades, which are dispersed into the environment surrounding the turbines.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | No Comments »
18th March 2024
The Spectator.
Muriel Bowser is a woman with a plan. In late February the mayor of the District of Columbia unveiled a $400 million, five-year economic development strategy to revitalize the capital’s downtown. It involves converting empty office space into residential units and rebranding parts of the neighborhood. Soon, visitors to Washington will be able to watch homeless addicts shoot up in “Historic Green Triangle” and get their phones stolen by moped-riding teenagers in the “Penn West Equity, Innovation & University District.”
Posted in Dystopia Watch | No Comments »
18th March 2024
Read it.
Members of New York’s Reparations and Racial Justice Commission, Ron Daniels and Lurie Daniel Favors, have made headlines in the New York Post with their outspoken comments on a variety of contentious issues.
It’s interesting how many black women do their best to resemble white women as much as possible. Perhaps the high number of black men marrying (or hooking up with) actual white women makes them feel insecure.
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | No Comments »
18th March 2024
Power Line.
For years, liberals have obtusely refused to acknowledge that part of Donald Trump’s appeal is his sense of humor. Often they have branded his comments as outrageous, when in truth they were intended as jokes, and understood as such by his audience. Now, for whatever reason, liberals are belatedly conceding the point. As in this Politico piece, which is, in its own unintentional way, funny.
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | No Comments »
18th March 2024
Read it.
Planet Fitness is defending its decision to ban the membership of a customer in Alaska who spoke out about a “man in women’s locker room shaving.”
Patricia Silva left the gym in Fairbanks, Alaska and shared a video on Facebook where she said: “I just came out of Planet Fitness. There is a man shaving in the women’s bathroom.”
She also said the man “woman” was in the locker room at the same time as a 12 year old girl.
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | No Comments »
18th March 2024
NPR.
Ultra-processed foods are abundant in our food supply. Among the most common are highly refined breads, fast food, sugary drinks, cereals, cookies, and other packaged snacks. They are often high in salt, sugar, fat and calories and low in fiber and micro-nutrients such as vitamins.
And that’s as much of a definition of ‘ultra-processed foods’ as you’re going to get in this article. No indication of what distinguishes ‘ultra-processed’ foods from mere ‘processed’ foods. I guess it’s like ‘ultra-right-wing’; you know it when progressive see it.
At a time when Americans consume more than half of their daily calories from ultra-processed foods, there is increasing evidence that eating too many of these foods can make us sick.
‘Evidence’? No, there isn’t. Here’s what they call ‘evidence’:
A study published in the British Medical Journal finds people who consume high amounts of these foods have an increased risk of anxiety, depression, obesity, metabolic syndrome, certain cancers including colorectal cancer and premature death.
The data come from more than 9 million people who participated in dozens of studies, which researchers analyzed as part of umbrella review.
Such ‘studies’ are merely statistical correlations … and, as any legitimate scientist will remind you, correlation doesn’t imply causation. Suspicious? Certainly–depending on the methodology of the study–which, as we are increasingly seeing, is often shoddy. But evidence? Not in the rigorous legal sense. None of which slows down the hammer of the people who want to ban stuff ‘for your own good’.
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | No Comments »
18th March 2024
BBC.
Because they’re arrogant entitled assholes?
Greenpeace could be thrown out of the UN body overseeing controversial plans to begin deep-sea mining.
One mining company claims the campaign group disrupted a research expedition in the remote Pacific.
Member states of the UN’s International Seabed Association could choose to strip Greenpeace of its observer status within the group.
Greenpeace says the incident in question was a peaceful protest aimed at protecting a pristine ecosystem.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | No Comments »
17th March 2024
Read it.
I wonder whether French has given over pretending to be a conservative? Probably not.
Posted in Democrats: Party of Fear--Party of Hate--Party of Death | No Comments »
17th March 2024
Power Line.
And pretty much always have been. (Western civilization? Sounds fascist to me….)
In its typically clueless way, The New Yorker is hot on the topic of whether the liberal arts—and especially classical education—have gone conservative. (The article is titled, “Have the Liberal Arts Gone Conservative?”) Better break out the smelling salts.
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | No Comments »
17th March 2024
Power Line.
Donald Trump has held a narrow but consistent lead in just about every poll for several months now—having never led in the polls in either the 2016 and 2020 election cycles. More significant is where this lead has come from. Trump has not improved his share of white vote at all; his improved standing has come from huge gains in minority votes, as John pointed out recently in drawing our attention to a Financial Times meta-analysis of polls going back several cycles.
Posted in Democrats: Party of Fear--Party of Hate--Party of Death | No Comments »
17th March 2024
Read it.
The following excerpts are from Tragedy and Hope. They detail the monetary environment from 1914 to the 1930s. When looked at independently the context helps explain the confusion we find across today’s monetary landscape.
These passages help us better understand money and the lack of order that takes hold when international players desire a change to the system. The greatest challenge then and now was the battle between real wealth and claims on wealth.
Posted in Think about it. | No Comments »
17th March 2024
New York Post.
New York? I’d let him on through, and teach him how to use the Internet.
Does he have a Go Fund Me?
Posted in Living with Islam. | No Comments »
17th March 2024
Read it.
After previously thinking NY Jets quarterback Aaron Rogers might be the right person to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr is now planning to select 38-year-old Nicole Shanahan, the wealthy ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, as his running mate. This according to a Saturday Mediaite report that cited “a source close to the campaign.”
Shanahan is a Bay Area lawyer and tech entrepreneur who’s been a Democratic Party benefactor and donated to Biden’s 2020 campaign. In a February Times profile, she described herself as a “progressive through and through.” Aside from opening her wallet, she has no political profile whatsoever, seemingly not even having spoken out or written about issues of the day.
Well, she managed to fuck two billionaires, Sergei Brin and Elon Musk; so far she has been more successful at that than Elizabeth Warren. She would seem perfectly qualified for any progressive administration.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | No Comments »
17th March 2024
The Spectator.
Lent which, under Orthodox tradition means no eggs, meat or dairy (or even fish for designated periods), can be weirdly enjoyable, if only for the break in routine and the longings it unleashes. Besides, set it beside Ramadan, when during the hours of daylight even water can’t be drunk, and you realize things could be a whole lot worse.
Today is Forgiveness Sunday (Sunday of Cheesefare). Full Great Lent starts officially tomorrow.
Posted in Think about it. | No Comments »
17th March 2024
BBC.
As we browse the news, it’s easy to become desensitised to awful events. Amanda Ruggeri explores the psychology, and the steps you can take to avoid it happening.
Ironic, considering that the Narrative media like the BBC are the chief purveyors and popularizers of the abnormal-as-normal in modern times.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | No Comments »
17th March 2024
Read it.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has been a young darling of the Democratic Party, but residents of a Queens neighborhood in her district have become disenchanted with the lawlessness and illegal activity, including prostitution.
My, what a surprise….
You can’t say she doesn’t reflect her district.
Posted in Democrats: Party of Fear--Party of Hate--Party of Death | No Comments »
17th March 2024
Read it.
As a scholar of Arthurian literature, particularly that of England in the 15th century, I have a professional appreciation for the existence of physical media. If, instead of diligently writing out his Le Morte Darthur, Sir Thomas Malory had only told his story aloud to friends, relatives, and his gaoler, we almost certainly would not have had the benefit of it over the intervening centuries that have passed since his death. Like so many other fascinating but ephemeral pieces of the past, it would have entirely disappeared, leaving future generations deprived of that which they did not even have the chance to know.
Physical connexions to the past are not only of interest to scholars of literature and history; both well-known texts and more recent discoveries such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi library are obvious examples of how ancient written works quite clearly continue to influence the modern world, shaping the religious beliefs and practises of countless people. Such physical records are vital for providing insight into contemporary differences and debates, but they also serve as an objective authority that can speak for the past in a way that no credible scholar can simply dismiss without cause. It is for this reason that George Orwell’s 1984, with its nightmare vision of a totalitarian future, portrays a world in which The Party endlessly destroys and rewrites every record of the past. Once history is destroyed, truth ceases to be a matter of conformity to objective facts and becomes instead a matter of compliance with the powerful.
Posted in Think about it. | No Comments »
17th March 2024
Read it.
Violence and crime are already completely out of control all over the United States. In fact, you definitely wouldn’t want to be caught in the streets when hordes of our lawless young people are running wild. If things are this bad already, what is going to happen if the election in November does not go the way that leaders on the left want and they give the green light to millions of radicals to cause widespread chaos all over America? I think that we got a small preview of what this could look like during the riots of 2020. Unfortunately, since that time the open border policies of the Biden administration have allowed millions of extremely desperate people to come pouring into this country. The stage is being set for civil unrest on a scale that we have never seen before, and it certainly isn’t going to take much to push our society over the edge.
If Trump gets elected, blue states will burn. Great news for the Narrative media; for ordinary people: not so much.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | No Comments »
17th March 2024
Read it.
Skip stand-ups and all-hands. Evade Easter brunches, birthdays, and graduations.
Decline invitations by default. When you’re essential to an event, its host will notify you.
If you must attend an unfun event, make it memorable! Play pranks and plan ruses!
Don’t ghost. Never leave others hanging. Decline invitations with ample notice.
You’re going to die. Spend your time unapologetically. Be polite but direct. Never succumb to obligation.
Good advice.
Posted in Think about it. | No Comments »
17th March 2024
Read it.
In a recent interview on NPR, a reporter asked a 20-year-old woman with sickle cell disease how she would feel about a new treatment on the market, noting that the side effects include hair loss and sterility. The woman remained almost giddy—not merely because she already owned a closet full of wigs, but because, she noted, “I don’t want kids anyway, so that is a free form of birth control.”
Without diminishing from the seriousness of her illness—maybe she was just trying to look on the bright side?—it is still striking how often and how easily young women are proclaiming their desire to remain childless. How we arrived at the declining birthrates all over the world—but particularly in the United States and Europe—is a complex story. But Tim Carney—my colleague at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be—offers a readable and nuanced explanation for the phenomenon.
Family Unfriendly begins with the problems faced by people who actually have children and then works backward in time to the decisions young people are making about dating, marriage, and childbearing. Carney, who has six children of his own and lives in a community with other large families—think 10 or 12 children—describes the problems that families like his face. Oddly, finances are at the bottom of the list, despite the fact that Carney is not an investment banker and his wife stays at home with their children.
Think of it as evolution in action. People who don’t want kids will have no descendants, and so eventually everyone will be descended from people who do want kinds–a self-correcting problem.
Like gravity and markets, natural selection works even when you don’t want it to.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | 1 Comment »
17th March 2024
Posted in Think about it. | No Comments »
17th March 2024
Posted in Think about it. | 3 Comments »
17th March 2024
“Feminists are all about equality until a bill comes or a fight starts.” — Taylor the Fiend (on YouTube)
Posted in Think about it. | No Comments »
17th March 2024
DEA.
A government agency celebrates its own inconpetence in pursuit of a greater budget.
Think of it as evolution in action.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | No Comments »
17th March 2024
Read it.
In 2022, Seattle’s City Council passed an ordinance mandating a minimum earnings floor for app-based food delivery drivers in the city. The law finally went into effect in January 2024, but so far the main result has been customers deleting their delivery apps en masse, food orders plummeting, and driver pay cratering.
The ordinance, part of a legislative package called “PayUp,” was passed under the banner of protecting gig workers. By setting a compensation floor for app-based delivery drivers based on miles driven and amount of time worked, the ordinance operates as a (supremely complicated) minimum wage.
The wage floor is based on labyrinthine calculations: the “engaged minutes” for drivers are multiplied by a “minimum wage equivalent rate,” which is then multiplied again by an “associated cost factor” and then multiplied yet again by an “associated time factor.” Next, this sum is added to the total of “engaged miles” of drivers, multiplied by the “standard mileage rate” and then multiplied once more by the “associated mileage factor.” (If you’re lost, don’t worry—the text of the ordinance itself literally does the math for you).
Posted in Democrats: Party of Fear--Party of Hate--Party of Death | No Comments »
17th March 2024
Read it.
There are days when I’m tempted to join the Elizabeth Warren/Bernie Sanders/Joe Biden crusade to impose confiscatory taxes on billionaires. Not for economic or fiscal grounds, or even less for making billionaires “pay their fair share” (“fair share” in liberal speak just means “more”). To the contrary, I’m starting to think we should take the fortunes from many billionaires to stop them from doing more harm than the government does when it taxes and spends and borrows our money. And that’s saying something!
Barron’s reported this week that billionaires are ramping up their philanthropy considerably. But not just to any old traditional charities, but to “transformational” charity.
The ‘inconvenient truth’ that most billionaires are progressives (or act as if they were), a fact that you will never hear from the Narrative media and Democrat politicians, is at the root of the problem.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | No Comments »
17th March 2024
Read it.
With a title containing “Cowboys”, “Yankees” and “Patriots” it soundsAn illustration of Joe Biden looking at a map of the world. like a post about great sports dynasties, but it is actually about a recent podcast with Jack Posobiec and Mike Benz. In this podcast, Mike Benz, who is an “internet security expert” describes how US foreign policy is driven by two factions: the Yankees and the Cowboys.
The Yankees are the financial titans in New York and London. The Cowboys are the agrarian and military industries. Benz says that the factions use their political power and tools (sanctions for Yankees and military/regime change for Cowboys) to control foreign policy to their benefit. If a country is not cooperating with the American sugar industry, then they get an upgraded leader. If a country is not trading in dollars, then the financial hammer is dropped on them. He said it basically started with the Monroe Doctrine and continues to this day
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | No Comments »
17th March 2024
Newsbusters.
It never ceases to amaze watching the so-called “mainstream media” (aka the far left press) foam at the reality someone who is an outsider to the conventional politics of the day – aka in this case Donald Trump – is ascending to the presidency. Again.
This time around – again! – there is the redoubtable editorial board of the far left New York Times foaming and spewing over the fact that former President Trump has clinched the 2024 GOP nomination. It is Trump Derangement Syndrome at its finest.
Trump’s chief qualification for the Presidency is that all of the right people hate him.
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | No Comments »
17th March 2024
Newsbusters.
The Babylon Bee lives rent-free in the minds of too many journalists.
How else do you describe constant fact checks on a site that churns out satirical news stories a la The Onion?
USA Today once fact-checked a Bee piece saying President Joe Biden sold Alaska to Russia. PolitiFact ran to the scene after a Bee article claimed, “ISIS Lays Down Arms After Katy Perry’s Impassioned Plea To ‘Like, Just Co-Exist’”
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | No Comments »
17th March 2024
Read it.
Apparently making up lies about Republican-adjacent celebrities is a genuine career path these days.
Posted in Democrats: Party of Fear--Party of Hate--Party of Death | No Comments »
17th March 2024
Bloomberg.
Because being a Republican is just so fashionable these days.
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | No Comments »
17th March 2024
Read it.
Ella Emhoff, Vice President Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter, is garnering support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency despite concerns over its alleged involvement in the Oct. 7 terrorist attack in Israel, the New York Post reported.
A prime example of ‘resting fanatic face’. The acorn doesn’t fall far from the (grafted) tree.
Posted in Living with Islam. | No Comments »
17th March 2024
Read it.
Bucks County authorities have identified a suspect in a series of deadly shootings that prompted a shelter-in-place order early Saturday morning. As Fox29 reports, police say they are searching for 26-year-old Andre Gordon, who was last seen driving a stolen vehicle.
Yet another white supremacist engaging in gun violence. Oh, the humanity!
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | No Comments »
17th March 2024
Read it.
A little over a century ago, in his 1920 encyclical Principi Apostolorum Petro, Pope Benedict XV declared the 4th century poet, theologian, and writer, Saint Ephrem the Syrian, the Deacon of Edessa, to be a Doctor of the Church, a high and rare honor of the universal church. The 24th person so recognized since the Middle Ages, Saint Ephrem, was the first who did not come from the Western (Latin) Church or Eastern (Greek) Church. He was a speaker of Syriac and wrote exclusively in that language. In his encyclical, the pope mentioned the many clerics and bishops who encouraged him to take this step, especially the patriarchs of the Maronite, Chaldean, and Syriac Catholic churches, all spiritual descendants of Saint Ephrem.
…
The ‘Syriac World’ (some prefer the term Assyrian or Aramean) is the ethnic and religious community that grew out of the Syriac language and Christianity in Late Antiquity—Syriac being a branch of Aramaic, the lingua franca of most of the Middle East in the centuries before the coming of Christ. This status was retained for centuries, until Syriac was displaced by Arabic with the triumph of Islam. The roots of Syriac especially look to Edessa (the modern city of Urfa in Turkey), the city of Saint Ephrem. From there, as much as from nearby Antioch and more distant Jerusalem, and from the peregrinations of Saint Paul, “Christianity, an Asiatic religion,” spread both east and west. The Syriac world became a largely Christian one, best understood in a group of often contending, fissiparous religious bodies, which were often in conflict with their counterparts in Constantinople and Rome: the (Assyrian) Church of the East (disparagingly called the Nestorian Church); the Syrian Orthodox Church (sometimes called the Jacobite Church); various Indian branches of these churches; and related church bodies using Syriac and in communion with the pope in Rome, such as the Maronite Catholic, Chaldean Catholic, Syriac Catholic, Syro-Malabar, and Syro-Malankaran churches. Today, all of these churches have diaspora communities in the West, which are sometimes larger and richer than the original communities from where they sprang in the East.
Posted in Think about it. | No Comments »
17th March 2024
The Spectator.
Whatever else the arguments concerning the Gaza War, none is more wrong-headed than the suggestion that Gazans were living in such straitened circumstances that they had no choice but to “break out” on October 7. Palestinian solidarity protesters routinely describe Gaza as a “prison camp.” Even the British foreign secretary David Cameron has previously used that term to talk about Gaza. In the wake of the Hamas massacre, the UN chief António Guterres insisted that the events of October 7 “did not happen in a vacuum.” Although he later denied that this was a “justification” of the murders, rapes and kidnappings of Israelis by Gazans, Guterres’s comments tied in with a general view among Israel’s critics that conditions in Gaza were so dreadful that we can hardly be surprised at the inhabitants fighting back.
Posted in Living with Islam. | No Comments »