CWNews Feb. 27
Pope Benedict XVI (bio – news) told a visiting Greek Orthodox delegation that Catholic and Orthodox believers should work together to restore the Christian heritage of Europe.
The Holy Father met on February 27 with 30 students and teacher from the Apostoliki Diakonia theological school, administered by the Orthodox archdiocese of Athens. The Pope said that East and West should unite against “the challenges that threaten the faith.”
Wall Street Opinion Journal JAMES Q. WILSON Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Can a polarized nation win a protracted war?
The 2004 election left our country deeply divided over whether our country is deeply divided. For some, America is indeed a polarized nation, perhaps more so today than at any time in living memory. In this view, yesterday’s split over Bill Clinton has given way to today’s even more acrimonious split between Americans who detest George Bush and Americans who detest John Kerry, and similar divisions will persist as long as angry liberals and angry conservatives continue to confront each other across the political abyss. Others, however, believe that most Americans are moderate centrists, who, although disagreeing over partisan issues in 2004, harbor no deep ideological hostility. I take the former view.
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Wall Street Journal February 11, 2006; Page A8
As a way of addressing the Islamist threat to civil liberties in Europe, the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad were hardly ideal. The right to mock a religion may be absolute, but so is the right to publish most forms of pornography: Neither is appropriate in a serious publication. That applies whether the religion is Islam, Christianity or any other, and whether the cartoons are being published for the first time or reprinted elsewhere as acts of solidarity in the face of an implied threat.
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Venezuela’s Marxist dictatorship is destroying property rights across the country. We’ve noted in the past how it’s happened in the countryside, at sugar farms, on nature reserves, among the large and small corporations, and in apartment and office buildings. But these aren’t the only places – the destruction of property rights also is happening in the poorest neighborhoods.
In an unexpectedly good article, Alex Holland, a writer at Venezuelanalysis, a Chavista propaganda organ, unwittingly describes how even poor shantytown dwellerss with desperate need for title-deed ownership are being badly affected by collectivization, which is destroying the weak property rights these urban poor once had. The writer explains the horrible dynamic with perfect clarity and honesty and then ineptly defends it, making the Marxist propaganda easy for us to gloss over. Evidently, the facts on the ground were just too big for this writer.
If everything is marriage, then nothing is.
Canada, you don’t know the half of it. In mid-January, Canada was rocked by news that a Justice Department study had called for the decriminalization and regulation of polygamy. Actually, two government studies recommended decriminalizing polygamy. (Only one has been reported on.) And even that is only part of the story. Canadians, let me be brutally frank. You are being played for a bunch of fools by your legal-political elite. Your elites mumble a confusing jargon to your face to keep you from understanding what they really have in mind.
Language Exam
Let’s try a little test. Translate the following phrases into English:
[Answers: The English translation of #1,# 2, and #4 is: “Canada should abolish marriage.” The translation of #3 is: “Once we legalize gay marriage, we can move on to the task of abolishing marriage itself.”]
From the Family Research Council
Look at the Contrast
Liberal columnists are constantly trying to link conservative Christians with Muslim fundamentalists, suggesting that we are engaged in a jihad against their enlightened ideas. The Rev. Don Wildmon of the American Family Association is denounced as a mullah whenever he leads a protest against some liberal outrage on television . . . They had originally planned to have Britney Spears as a Christian conservative with a cooking show billed as “Cruci-fixin’s.” NBC has now stated that that storyline will not be present in the Spears’ episode.
Notice, though, what Don Wildmon has not done. He hasn’t burned NBC executives’ homes, threatened them with death, or strapped explosives to a bicycle messenger. Look at Europe. There, Muslim protesters against an offensive Danish cartoon portrayal of Mohammed have burned flags, set fire to a Danish Embassy, praised mass murderers, and yelled “Freedom Go To H_ll!” Four people have died in the rioting. We will continue to speak out against the media’s constant attempts to insult and degrade Christians and Christianity. But we will continue to use the means and methods of freedom – freedom that rests upon the foundation of Christianity.
Sidney Morning Herald February 4, 2006
The search engine’s subservience to China puts its users everywhere at risk, writes Frida Ghitis.
A FEW years ago, I walked into an internet room in Tibet’s capital, Lhasa. There were no Chinese soldiers in the room and no visible government censors nearby. A sign on the wall, however, reminded users that China’s all-seeing eye had not disappeared. “Do not use internet,” the warning instructed, “for any political or other unintelligent purposes.”
Since then, China’s ruling regime has perfected the science of controlling what the Chinese can read or write on the internet to such a degree it has become the envy of tyrants the world over. We might have expected that from a regime that has proved it will do whatever it takes to stay in power. What we never expected was to see Google, the company whose motto is “Don’t be evil”, helping in the effort.
[Read more…]
NBC program mocking Christ’s crucifixion to be aired on the day before (western) Good Friday.
http://www.afa.net/nbcspecialalert.asp.
Anyone watching it? Michelle Markin has a good rundown.
Here too is a reminder of what 9/11 was like.
Marine Corp News Cpl. Joseph Digirolamo January 31, 2006
When was a Marine infantry officer, he never thought that duty would call upon him to lead Marines in a special way.
He is now a 42-year-old lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and the chaplain for 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, Camp Lejeune, N.C., which is deploying with about 20,000 other Marines and Sailors to Iraq this year.
Wozniak, from Newton, N.J., graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1985 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps. After going through The Basic School and the Infantry Officers Course he made his way to California to serve as a platoon commander for 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment. He even maneuvered through the difficult Range 400 at MCAGC, an experience that has allowed him to quickly connect to the Marines as they go through the same training themselves.
“I loved being in the infantry,” Wozniak said. “I really couldn’t see myself doing anything else until one day I was called to do ministry for the Lord.”
