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Half the nation now believes the war was a mistake and wants U.S. troop withdrawals to begin. But no patriot wants to see Iraq collapse into chaos and civil war, and everything for which 2,100 Americans died and 16,000 suffered washed down a sewer. ~Patrick Buchanan
The phrasing of this last line from a rather odd […]
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Filed under: politics
By ‘national interest’ I do not mean such grandly aspirational aims as world peace and democracy. I mean that which directly relates to the wealth, security and liberty of the British people. For instance, the fate of the Croats or Bosnians or Kosovars in the 1990s, or any of the peoples of Africa today, can […]
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Filed under: politics
I like the idea of self-sufficiency. I’m not opposed to trade, but I am opposed to the kind of economic centralization that makes continental populations dependent on just a handful of corporations for their incomes, their entertainment, and their food. Outside of our large cities, entire towns are employed by one or two employers that […]
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Filed under: politics
At what level of participation, Brent Scowcroft, can the objective of democratizing a hellhole of Middle Eastern totalitarianism be deemed a partial success? After how many inspiring elections, Howard Dean, can the trope about exporting freedom at the end of a gun be buried? ~Jonathan Gurwitz, MySanAntonio.com
I don’t know who Jonathan Gurwitz is, but I […]
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And few would deny that the American-led demonstration of resolve is related to a movement toward decency and democracy in countries as various as Ukraine and Lebanon, with ripples of hopeful change in Egypt and even Iran and Syria. ~Fr. Richard John Neuhaus
Fr. Neuhaus’ original interview from 2003 is interesting, but more instructive are his […]
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In his opinion, Judge Jones the Third declared:
“The overwhelming evidence is that (intelligent design) is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism and not a scientific theory. . . . It is an extension of the fundamentalists’ view that one must either accept the literal interpretation of Genesis or else believe in the […]
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Filed under: religion
On the face of it, Mr. Bush’s extraordinary authorisation of warrantless NSA wiretaps is illegal. (Then again, many things Mr. Bush has done are illegal and there has been little attention paid to their illegality.) Viewed as a matter of strict construction, much of what the NSA does is illegal, but even by […]
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The remake of Battlestar Galactica on the Sci-Fi Channel (soon to begin its third season) has prompted a few rather weak attempts to draw parallels between the show and current events or find a political or religious statement in the new version of the amazingly campy cult series of 1978 (which understandably became more popular […]
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Filed under: miscellaneous
Peter, I agree with you on Jeff Hart’s piece [in today’s Wall Street Journal]. We were in a staff meeting here at the Dallas Morning News, and my editor had to nudge me to get me to put down the Journal and pay attention, so captivating was Jeff’s essay. Crunchy me especially liked this passage: […]
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In fact, she explains, she liked the way “Islam demands a closeness to God. Islam is simpler, more rigorous, and it’s easier because it is explicit. I was looking for a framework; man needs rules and behavior to follow. Christianity did not give me the same reference points.”
Those reasons reflect many female converts’ thinking, say […]
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Filed under: religion
What we have now is not a robust executive but a reckless one. At times like this, it’s apparent that Cheney and Bush want more power not because they need it to protect the nation, but because they want more power. Another paradox: In their conduct of the war on terror, they expect our trust, […]
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Filed under: politics
The idea that this election was going to be a milestone on the road to genuine democracy in Iraq never made much sense, and in view of the results it makes even less. Iraq is on a path to full-scale civil war, and the election, instead of papering over ethnic and religious divisions, has only […]
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Filed under: politics
Judging by the union’s vocal opposition to the war, the problem, if anything, appears to be the reverse: What is “good for the Jews” seems to concern the organization less than what is good for American liberalism. A premature withdrawal from Iraq would be devastating to the cause of the Jewish state. That observation does […]
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Filed under: politics
The Republican Party now presents itself as the party of Hard Wilsonianism, which is no more plausible than the original Soft Wilsonianism, which balkanized Central Europe with dire consequences. No one has ever thought Wilsonianism to be conservative, ignoring as it does the intractability of culture and people’s high valuation of a modus vivendi. Wilsonianism […]
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The thought of the U.S. fighting a Thirty Years War or engaging in something akin to the Peloponnesian War (which lasted 27 years) is unthinkable. These were wars fought by aristocrats, not democrats, who want chiefly to get on with their pleasurable lives. A miserably difficult war against a fanatical enemy with no conclusion in […]
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For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne […]
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Filed under: religion
“Intelligent design” cannot be mentioned in biology classes in a Pennsylvania public school district, a federal judge said Tuesday, ruling in one of the biggest courtroom clashes on evolution since the 1925 Scopes trial. ~CNN
Let me say straightaway that the judge’s ruling here was ludicrous. This is not because ID has scientific merit (it […]
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Bandow has admitted that he took thousands of dollars from indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff to write columns favorable to his clients. He resigned from the Cato Institute yesterday and apologized for his “lapse of judgment.” ~Editor and Publisher
I haven’t too much to add, except that it is a pity that Mr. Bandow apparently thought a […]
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Filed under: politics
And the amazing thing in Iraq, as a part of a broader strategy to help what I call lay the foundation of peace: democracies don’t war; democracies are peaceful countries.
And what you’re seeing now is a historic moment, because I believe democracies will spread. I believe when people get the taste for freedom or see […]
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“From our perspective, we don’t see much as far as gains,” said Marine Cpl. Bradley Warren, the first to question Cheney in a round-table discussion with about 30 military members. “We’re looking at small-picture stuff, not many gains. I was wondering what it looks like from the big side of the mountain - how Iraq’s […]
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America, our coalition, and Iraqi leaders are working toward the same goal — a democratic Iraq that can defend itself, that will never again be a safe haven for terrorists, and that will serve as a model of freedom for the Middle East. ~President George W. Bush
Here, in the President’s own words, is the statement […]
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On the Traditional Orthodox (Old) Calendar, the Orthodox Church commemorates St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Myra (Lycia) on Monday, St. Ambrose of Milan on Tuesday, St. Patapios the Righteous of Thebes on Wednesday, celebrates the Feast of the Conception of the Theotokos and commemorates the Prophetess Anna, the mother of the Prophet Samuel on […]
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Filed under: religion
The new sacraments—conduits of grace—in the Age of Willow are the yuppie pastor, the Praise Team, and the Sacred Video Projector. But their superfluous nature is manifest in that even they can be set aside in place of “family time” around the tree. These things are important, but they cannot give what the enfleshed Savior […]
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Filed under: religion
To the contrary, the relentless harping on American casualties by the mainstream media is part of an increasingly desperate effort to portray Iraq as another Vietnam: a foolish and futile (if not immoral and illegal) resort to military power in pursuit of a worthless (if not unworthy) goal. ~Norman Podhoretz, OpinionJournal.com
Via Orthodoxy Today Blog.
The Pod […]
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Filed under: politics
When we combine these three elements: chance, necessity and the fertility of the universe, we see clearly that evolution, as many hold, is not simply a random blind process. It has a direction and an intrinsic destiny. By intrinsic, I mean that science need not, and in fact cannot methodologically, invoke a designer as those […]
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Filed under: Uncategorized