Russia: Conspiracy theories and a doubtful grip on reality

MOSCOW—Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 has already shined a spotlight on the Russian public’s somewhat, um, unique views. Russian media are running with conspiracy theories: that MH17 was shot down by NATO to spark a conflict with Russia, that MH17 wasn’t full of innocent civilians but week-old corpses, or that MH17 was shot down because it was mistaken for Vladimir Putin’s personal jet (as if anti-aircraft missiles weren’t aimed with radar but with a really large pair of binoculars). The only theory missing is the right one: that Russian-backed separatists accidentally shot down the plane when they mistook it for a Ukrainian military transport.

This may seem like the entertaining sideshow to a tragedy, but actually it’s just a window into a hugely dangerous problem. I recently moved to Moscow, and it’s hard to miss the extent to which Russian society exists in an alternate universe. Even well-educated, sophisticated people who have traveled widely in Europe and North America will frequently voice opinions that, in an American context, would place them alongside people wearing tinfoil hats. Russia is not living in the reality-based community.

Read the rest here.

The cited example of the common Russian take on Syria is unfortunate, since it is almost certainly more accurate than the naive views held by most Westerners. That said, Russia does have a long history of xenophobia and subscribing to weird versions of history or conspiracy theories to explain or refute inconvenient facts. But then again are they that different from us?

Consider the huge numbers of Americans who subscribe to bizarre conspiracy theories. 9-11 Truthers make up a much larger number than most people want to admit here, overwhelmingly from the ranks of the moonbat left. And of course there are the far right's version in the form of Birthers. Setting aside politics we still see incredible numbers of people who think FDR engineered Pearl Harbor although pretty much all reputable historians ridicule the idea. The number of people who are convinced that Jack Kennedy was murdered as part of some elaborate plot has been slowly declining, but still remains embarrassingly high, despite the mountain of evidence pointing to Oswald coupled with the complete lack of credible evidence of conspiracy, and the exposure of most of the early purveyors of these theories as cranks and con-men. Shall we discuss how many Americans think the moon-shot was faked, or that professional wrestling is real?

So, are the Russians a little overly fond of alternative realities? Yep. But that appears to be a point that we have in common.

Another Horrific Execution

Arizona executed convicted murderer Joseph R. Wood on Wednesday, a lethal injection that lasted for nearly two hours as Wood snorted and gasped, witnesses said.

The drawn-out process prompted the governor to order a review and drew renewed criticism of lethal injection, the main method of execution in the United States, just months after a high-profile botched execution in Oklahoma.

“I’ve witnessed a number of executions before and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Dale Baich, one of Wood’s attorneys, told The Washington Post in a phone call. “Nor has an execution that I observed taken this long.”

Read the rest here.

Related Story: Federal Judge calls for more  primitive, but effective methods of execution...

NY Times: Gov. Cuomo's office repeatedly interfered with anti-corruption panel

...But a three-month examination by The New York Times found that the governor’s office deeply compromised the panel’s work, objecting whenever the commission focused on groups with ties to Mr. Cuomo or on issues that might reflect poorly on him.

Ultimately, Mr. Cuomo abruptly disbanded the commission halfway through what he had indicated would be an 18-month life. And now, as the Democratic governor seeks a second term in November, federal prosecutors are investigating the roles of Mr. Cuomo and his aides in the panel’s shutdown and are pursuing its unfinished business.

Before its demise, Mr. Cuomo’s aides repeatedly pressured the commission, many of whose members and staff thought they had been given a once-in-a-career chance at cleaning up Albany. As a result, the panel’s brief existence — and the writing and editing of its sole creation, a report of its preliminary findings — was marred by infighting, arguments and accusations. Things got so bad that investigators believed a Cuomo appointee was monitoring their communications without their knowledge. Resignations further crippled the commission. In the end, the governor got the Legislature to agree to a package of ethics reforms far less ambitious than those the commission had recommended — a result Mr. Cuomo hailed as proof of the panel’s success.

Read the rest here.

Second Appeals Court Supports Obamacare

Two same day rulings appear to directly contradict one another. Details here

Appeals Court Ruling a Blow to Obamacare

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the government could not subsidize premiums for people in three dozen states that use the federal insurance exchange, a ruling that could upend President Obama’s health care law.

The 2-to-1 ruling could cut off financial assistance for more than 4.5 million people who were found eligible for subsidized insurance in the federal exchange, or marketplace.

Under the Affordable Care Act, the court said, subsidies are available only to people who obtained insurance through exchanges established by states.

Read the rest here.

The Telegraph: Life on the Eve of Calamity

A month before the outbreak of war Henley Regatta opened in “brilliant fashion”, The Daily Telegraph reported, with record crowds and “perfect” weather. It presents an image of Edwardian Britain as we fondly imagine it to have been, before the sudden cloudburst of August 1914.

Of course, the reality was far different for the 99 per cent of people who did not own land, collect rents or vacation at Biarritz and Marienbad. Most Edwardians worked in dark, noisy factories, cut hay in fields, toiled down dirty and dangerous mines; had bones bent by rickets and lungs racked by tuberculosis. Life expectancy then was 49 years for a man and 53 years for a woman, compared with 79 and 82 years today. They lived in back to back tenements or jerry-built terraces, wore cloth caps or bonnets (rather than boaters, bowlers and toppers) and they had never taken a holiday - beyond a day trip to Brighton or Blackpool - in their entire lives.

The country was a seething mass of social tension and violent confrontations. It was a land torn and dislocated by the struggle of increasingly militant suffragettes; strikes in mills, mines and on the railways; the constitutional battle between Lords and Commons; and the threat of civil war in Ireland.

Readers of the Telegraph - as a glance at the archives will reveal - were far better informed about the true state of their nation and the world than our sugary sentimental view allows us. In a dramatic scoop, the paper had published an exclusive interview with Kaiser Wilhelm II in October 1908 in which the Kaiser had expressed alarmingly frank - and hostile - views about his mother’s native land (the Kaiser’s mama, Empress Victoria, was Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter). In this interview the Kaiser accused “you English” of being “mad, mad, mad as March hares” for fearing that the construction of Germany’s High Seas Fleet was aimed at challenging the Royal Navy’s command of the world’s oceans. Implausibly, he claimed that Germany’s real target was the rising sun of Japan.

As the new year of 1914 opened, the Telegraph’s pages were dominated by stories about strikes and worries about whether Britannia could continue to rule the waves (reflected in a feature comparing the Royal Navy with its rival fleets - Germany’s above all). The biggest political story was the looming crisis over the demand for Home Rule in Ireland. It gave more coverage, at least initially, to the sinking of the liner “Empress of Ireland” in Canada’s St Lawrence seaway on June 1 than to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand at the end of the month - a “dastardly crime which has filled the whole civilised world with consternation”. On the second day after the event the Telegraph’s leader suggested that the murder would “exasperate Teutonic feeling against the Slav nationality”, but of course it got nowhere near what actually happened. What is so unnerving reading the Telegraph in those days after the assassination was the way life carried on as normal. People continued to browse dress patterns, plan weekend drives, tear out recipes and queue at cinemas, quite oblivious to what was coming. This is the life they were about to leave behind forever.

Read the rest here.

For those who might be interested in a glimpse of life on this side of the Atlantic, the complete archive of the New York Tribune up to 1922 is available free online here.

Obama issues executive order protecting gays without any religious exemption or conscience protection

Full text. More legislating by executive fiat.

RIP: James Garner

A great loss. Memory eternal.

Akathist Honoring St. Sergius of Radonezh.

Statement of the Moscow Patriarchate on the Decision by the Church of England to Allow Female Bishops

At the session that took place on the 14th of July 2014, the General Synod of the Church of England made a decision allowing women to serve as bishops. The Communication Service of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations is authorized to make the following statement in this regard:

The Russian Orthodox Church has been alarmed and disappointed to learn about the decision of the Church of England to admit women to the episcopate, since the centuries-old relationships between our two Churches had shown possibilities for the Orthodox to recognize the existence of apostolic succession in Anglicanism. As far back as the 19th century, the Anglicans, members of the Eastern Church Association, sought “mutual recognition” of orders between the Orthodox and the Anglican Churches and believed that “both Churches preserved the apostolic continuity and true faith in the Saviour and should accept each other in the full communion of prayers and sacraments.”

The decision to ordain women, which the Church of England took in 1992, damaged the relationships between our Churches, and the introduction of female bishops has eliminated even a theoretical possibility for the Orthodox to recognize the existence of apostolic succession in the Anglican hierarchy.

Such practice contradicts the centuries-old church tradition going back to the early Christian community. In the Christian tradition, bishops have always been regarded as direct spiritual successors of the apostles, from whom they received special grace to guide the people of God and special responsibility to protect the purity of faith, to be symbols and guarantors of the unity of the Church. The consecration of women bishops runs counter to the mode of life of the Saviour Himself and the holy apostles, as well as to the practice of the Early Church.

In our opinion, it was not a theological necessity or issues of church practice that determined the decision of the General Synod of the Church of England, but an effort to comply with the secular idea of gender equality in all spheres of life and the increasing role of women in the British society. The secularization of Christianity will alienate many faithful who, living in the modern unstable world, try to find spiritual support in the unshakable gospel’s and apostolic traditions established by Eternal and Immutable God.

The Russian Orthodox Church regrets to state that the decision allowing the elevation of women to episcopal dignity impedes considerably the dialogue between the Orthodox and the Anglicans, which has developed for many decades, and contributes for further deepening of divisions in the Christian world as a whole.

Source

Letter from the Council of Bishops of The Society on the Women Bishops Vote

The approval of the Women Bishops legislation brings to an end a decade of debate about what provision should be made for those who are unable, for theological reasons, to receive the ministry of women as priests and bishops.

In the earlier stages of that debate we offered the Church of England a vision of how provision could be made with full ecclesiological integrity not just for us but also for the Church of England as a whole. It is now clear that the reality will be shaped differently, and will fall short of our ideal.

None the less, we believe that we can have confidence in our future as catholics who are called to live out our Christian vocation in the Church of England, maintaining a distinctive witness to the quest for the unity of the Church. The House of Bishops’ Declaration embodies a commitment to enabling us to flourish within the Church of England’s life and structures. It does so because our theological convictions about ministry and ordination remain within the spectrum of Anglican teaching and tradition. As Resolution III.2 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference stated, ‘those who dissent from, as well as those who assent to, the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate are both loyal Anglicans’.

Read the rest here.
HT: T-19

A Rising Generation of Libertarian Democrats

...Although a majority of younger voters today are reliably Democratic, there are key issues on which they differ notably from their elders within the center-left coalition. The July Pew survey identifies two predominantly white core Democratic constituencies: the “solid liberals” of the traditional left, which is 69 percent white, with an average age of 46, who exhibit deep progressive commitments on both economic and social issues; and younger voters, 68 percent white, with an average age of 38, which Pew calls the “next generation left.”

The two groups were asked to choose whether “most people can get ahead if they’re willing to work hard” or whether “hard work and determination are no guarantee of success for most people.” A decisive majority of the older “solid liberal” group, 67 percent, responded that hard work is no guarantee of success, while an even larger majority, 77 percent, of the younger “next generation left” believes that you can get ahead if you are willing to work hard.

According to Pew, the older group believes, 73-20, that “government should do more to solve problems.” Only 44 percent of the younger group agrees — and of younger respondents, 50 percent believe that “government is trying to do too much.”

Read the rest here.

And now for some comic relief

Stuff like this is all the more hilarious when you know that, incredibly, it is not satire.

Bastille Day

Bastille Day or, as the comic singers who take it seriously prefer to call it, the Fete de la Federation, is the embarrassing event that exposes the cultural, moral and constitutional bankruptcy of what was once the greatest civilisation in Europe.

When you are reduced to celebrating the murder by the canaille of Paris in 1789 of the French equivalent of the Chelsea Pensioners, you are inadvertently advertising the sinister origins of the dysfunctional state you are trying to prop up with a mythology as grotesque as it is pathetic. The Umpteenth French Republic is the one entity whose absorption by the European Union is not to be regretted.

Pompous parades will today celebrate the event that triggered the French Revolution, that is to say, the most appalling bloodbath anterior to the Russian Revolution. Seven prisoners were released from the Bastille – four counterfeiters, an accomplice to murder and two lunatics - whose return to the community was hardly beneficial. The attack on the prison, reserved for the well-off, was orchestrated by the Marquis de Sade and Camille Desmoulins on behalf of the Nine Sisters masonic lodge.

There followed the September massacres, the marriages republicains in which people of opposite sexes were stripped naked and lashed together in obscene postures before being drowned, mothers forced to watch their children being guillotined and the massacre of 400,000 Catholic royalists – the majority of them women and children – in La Vendee. Sounds like the perfect excuse for a celebratory knees-up.

Read the rest here.
HT: The Young Fogey

I am probably the last one to get the memo

But yes, Damian Thompson has parted ways with the Telegraph. I was wondering why his blog had not been updated for weeks. If anyone gets word on where he has moved to or any new blog, please drop me a line.

I guess we now know which one has the real juice

Some food for thought, perhaps for those of us who blog or comment on blogs...

The gift of speech was also given to us that we might understand one another, not through instinct, like the dumb animals, but through intellect. Thus we verbally [or on the internet/blogs?] express our ideas, which are abundantly and clearly opened to us by our God-enlightened mind, the source of thought and word, in order that we might conduct intelligent, mutual, brotherly conversation on the aim of daily life and its regulation, for mutual edification and benefit, in support and consolation of each other, and the like. It was not given to us that we might talk idly; or judge, slander, and condemn our neighbors, pronouncing judgments on them like unmerciful judges and torturers rather than considering ourselves as their brothers, weak and sinful as they, if not still worse. Thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest, says the Apostle, for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? (Rom. 2:1, 3) He that ... judgeth his brother, says another Apostle, ...judgeth the law; but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge (James 4:11). And what great evil results from empty and idle conversations and gossip! Sometimes one heedlessly spoken word causes a whole storm of unpleasantness and fills the heart of the one referred to with indignation and hatred. So even a word that was not ill-intentioned, one we counted as nothing, can strike a mortal sin, just as a small spark often turns into a great fire burning whole villages. How great a matter a little fire kindleth, says the Apostle James. Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things (cf. James 3:5); it is a fire, a world of iniquity:... it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell (James 3:6). The tongue is an untamable evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God and therewith curse we men, which are after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing an d cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be! Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? (James 3:8-11) Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge ... let him show this out of his works, through good conduct, and not by condemning others. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth (i.e., don't consider yourself wise). This is not the wisdom that descends from above, but is earthly ... devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work (cf. James 3:13-16). Behold the harm from all our idle talk and gossip! 

-St. John of Kronstadt

Comments are closed.

Some Doubts on Unrestricted Immigration from Unlikely Sources

Via Anti-Gnostic some people one would not expect are starting to raise some tough questions about unrestricted immigration. The great lefty Howard Kuntsler for one has had enough of the dissembling from the usual suspects on this subject. On the other end of the spectrum, well known anarchist Lew Rockwell seems to be hedging just a bit in his customary carte blanche support for immigration.

Head of Antiochian Archdiocese Calls for Monastic Revival

Now there is a post title I never expected to see on this blog. Details can be read here.

First Things: How Sex is Derailing Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue

...A year earlier, the election of a woman as head bishop of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) brought a quick rebuke from the Russian Orthodox Church. “We planned to celebrate the 50th anniversary of our dialogue with the Lutheran Church in Germany in late November or early December,” Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk noted at the time. “The 50th anniversary of the dialogue will become the end of it.” The EKD eventually canceled celebrations altogether when Metropolitan Hilarion decided not to attend.

Not long after that declaration, Metropolitan Hilarion summarized the problems at play in Orthodox-Lutheran dialogue in an interview with Der Spiegel. “Many Protestant churches have liberalized their notions of ethics, giving a theological justification to homosexuality and blessing same-sex couples,” he said. “Some refuse to consider abortion to be a sin. We do not share the understanding of the Church and church order, especially as the Protestants, unlike the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, ordain women.”

Likewise, a 2011 Inter-Orthodox evaluation of dialogue between the Orthodox and the LWF on the global level noted similar issues straining relations. “The ordination of women on all levels of clerical orders,” it wrote, “is a clear deviation from Christian practice,” as is “the emergence of a new moral-code concerning human sexuality and especially homosexual relations.” “In the eyes of most Orthodox,” the report continued, “these new ecclesiological and controversial anthropological innovations in the Lutheran world constitute radical challenges and serious obstacles to the Orthodox-Lutheran theological dialogue and to its original aim, namely, the promotion of mutual ecclesial rapprochement and, eventually, of Church unity.” While the report recognized much good had come from discussion with the LWF, it nevertheless concluded that issues like women’s ordination and innovative teachings on human sexuality “call into question the value of much that we have achieved in our dialogue.” “Lutherans should understand,” the report continues, “that these issues are major difficulties in our dialogue and may jeopardize its continuation and success.”

Read the rest here.

Of course it is not "sex" that is derailing the dialogue, but rather the obstinate and determined embrace of heresy.

Louisiana Supreme Court: Catholic priest can be forced to testify about confessions

Wow! This is very serious and needs to be immediately appealed o the Federal Courts.

A Company Liberals Could Love

FOR a generation now, liberals have bemoaned the disappearance of the socially conscious corporation, the boardroom devoted to the common good. Once, the story goes, America’s C.E.O.s recognized that they shared interests with workers and customers; once wages and working hours reflected more than just a zeal for profits. But then came Reagan, deregulation, hostile takeovers, and an era of solidarity gave way to the age of Gordon Gekko, from which there’s been no subsequent escape.

There are, however, exceptions: companies that still have a sense of business as a moral calling, which can be held up as examples to shame the bottom-liners.

One such company was hailed last year by the left-wing policy website Demos “for thumbing its nose at the conventional wisdom that success in the retail industry” requires paying “bargain-basement wages.” A retail chain with nearly 600 stores and 13,000 workers, this business sets its lowest full-time wage at $15 an hour, and raised wages steadily through the stagnant postrecession years. (Its do-gooder policies also include donating 10 percent of its profits to charity and giving all employees Sunday off.) And the chain is thriving commercially — offering, as Demos put it, a clear example of how “doing good for workers can also mean doing good for business.”

Of course I’m talking about Hobby Lobby, the Christian-owned craft store that’s currently playing the role of liberalism’s public enemy No. 1, for its successful suit against the Obama administration’s mandate requiring coverage for contraceptives, sterilization and potential abortifacients.

Read the rest here.

This thoughtful article has been getting a lot of attention on the blogosphere, but I thought I'd bump it for the benefit of anyone who missed it.

Welcome to the Everything Boom (or Bubble?)

In Spain, where there was a debt crisis just two years ago, investors are so eager to buy the government’s bonds that they recently accepted the lowest interest rates since 1789.

In New York, the Art Deco office tower at One Wall Street sold in May for $585 million, only three months after the going wisdom in the real estate industry was that it would sell for more like $466 million, the estimate in one industry tip sheet.

In France, a cable-television company called Numericable was recently able to borrow $11 billion, the largest junk bond deal on record — and despite the risk usually associated with junk bonds, the interest rate was a low 4.875 percent.

Welcome to the Everything Boom — and, quite possibly, the Everything Bubble. Around the world, nearly every asset class is expensive by historical standards. Stocks and bonds; emerging markets and advanced economies; urban office towers and Iowa farmland; you name it, and it is trading at prices that are high by historical standards relative to fundamentals. The inverse of that is relatively low returns for investors.

Read the rest here.

Memory Eternal!

Metropolitan Volodymyr, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (the real one), has reposed after a long illness. May his memory be eternal!

Many Years....

To Archbishop Joseph who was elected to be the new Metropolitan of the Antiochian Archdiocese in North America. He replaces the late (and controversial) Metropolitan Philip.

Supreme Court Backs Christian College on Contraception Sparking Sharp Dissent

The three female justices of the Supreme Court sharply rebuked their colleagues Thursday for siding with a Christian college in the latest battle over providing women with contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care Act, saying the court was retreating from assurances offered only days ago.

In a short, unsigned opinion, the court said that Wheaton College in Illinois, at least temporarily, does not have to comply even with compromise provisions in the law that the college says still violate its religious beliefs.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the action cast doubt on the very accommodation the court’s majority seemed to endorse Monday in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, which concerned businesses that objected to providing birth control that offends the owners’ beliefs.

“Those who are bound by our decisions usually believe they can take us at our word,” wrote Sotomayor, who was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan. “Not so today.”

She said Thursday’s order “evinces disregard for even the newest of this court’s precedents and undermines confidence in this institution.”

Read the rest here.

WAPO's Hit Piece on a Libertarian Camp Rally

The bias is so naked and extreme  it could pass for comedy.

Feast of St. John Maximovitch

Some Perspectives on The Great War

AG has posted links to several reflections on the Great War that are well worth a read. It is quite impossible to understand modern history without grasping the catastrophe of 1914-18. Nor is it an exaggeration when we say that almost all of the evils of the last century can be traced to this calamity.

BIS Sounds Cautionary Note to Central Bankers

The Bank for International Settlements — the Swiss-based financial institution that acts as a counterparty to national central banks — has declared that stock markets are in a "euphoric" state and has urged central banks globally to begin tightening interest-rate policies now while economies are growing rather than wait for another recession, when it will be too late.

Those are scary words coming from a set of economists whose job it is to monitor how capable central banks are of responding to economic conditions with flexible monetary policy.

The subtext (and not so subtext) of BIS's annual report is that, because many central banks have reduced interest rates to zero — the U.S. and Japan included — they are without weapons to boost the economy should another crisis hit. You can't go lower than zero, basically.

These words from the BIS ought to terrify anyone who thought central banks were unprepared for the last recession in 2007, when U.S. interest rates were "high" at about 5.3%:

Financial markets are euphoric, but progress in strengthening banks’ balance sheets has been uneven and private debt keeps growing. Macroeconomic policy has little room for manoeuvre [sic] to deal with any untoward surprises that might be sprung, including a normal recession.

Read the rest here.

Memo to Pope Francis and Patriarch Kyril

Communism is not compatible with Christianity. It is arguably the most patently evil ideology yet devised and widely subscribed to by human beings. How these two men could not grasp that is a mystery to me. I am especially embarrassed by Patriarch Kyril's action which I find indefensible. But the Pope should know better too.

Two More Big Wins from the Supreme Court

Unlike the two big ones from last week, today's decisions were not unanimous. But in a pair of 5-4 rulings the court limited the power of public sector unions to force non-members to pay union fees and also ruled in the much anticipated Hobby Lobby case that "closely held" private companies with a strong religious ethos cannot be compelled to pay for employee contraceptives.

100 Years Ago: The Beginning of the End of Civilization

Go here to read the entire edition of The New York Tribune from June 29, 1914.

Ukraine's Ancient Hatreds

IN 1708, Charles XII of Sweden invaded Ukraine. His aim was to use it as a base for a final advance on Peter the Great’s Moscow. The Cossack hetman, Ivan Mazeppa, decided to throw his lot in with the Swedes in a bid to secure Ukraine’s complete independence. His decision split the Cossacks; while some followed Mazeppa, others elected a new leader, Ivan Skoropadsky, who reaffirmed his loyalty to the Cossack alliance with Russia. The following year, Charles was defeated by Peter at the climactic Battle of Poltava, Russia emerged as a player in European affairs, Ukraine was brought under closer control by the imperial government and Mazeppa fled into exile.

Was he a traitor who received his just rewards for his perfidy? Or was he a freedom fighter? The former is a more prevalent attitude in eastern Ukraine as well as the dominant narrative in Russia itself. The Russian Orthodox Church thus anathematized Mazeppa for breaking his oath of loyalty to Peter, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which remains affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate, continues to refuse to lift this sentence. Mazeppa is held up as an example of traitors who would sunder the unity of the East Slavic peoples. For Ukrainians who seek to join the Euro-Atlantic community, conversely, Mazeppa is a tragic hero who failed to bring Ukraine out from under Russian domination through an alliance with Western powers. His portrait graces the Ukrainian ten-hryvnia note. (Keep in mind that neither Benedict Arnold nor Robert E. Lee can be found on U.S. money.) However, a street named in his honor in Kiev was changed after the government of Viktor Yanukovych came to power in 2010.

Read the rest here.
HT: Dr. Tighe

On the Eve of the End of the World

The news coverage was remarkably pedestrian.

Yet another great court ruling

Here's to another great decision from the courts for personal freedom, and a black eye for the nanny state.

The Bloomberg big-soda ban is officially dead.

The state’s highest court on Thursday refused to reinstate New York City’s controversial limits on sales of jumbo sugary drinks, exhausting the city’s final appeal and handing a major victory to the American soft-drink industry, which bitterly opposed the plan.

In a 20-page opinion, Judge Eugene F. Pigott Jr. of the New York State Court of Appeals wrote that the city’s Board of Health “exceeded the scope of its regulatory authority” in enacting the proposal, which was championed by former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

Read the rest here.

OK. Let's be brutally honest here. Soda is one of the worst things sold for human consumption that doesn't come with a health warning label attached. But while the government is within its rights to warn the citizenry about the health risks of certain products, in the end what people choose to eat or drink is their own business. So for those craving a super sized cup of liquid diabetes, drink up and rejoice! It's still a semi free country, even in New York.

Three Big Wins for Constitutional Government

The US Supreme Court has delivered a series of rare unanimous decisions that curb the power of the state and protect civil liberties.

In the first case the 9-0 ruling said that cops must get a warrant before they can go looking through someone's cell phone, even if that person has been arrested. The court held that in the modern world people keep much of their lives on their cell phones and that this clearly was the sort of thing the framers had in mind when they wrote the Fourth Amendment.

In the second case, the court delivered a stinging rebuke to President Obama's claim that he had the authority to decide when the Senate was or was not in session and could make recess appointments when he said so. Bottom line; no Mr. President, you don't get to decide when Congress is in session or not.

And in the third case, the still unanimous court struck down buffer zones set up around murder factories er... abortion mills to keep protestors away. The court, ruled that this violates the First Amendment rights of anti-abortion protestors.

All in all its been a great 24 hours for civil libertarians, constitutional government and the rule of law in general.

Archbishop Leo of Finland: Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches form fullness of Orthodoxy

Helsinki: In his speech during the reception provided to the Patriarchs of Alexandria on 23rd June 2014, Archbishop Leo of Karelia and All Finland stated that Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches form the fullness of Orthodoxy. He also recalled that late lamented Patriarch Athenagoras, always stressed on the true essence and fullness of Orthodoxy in Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches.

Archbishop Leo stressed that the relationship between the Church of Finland and Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate is very deep. There are large numbers of Coptic communities living in different parts of Finland. He recalled meeting with the predecessors of Coptic (Pope Shenouda III) and Alexandrian Patriarchates (Parthenius III & Peter VII).

The Primate of Finnish Church thanked Pope Tawadros II and Pope Theodore II for their historical visit to Finland and blessed presence in the country.

Several Orthodox Prelates, faithful and high level delegations from different organizations attended the events.

Source

60 Minutes Story on the Persecution of the Copts

Embed is not working. Go here to watch the segment.

Yet another schism in the Ukraine

This time it's among the Greek Rite Catholics . I am starting to wonder if there might be something in the water over there. It seems that whatever its political problems, it is also the land of ecclesiological chaos.

George Will: Stopping a lawless president

Serious as are the policy disagreements roiling Washington, none is as important as the structural distortion threatening constitutional equilibrium. Institutional derangement driven by unchecked presidential aggrandizement did not begin with Barack Obama, but his offenses against the separation of powers have been egregious in quantity and qualitatively different.

Regarding immigration, health care, welfare, education, drug policy and more, Obama has suspended, waived and rewritten laws, including the Affordable Care Act. It required the employer mandate to begin this year. But Obama wrote a new law, giving to companies of a certain size a delay until 2016 and stipulating that other employers must certify they will not drop employees to avoid the mandate. Doing so would trigger criminal perjury charges; so he created a new crime, that of adopting a business practice he opposes.

Presidents must exercise some discretion in interpreting laws, must have some latitude in allocating finite resources to the enforcement of laws and must have some freedom to act in the absence of law. Obama, however, has perpetrated more than 40 suspensions of laws. Were presidents the sole judges of the limits of their latitude, they would effectively have plenary power to vitiate the separation of powers, the Founders’ bulwark against despotism.

Read the rest here.

Judges are voiding fraudulent lawsuits

On March 7 a California appellate court upheld a trial judge’s finding that what had been billed as a watershed liability verdict against Dole Food over pesticide use in Nicaragua was actually the product of a conspiracy by corrupt plaintiffs’ lawyers. That decision came only three days after a federal judge in New York ruled that a multibillion-dollar pollution judgment against Chevron (CVX) in 2011 was so tainted by bribery and coercion that it wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.

Meanwhile, in Texas, a prominent class-action injury lawyer faces mounting woes because of allegations that he faked thousands of damage claims against BP (BP) related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. When you combine these cases with the criminal convictions several years ago of plaintiffs-bar titans Mel Weiss, Bill Lerach, and Dickie Scruggs—all of whom served time for corrupting the civil justice system—it’s hard to deny that there’s deep dysfunction within a powerful portion of the legal profession that claims to fight corporate abuse on behalf of the little guy.

Read the rest here.

Brooklyn: Lawyers whine as educated white people "taint" jury pool

Brooklyn’s courthouses are being rocked by the “Williamsburg Effect.”

The influx of well-off and educated white people to trendy neighborhoods such as Williamsburg is rapidly “gentrifying’’ the borough’s jury pool — and transforming verdicts, lawyers and judges told The Post.

It’s good news for prosecutors in criminal cases — and bad news for plaintiffs in civil lawsuits, they said.

Read the rest here.

Spain: Juan Carlos Abdicates - Felipe VI is Inaugurated as King

King Juan Carlos has formally abdicated and his son has succeeded as Felipe VI. Although the actual ceremony was decidedly low key and completely secular, tens of thousands lined the streets to cheer the new King in a demonstration of popular support for the monarchy.

Srdja Trifkovic: The Ever More Complex Levantine Puzzle

“...The unrepentant interventionist cabal in Washington will reject such advice with horror and indignation. They still claim that Bashar can be removed, Iran sanctioned ad infinitum and preferably bombed, Iraq kept together, Jordan and Lebanon stabilized, and Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf relied upon… if only the U.S. would accept its “regional responsibilities” and become “fully engaged” yet again. They also claim that the latest disaster in Iraq is the consequence of the December 2011 American withdrawal. All that is nonsense. The chronic crisis in Iraq, which has been going on with occasional acute eruptions for 13 years, is the consequence of the illegal, unnecessary, costly, and tragic Iraq war, tirelessly urged and waged under countless false pretenses by these same people. They belong in jail or in mental asylum, not in Washington’s “foreign policy community.”

Read the rest here.

Crisis in Iraq

The government of Iraq, by which I mean the one we installed, appears to be collapsing in the face of a well organized campaign by Islamic fundamentalists. (Details here). On which subject, I don't agree with his more hard line ethno-racialism, but AG's points 4 & 5 are spot on.

I feel very badly for the people in Iraq. And I feel even worse because I can't say with a straight face that it is none of our business. It should not be any of our business. But as our former Secretary of State once famously observed; if you break it, you own it. Iraq is our mess because we broke that country, and I am deeply conflicted about what to do about it.

Two Catholic Priests Shot - One Killed in AZ

Sad news from Rorate Caeli.

Surprise Defeat of Eric Cantor Rattles DC Establishment

The defeat of the second-ranking Republican in the House by an ill-funded, little-known tea party-backed candidate ranks as the biggest congressional upset in modern memory and will immediately generate a series of political and policy-related shock waves in Washington and the Richmond-area 7th District.

"People don't know how to respond because it's never been contemplated," said one Virginia Republican strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly about Cantor's loss. (Worth noting: Cantor didn't just lose. He got walloped; David Brat, his challenger, won 56 percent to 44 percent.)

In conversations with a handful of GOP operatives in the aftermath of Cantor's loss --  a loss blamed largely on an inept campaign consulting team that misread the level of vitriol directed at the candidate due to his place in Republican leadership and the perception he supported so-called "amnesty" for illegal immigrants -- there were several common threads about what it means for politics inside and outside the House.

Read the rest here.

The Irish Orphanage Horror Story...

800 babies in a septic tank? Yeah, it looks like a media driven hoax. It's all over the internet but not surprisingly it's getting scant attention in the MSM. Here's just one of the many articles debunking it.

HT: Dr. Tighe

Once again...

Dad is back in the hospital. Limited posting for the next few days. This is getting discouraging.

Ortho-Cath Ecumenical Group calls for married clergy in Eastern Rite

Read the story here. Mixed feeling on this one. I deeply sympathize with the Greek Rite Catholics who have lived with 2nd class status in the Catholic Church pretty much for as long as they have existed. And I am delighted that some high ranking people in their church seem to be coming around on this subject. But I am less sanguine about OUR clergy opining on this in any kind of official capacity. In the end, they are not Orthodox and we are not Catholic. Its an internal disciplinary issue of the Catholic Church for them to sort out, not us.

I guess what I'm saying is, it's none of our business.

Surviving D Day - and the guilt

A 19 year old Leo Scheer during World War II

As Leo Scheer swam for Omaha Beach from his burning landing craft that morning, he watched a pattern of machine gun bullets splash toward him and stop short.

On the beach, he spotted a land mine a foot from his head just as he was about to trip it. And when a buddy was about to make a hazardous dash under fire, Scheer pulled him back just in time to save his life.

Amid all the bloodshed and destruction of World War II’s D-Day landings on June 6, 1944, something always seemed to shield Scheer from disaster.

Read the rest here.

D Day

New York, June 6, 1944. ALLIED ARMIES LAND ON COAST OF FRANCE. GREAT INVASION OF CONTINENT BEGINS

It's almost impossible to imagine what it was like on the home front June 6, 1944. But you can get an idea by listening to some of the wall to wall news coverage that was broadcast periodically interrupted by patriotic music and prayer from famous clergy and FDR. It must have been gut wrenching for families with loved ones in the service. Radio coverage...
CBS
NBC

Senators reach bipartisan deal on bill to fix VA

Senators announced a bipartisan agreement Thursday to address several issues at the beleaguered Department of Veterans Affairs that they expect will help reduce long wait times for veterans seeking care while also providing hundreds of millions of dollars to hire more doctors and nurses to treat veterans.

"Right now we have a crisis on our hands and it’s imperative that we deal with that crisis," Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in announcing the deal Thursday afternoon.

The agreement will allow eligible veterans to use non-VA medical care if they are experiencing long wait times or live more than 40 miles from the nearest VA hospital or clinic. Veterans could choose instead to opt into the Medicare program, visit federally-qualified health centers, Indian Health Centers or facilities run by the Defense Department.

To address burgeoning demand for VA care, the bill would authorize the department to enter into leases for 26 major medical facilities in 18 states nationwide and to spend $500 million to hire new doctors and nurses with expedited hiring authority.

Read the rest here.

Dear God, Congress is doing something productive and they are doing it quickly. I think I need to go lie down.

Democrats Quietly Cheer Tea Party Win in Mississippi

WASHINGTON — It is a major headache for the national Republican Party and perhaps the biggest break Democrats have been handed in this difficult election year: a three-week runoff campaign in Mississippi between a party elder, Senator Thad Cochran, and the sometimes unpredictable Tea Party favorite, Chris McDaniel.

Read the rest here.

Personally I think this is wishful thinking. Mississippi is among the reddest of states. In all likelihood historians will say that the election was settled by the GOP primary.

The remarkable legacy of Spain's King Juan Carlos

Beset by mishaps while on hunting trips and rumours of extramarital flings, the latter years of King Juan Carlos I of Spain resemble that of many of Europe's royals in the tabloid age. But beyond the occasional headlines in Spain's prensa rosa – or red-top newspapers – he will be remembered for skilfully transiting his land from backward military dictatorship to modern European state.

With Spain bitterly divided in the post-war years between Republicans and Fascists, the young monarch faced hostile generals on the Right and contemptuous Communists on the Left, and was widely expected to end up as "Juan Carlos the Brief". Instead, as his 38 years on the throne was to prove, he played a key role in smoothing Spain's path to democracy, deftly courting allies on both sides and almost single-handedly thwarting a military coup in 1981.

Read the rest here.

King Juan Carlos of Spain to Abdicate

His Most Catholic Majesty Juan Carlos de Borbón of Spain has announced he will abdicate sometime early next year in favor of his son, Crown Prince Felipe. I really hate this wave of abdications. Nonetheless I wish His Majesty a long and happy retirement.

FOUNTAIN OF IMMORTALITY - Meditation on the Orthodox Divine Liturgy

Widespread Corruption Taints World's Most Popular Sport

JOHANNESBURG — A soccer referee named Ibrahim Chaibou walked into a bank in a small South African city carrying a bag filled with as much as $100,000 in $100 bills, according to another referee traveling with him. The deposit was so large that a bank employee gave Mr. Chaibou a gift of commemorative coins bearing the likeness of Nelson Mandela.

Later that night in May 2010, Mr. Chaibou refereed an exhibition match between South Africa and Guatemala in preparation for the World Cup, the world’s most popular sporting event. Even to the casual fan, his calls were suspicious — he called two penalties for hand balls even though the ball went nowhere near the players’ hands.

Mr. Chaibou, a native of Niger, had been chosen to work the match by a company based in Singapore that was a front for a notorious match-rigging syndicate, according to an internal, confidential report by FIFA, soccer’s world governing body.

Read the rest here.

Bombshell: Pope Francis & Patriarch Batholomew are considering a joint Ecumenical Council at Nicea in 2025? (Updated)

Istanbul (AsiaNews) - On his return from Jerusalem , where he met with Pope Francis at the Holy Sepulchre, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, has revealed an important appointment for unity between Catholics and Orthodox: a gathering at Nicaea in 2025, where the first real ecumenical council of the undivided Church was celebrated.

Speaking exclusively with AsiaNews, Bartholomew says that together with Pope Francis "we agreed to leave as a legacy to ourselves and our successors a gathering in Nicaea in 2025, to celebrate together, after 17 centuries , the first truly ecumenical synod, where the Creed was first promulgated".

Read the rest here.

I cannot stress this enough... I HAVE NOT FOUND INDEPENDENT VERIFICATION OF THIS.

That said... My first reaction is to ask if it is April 1st on some obscure calendar that I am not aware of? My second reaction, is that this might be a bad translation or maybe the website got hacked by some practical joker. My third reaction is HOLY COW!

This is difficult to credit. If something like this were under active consideration I cannot believe it would be announced in such a casual manner.

Update: This is increasingly looking like yet another case of  the Catholic press adopting an excessively (grossly in this case) sanguine approach towards any event involving Catholic-Orthodox relations. It looks like this is probably going to be just another large scale Kumbaya photo-op for all of the professional ecumenists out there. Nor is it clear that this will even be limited to Catholics and the Orthodox.

Update

Dad is home from the hospital (again). They drained almost 2 liters(!) of liquid from in and around his lungs. But for the moment he seems to be doing a lot better. Thanks to everyone for their prayers.

In New Orleans, major school district closes traditional public schools for good

Benjamin Banneker Elementary closed Wednesday as New Orleans’s Recovery School District permanently shuttered its last five traditional public schools this week.

With the start of the next school year, the Recovery School District will be the first in the country made up completely of public charter schools, a milestone for New Orleans and a grand experiment in urban education for the nation.

Read the rest here.

Rail-car used to bring God to remote Siberia

From here.

100 Years Ago: Canada's worst marine disaster

On the night of May 28-29, 1914 Canada suffered the worst marine disaster in its history when the ocean liner Empress of Ireland, outbound from Montreal to Liverpool, was rammed by a Norwegian coal ship in heavy fog on the St. Lawrence River. The damage was so extreme that the Empress sank in just 15 minutes taking more than a thousand passengers and crew with her. Among the dead were a large contingent from the Salvation Army on their way to Britain and the vast majority of the women and children on board.

The circumstances surrounding the accident remain highly controversial to this day.

No blogging for a little while

Dad has taken a turn and is back in the hospital. There will be little or no blogging for a while. Prayers are greatly appreciated.

Round up the usual suspects

Haven't had your daily ration of inter-religious food fighting? Go here to resolve that. For the record, Gabriel Sanchez is right when he calls Patrick Barnes' website polemical, though by no means is it as over the top as some I have run across. In fact, there is a lot of good stuff there. But God knows we do have our share of Ortho-Taliban floating around. Try hitting up some of the blogs run by hard core Old Calendarists if you don't mind crazy conspiracy theories, and often blindly bigoted commentary.

What Gabriel neglects to mention though, is that his own blog is highly polemical in its own right. And it has become a popular watering hole for many of the more virulent anti-Orthodox trolls in the blogosphere (at least one of whom has the extremely rare distinction of being declared persona non grata on this blog).

In any event, I must have missed the memo because it would seem that I am the only one who doesn't have a clue what God's plan for the Orthodox - Catholic divide is. But I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that it probably doesn't involve acidic commentary on the internet.

Prince Charles is criticised for making political comments

Nick Clegg has defended the Prince of Wales over his comparison of Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler, saying the heir to the throne is 'entitled to his views' despite warnings from a Russian newspaper the remarks could “trigger an international scandal”. 

Read the rest here.

Europe: Nationalist parties promote closer ties with Russia

LE CHESNAY, France — At a rally last week near the Palace of Versailles, France’s largest far-right party, the National Front, deployed all the familiar theatrics and populist themes of nationalist movements across Europe.

A standing-room-only crowd waved the national flag, joined in a boisterous singing of the national anthem and applauded as speakers denounced freeloading foreigners and, with particular venom, the European Union.

But the event, part of an energetic push for votes by France’s surging far right ahead of elections this week for the European Parliament, also promoted an agenda distant from the customary concerns of conservative voters: why Europe needs to break its “submission” to the United States and look to Russia as a force for peace and a bulwark against moral decay.

Read the rest here.

Russia and China reach 30 year gas deal

BEIJING — China and Russia agreed to a major 30-year natural gas deal on Wednesday that would send gas from Siberia by pipeline to China, according to the China National Petroleum Corporation.

The announcement caps a decade-long negotiation and helps bring Russia and China closer than they have been in many years. The contract was driven to a conclusion by the presence in Shanghai over the last two days of President Xi Jinping of China and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

...The deal was expected to be worth about $400 billion, said James Henderson, senior analyst at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

Read the rest here.

Why Everything You've Read About Ukraine Is Wrong

The mainstream American media has taken a nearsighted view of the Ukrainian crisis by following a script laid out by the State Department. Most reports have either ignored the truth or spun it in a way that paints only a partial picture. Here are seven things you should know about Ukraine.

Read the rest here.
HT: Blog reader MM

The threat of politics in the courthouse

The chaos surrounding the execution of convicted murderer Clayton Lockett was not just a wake-up call on capital punishment and how it is administered. The final hours also saw political efforts to bully and weaken Oklahoma’s courts. Similar battles are playing out around the country, threatening the ability of our courts to be fair and impartial.

When Lockett’s attorneys filed a lawsuit seeking information about the drug mixture that ultimately failed, the Oklahoma Supreme Court issued a stay to grant more time for review. But the governor announced that she would disregard the court’s ruling. A legislator introduced a resolution to impeach the five justices who had voted for the stay, alleging “a willful neglect of duty and incompetence.” The Supreme Court ultimately dissolved its stay and allowed Lockett’s execution to proceed.

The constitutional crisis may have been brief, but it was profoundly disturbing. As lifetime jurists and former chief justices of the supreme courts of Arizona and Indiana, we believe our treasured American system of checks and balances is harmed when our courts are threatened with intimidation. Our courts were designed to be the branch of government most insulated from politics.

Read the rest here.

The slow decline of America since the Great Society

Standing on his presidential limousine, Lyndon Johnson, campaigning in Providence, R.I., in September 1964, bellowed through a bullhorn: “We’re in favor of a lot of things and we’re against mighty few.” This was a synopsis of what he had said four months earlier.

Fifty years ago this Thursday, at the University of Michigan, Johnson had proposed legislating into existence a Great Society. It would end poverty and racial injustice, “but that is just the beginning.” It would “rebuild the entire urban United States” while fending off “boredom and restlessness,” slaking “the hunger for community” and enhancing “the meaning of our lives” — all by assembling “the best thought and the broadest knowledge.”

In 1964, 76 percent of Americans trusted government to do the right thing “just about always or most of the time”; today, 19 percent do. The former number is one reason Johnson did so much; the latter is one consequence of his doing so.

Read the rest here.

The President and the Negro

Mr. Wilson thus finds himself early in his administration at the parting of the ways in the matter of the negro citizen. His nomination of Mr. A.E. Patterson of Oklahoma, as Register of the Treasury, has been withdrawn at the nominee's request, and for the first time in a quarter of a century the office is to go one other than a negro. Mr. Patterson asked asked to be allowed to withdraw because of the violent opposition of  the negrophobe southern senators-- Vardaman, Tillman, Hoke Smith and the rest. That he lacked the courage to stick it out and insist on having his name passed upon is greatly to be regretted. In a sense he was recreant to his race; that he has not helped either Mr. Wilson or the colored people appears clearly from Vardaman's glorying. No negro, says the confidant senator, shall be appointed to any executive office in which there may be subordinate white employees; and his platform contains these further demands: "Segregation in all forms of Government employment; the entire separation of the races in Federal employ; negroes and white people must not be compelled to work side by side." The integrity of the Anglo-Saxon race, Mr. Vardaman adds, depends upon the "faithful consummation" of this programme.

From here.

Contrary to the inference in the article, Mr. Wilson was very much in sympathy with these views and his cabinet was stacked with racists, including persons with known ties to the Klan. After the obligatory protest for propriety's sake, Wilson swiftly broke his campaign pledge and imposed strict race segregation on the US Civil Service.

Statement on Homosexuality by the Holy Synod of Cyprus and Confusion on Anglo-Catholic Ecumenism

Read it here. Meanwhile mixed signals seem to be the order of the day on the longstanding "dialogue" between Anglicans and the Roman Catholic Church. Even as Catholics here in the United States seem to be admitting that the divergence between the two churches has reached a point where further talks are unlikely to be productive, the leading Anglican hierarch in Rome made statements on the ongoing ARCIC talks that might charitably be described as excessively sanguine. My own view is that they appear to be aimed at making satire redundant.

The demise of democracy

This has been making the rounds on the blogosphere, but for those who haven't seen it yet, a couple of professors have concluded that the United States is really an oligarchy. For the record, I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

HT: Blog reader MM.

Note: I appreciate the tips and links to interesting articles I get from all of my blog readers. If you send me something and I don't get back to you quickly please bear with me. I have a lot going on in the non internet world of late.

It’s About Christianity, Not the Girls

Commentators from across the political spectrum have chimed in on the horror of Boko Haram’s abduction of more than 300 school girls. And, certainly, the fact that the victims were young school girls has made a difference in the Western world’s interest in the story. But, while #BringBackOurGirls has become a trending hashtag, it may be missing the point.

Reading the speech of Boko Haram leader Abubakr Shekau, it is clear that for him, the target may have been the girls, but the motivation was not simply to prevent girls from receiving education or a desire to attack Western education more broadly, but rather to launch a much broader attack on Christianity.

Read the rest here.
HT:Bill (aka The Godfather)

Climate change: the science is not settled. It's all over the place as greedy opportunists scramble for cash

Until now I’ve never written about global warming. That’s because I’m a coward. I don’t want “climate experts” sneering at me because I dare venture an opinion without knowing as much as they do.

I’m talking about climate sceptics, by the way. It’s their orthodoxy I’ve been too gutless to challenge. I still sometimes move in conservative circles in which it’s taken as read that climate scientists are lying crooks. If I question these sceptics, I will immediately become a “libtard” – part of the EUSSR/Bilderberg/MSM axis. At the very least, Right-wing friends will snub me at parties (as opposed to me snubbing them, which is what I prefer).

Meanwhile, over in the “warmist” camp, there’s no shortage of blind intolerance. Let me draw your attention to a story in today’s Telegraph. Prof Lennart Bengtsson of Reading University says he fears for his “health and safety” after he undermined the alarming predictions issued by the UN’s panel on climate change (IPCC). He’s frightened of the alarmist hardliners among his colleagues: that is, members of the “science is settled” school of thought. These are the people who – back in the heady days of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth – invented the label “denier” to imply that questioning global warming was on a par with rejecting evolution (a “theory” supported by so much data that the science really is settled) or even denying the Holocaust.

Climate science has been dragged into the American-style culture wars that are turning British intellectual life into a battlefield. It’s not an edifying spectacle. Warmist scientists have been caught tinkering with statistics in order to close gaps in their theory (it was thanks to a Telegraph blog post by James Delingpole that the “Climategate” scandal exploded). They just can’t bear to provide their critics with ammunition. Meanwhile, the more voluble deniers suck up to rich American fruitloops who think cavemen had pet dinosaurs – because the earth is only 6,000 years old – and reckon President Obama is a Kenyan-born Antichrist.

Read the rest here.

Pregnant woman sentenced to death over her Christian faith

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- A Muslim-by-birth Sudanese woman who married a Christian man was sentenced to death Thursday after she refused to recant her Christian faith, her lawyer said.

Meriam Ibrahim, whose father was Muslim but her mother was an Orthodox Christian from Ethiopia, was convicted of "apostasy" on Sunday and given four days to repent and escape death, lawyer Al-Shareef Ali al-Shareef Mohammed said.

The 26 year old, who is eight months pregnant, was sentenced after that grace period expired, Mohammed said.

Read the rest here.

The effect of one-party rule

Democracy can be cruel because elections deprive the demos of the delight of alibis and the comfort of complaining. Illinois voters have used many elections to make theirs the worst-governed state, with about $100 billion in unfunded public pension promises and $6.7 billion in unpaid bills. The state is a stark illustration of the effect of prolonged one-party rule, conducted by politicians subservient to government employees unions.

A new Gallup poll shows that Illinois has the highest percentage — 50 percent — of residents who want to leave their state. If Illinois voters reelect Gov. Pat Quinn, they will reject Bruce Rauner, who vows to change the state’s fundamental affliction — its political culture.

The state’s strongest civic tradition is of governors going to jail. Four of the last nine have done so. Lt. Gov. Quinn ascended to the governorship in 2009 because Gov. Rod Blagojevich, of fragrant memory, tried to sell the Senate seat Barack Obama vacated. In 2010, Quinn defeated a downstate social conservative by 32,000 votes out of 3.7 million cast. Quinn’s job approval today is about 35 percent.

Read the rest here.

The search for unity

Friend of the blog Dr. Adam DeVille has authored a thoughtful piece discussing, from a Catholic perspective, the history and current state of relations between the Orthodox Church and Rome. It is definitely worth a read.

Producer prices post largest gain in 1-1/2 years

(Reuters) - U.S. producer prices recorded their largest increase in 1-1/2 years in April as the cost of food and trade services surged, hinting at inflation pressures in some parts of the economy.

The Labor Department said on Wednesday its seasonally adjusted producer price index for final demand increased 0.6 percent, the biggest gain since September 2012.

Prices received by the nation's farms, factories and refineries rose 0.5 percent in March and last month's increase outpaced economists' expectations for only a 0.2 percent gain.

Read the rest here.

Wow!

I'm not a big fan of in season inter-league baseball. IMHO if you want to see inter-league play you watch the World Series. That said, tonight's game between the Mets and the Yankees was one of the most exciting and well played I have seen in years. The Mets rallied twice from three run deficits and won the game 9-7 on a series of truly outstanding defensive plays.

This one is going in the books.

SSPX Rumors

There has been a meeting but it doesn't appear to have been part of any major warming of relations. The SSPX is throwing cold water on the rumors.

HT: Rorate

Strangers in a Foreign Land: Nationalism and the Orthodox Church

In calling the Church ‘catholic,’ Orthodox Christians confess belief in a Church for all ages, nations, and races.

The Catholic Church is whole, complete, and lacking nothing—for this is what ‘catholic’ truly means. It is a calling for all, and Christ our God is sacrificed ‘on behalf of all, and for all.’

There is often confusion—especially for those either outside or unfamiliar with the Orthodox Church—in viewing our local, autonomous churches as ‘ethnic’ churches. Nevertheless, such a perspective was condemned as heresy (termed ‘ethno-phyletism’) by an ecumenical council in Constantinople (August 10, 1872).1 In that context, the concern was the uncanonical creation of an ethnic church for Bulgarians—a church sharing essentially the same ‘space’ as the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Both the fall of monarchy and the wiles of the Enlightenment led even Orthodox Christians into the arms of the nineteenth century’s pseudo-replacement for imperial veneration and identity in Christian faith: nationalism. Logical ends of nationalism were, of course, both racism and Hitler’s Third Reich. To be clear, a pride in one’s cultural or religious heritage is not necessarily a problem, but pride based solely on the superiority of one’s race over others is far removed from the Orthodox faith.

Read the rest here.

More bad polling data for Democrats

This could be an ugly election year for the left. Details here.

Last call for an American icon

The last bar car on an American commuter rail line rolled into history when it left Grand Central Station about an hour ago. Read the story here. Some appropriate theme music...

Paul Says G.O.P. Push on Voting Laws Is Alienating Blacks

MEMPHIS — Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky on Friday broke with fellow Republicans who have pushed for stricter voting laws as a way to crack down on fraud, saying the party was alienating and insulting African-Americans.

“Everybody’s gone completely crazy on this voter ID thing,” Mr. Paul said in an interview on Friday, adding that much of the bitterness in the debate over voting rights was wrapped up in race. “I think it’s wrong for Republicans to go too crazy on this issue because it’s offending people.”

Mr. Paul traveled to Memphis — a mostly black city and a Democratic stronghold with its own painful racial history — to speak at the spring meeting of the Republican National Committee. But before he talked to his fellow Republicans, he sat down with a group of black pastors to discuss his views on voting, public education and antipoverty policy.

Read the rest here.

New Washington State Supreme Court Justice Has Liberal Catholic Background

Washington state Governor Jay Inslee announced last week that he has appointed state trial court judge Mary Yu to the Washington state Supreme Court to fill a vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Jim Johnson. While the media (Seattle Times article) has focused on the fact that Yu is the first openly gay, and first Asian-American justice on the Washington Supreme Court, less attention has been given to her academic training in theology and her work experience prior to law school in the Catholic Church. Yu received a bachelor's degree in religious studies from Dominican University in River Forest, Ill., in 1979. She then went to work for the Office of Peace and Justice of the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese, eventually becoming director of the office. She received a master's degree in theology from Loyola University in 1989, and moved to Washington state to work at the Washington state Catholic Bishop's Conference. However in 1990 she enrolled in Notre Dame law school, also working as an assistant rector in an undergraduate women's dormitory. 

 From here.