Through the looking glass

women on hormonal birth control tend to reject masculine men, and men who are around women on BC tend to have lower testosterone levels..

2011-07-31T17:53:00.000-07:00

....... the nation is being emasculated by the pill.
D.

The Tricky Chemistry of Attraction

Taking Birth-Control Pills May Mask the Signals That Draw the Sexes Together, Research Shows

By SHIRLEY S. WANG

Much of the attraction between the sexes is chemistry. New studies suggest that when women use hormonal contraceptives, such as birth-control pills, it disrupts some of these chemical signals, affecting their attractiveness to men and women's own preferences for romantic partners.

Researchers say birth control pills are upending the natural influence of hormones on attraction. WSJ's Shirley Wang reports on a new study in lemurs that show how contraceptives may influence the way the primates pick and choose their mates.

The type of man a woman is drawn to is known to change during her monthly cycle—when a woman is fertile, for instance, she might look for a man with more masculine features. Taking the pill or another type of hormonal contraceptive upends this natural dynamic, making less-masculine men seem more attractive, according to a small but growing body of evidence. The findings have led researchers to wonder about the implications for partner choice, relationship quality and even the health of the children produced by these partnerships.

Evolutionary psychologists and biologists have long been interested in factors that lead to people's choice of mates. One influential study in the 1990s, dubbed the T-shirt study, asked women about their attraction to members of the opposite sex by smelling the men's T-shirts. The findings showed that humans, like many other animals, transmit and recognize information pertinent to sexual attraction through chemical odors known as pheromones.

The study also showed that women seemed to prefer the scents of men whose immune systems were most different from the women's own immune-system genes known as MHC. The family of genes permit a person's body to recognize which bacteria are foreign invaders and to provide protection from those bugs. Evolutionarily, scientists believe, children should be healthier if their parents' MHC genes vary, because the offspring will be protected from more pathogens.

View Full Image

Everett Collection

Couples dancing in a ballroom. When women are ovulating, they tend to be drawn to men with greater facial symmetry and more signals of masculinity, such as muscle tone, a more masculine voice and dominant behaviors.

Seductive Science

What happens to a woman during her most fertile days?

Her voice becomes higher pitched.
Men are more attentive to her, with behavior ranging from thoughtful to jealous.
Her scent becomes more attractive to men.
She seeks men with more masculine features.
Her social behavior changes, including increased flirting.
She tries to look more attractive and may choose more-revealing clothing.
If she is with a less masculine man, she may feel less attracted to him.

More than 92 million prescriptions for hormonal contraceptives, including pills, patches and injections, were filled last year in the U.S., according to data-tracker IMS Health.

Researchers say their aim isn't to scare or stop women from taking hormonal contraceptives. "We just want to know what we're doing" by taking the pill, says Alexandra Alvergne, a researcher in biological anthropology at University College London in the U.K. "If there is a risk it affects our romantic life and the health status of our children, we want to know." Dr. Alvergne last year published a review detailing the existing literature on the topic in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.

Both men's and women's preferences in mates shift when a woman is ovulating, the period when she is fertile, research has shown. Some studies have tracked women's responses to photos of different men, while other studies have interviewed women about their feelings for men over several weeks. Among the conclusions: When women are ovulating, they tend to be drawn to men with greater facial symmetry and more signals of masculinity, such as muscle tone, a more masculine voice and dominant behaviors. The women also seemed to be particularly attuned to MHC-gene diversity. From an evolutionary perspective, these signals are supposed to indicate that men are more fertile and have better genes to confer to offspring.

Women tend to exhibit subtle cues when they are ovulating, and men tend to find them more attractive at this time. Women try to look more attractive, perhaps by wearing tighter or more revealing clothing, says Martie Haselton, a communications and psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Research on this includes studies in which photos that showed women's clothing choices at different times of the month were shown to groups of judges. Women also emit chemical signals that they are fertile; researchers have measured various body odors, says Dr. Haselton, who has a paper on men's ability to detect ovulation coming out in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science.

Such natural preferences get wiped out when the woman is on hormonal birth control, research has shown. Women on the pill no longer experience a greater desire for traditionally masculine men during ovulation. Their preference for partners who carry different immunities than they do also disappears. And men no longer exhibit shifting interest for women based on their menstrual cycle, perhaps because those cues signaling ovulation are no longer present, scientists say.

Some women using birth-control pills have long reported changes to their libido and mood. Research is still in the early stages to explore the implications of taking hormonal contraceptives for women's choice of mates and for fidelity in relationships. Researchers speculate that women with less-masculine partners may become less interested in their partner when they come off birth control, contributing to relationship dissatisfaction. And, if contraceptives are masking women's natural ability to detect genetic diversity, then the children produced by parents who met when the woman was on the pill may be less genetically healthy, they suggest.

"We don't have enough research to draw a firm conclusion yet," says Dr. Haselton. "It is certainly possible that if women don't experience that little uptick in [desiring] masculinity that they end up choosing less masculine partners," she says.

That could prompt some women to stray, research suggests. Psychologist Steven Gangestad and his team at the University of New Mexico showed in a 2010 study that women with less-masculine partners reported an increased attraction for other men during their fertile phase. Women partnered with traditionally masculine partners didn't have such urges, according to the study of 60 couples.

In another study, the researchers analyzed MHC gene samples of 48 couples. Women partnered with men with whom they shared the least genetic diversity reported being less sexually responsive to their mates. The study was published in 2006 in the journal Psychological Science.

There is also accumulating evidence indicating men react differently to women when they are on birth control. A 2004 study in the journal in Behavioral Ecology used the T-shirt study methodology but instead put the shirts on 81 women. A panel of 31 men, smelling the T-shirts, experienced the greatest attraction for the non-pill-using women when they were ovulating. Twelve women on the panel didn't detect any difference.

A study on primates appears to support the idea that hormonal contraceptives change mating preferences. Duke University researchers studied hormones secreted by female lemurs before and after the animals received a hormonal contraceptive. They also studied males' preferences for these scents.

The findings, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences this year, showed that the injection of Depo-Provera, a long-lasting contraceptive that is approved for use in humans, dramatically altered the chemicals that female lemurs give off to indicate their identity and how genetically healthy they are.

The females given the contraceptive became overall less appealing to the males than before getting the injection, says Christine Drea, a professor in Duke's evolutionary anthropology department and senior author on the study. The contraceptive erased all the normal information the odor signals conveyed, she says.

Though the study would need to be conducted in humans to draw direct conclusions, there are potential parallels to people, Dr. Drea says. Birth control "could be mixing up your own [signals] and others aren't smelling the real you," she says.

Corrections & Amplifications:
Depo-Provera is a long-lasting contraceptive. It was misspelled Depo-Prevara in an earlier version of this article.

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2011-06-23T06:44:00.000-07:00

Islam and Europe Timeline (355-1291 A.D.)

355: After removing a Roman temple from the site (possibly the Temple of Aphrodite built by Hadrian), Constantine I has the Church of the Holy Sepulcher constructed in Jerusalem. Built around the excavated hill of the Crucifixion, legend has it that Constantine's mother Helena discovered the True Cross here.

570: Muhammad was born in Mecca.

590 - 604: Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540 - 604) begans his liturgical reforms and changes in church administration.

594: Muhammad became the manager of the business of Lady Khadija.

595: Muhammad married Hadrat Khadija.

610: Muhammad had a religious experience on Mount Hira that changed his life.

613: Persians capture Damascus and Antioch.

614: Persians sack Jerusalem. damaging the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the process.

615: Muhammad invited the Hashimites to adopt Islam.

615: Persecution of Muslims by the Quaraish in Mecca intensified and a group of Muslims leave for Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia).

621: Abu Jahl became leader of a mounting opposition to Muslims in Mecca and organized a boycott of merchants in Mohammad's clan, the Hashim.

622: About 75 converts from Medina took the two Pledges of al-Aqaba, professing to Islam and to protect Muhammad from all danger.

622: The Hijra: emigration of Muhammad and his followers to Yathrib (now: Madinat al-Nabi, "the city of the Prophet," or simply, al-Madina). Foundation of the first Islamic community; social and economic reforms. Starting point of the Islamic calendar.

624: Muhammad broke with his Jewish supporters because they refused to recognize him as a prophet and adopt Isalm. He chose now to emphasize the Arabness of the new religion and has his followers face Mecca when praying instead of Jerusalem. In the end, all the Jews were either banished or executed.

March 15, 624: At the Battle of Abdr, Muhammad and his followers defeated an army from Mecca. Muhammad's chief rival in Mecca, Abu Jahl, was executed.

627: Meccan leader Abu Sufyan (c. 567 - c. 655) laid siege to Muhammad's forces in Medina during the battle of the Trench. Even with 10,000 men he was unsuccessful for the 15 days he was there. Muhammad suspected the Banu Quraiza Jews of helping the Meccans and had all the men killed.

627: A confederation was created between Muhammad's followers in Mecca and the eight Arab clains in Medina with the Constitution of Medina.

628: Muhammad led about 1,600 men on a pilgrimage to Mecca where their passage was blocked by citizens of Mecca. Fortunately they agreed to negotiate with Muhammad and then later agreed to the Pact of Hudaibiya, ending hostilities and allowing for Muslim pilgrimages.

629: After a group of Muslims was attacked, Muhammad dissolved the Pact of Hudaibiya and prepared to attack Mecca.

630: An army of 30,000 Muslims marched on Mecca which surrendered with little resistance. Muhammad took control of the city and made it the spiritual center of Islam.

632: Death of Muhammad. His father-in-law, Abu-Bakr, and Umar devised a system to allow Islam to sustain religious and political stability. Accepting the name of caliph ("deputy of the Prophet"), Abu-Bakr begins a military exhibition to enforce the caliph's authority over Arabian followers of Muhammad. Abu-Bakr then moved northward, defeating Byzantine and Persian forces. Abu-Bakr died two years later and Umar succeeded him as the second caliph, launching a new campaign against the neighboring empires.

632-34: Widespread tribal rebellion on the death of Muhammad. Abu Bakr, the first caliph (khalifa) reimposes the authority of the Islamic government throughout Arabia and sends Arab armies of conquest against Mesopotamia and Syria.

633: Muslims conquer Syria and Iraq.

634: Victory against the Byzantines in Palestine (Ajnadayn).

634-644: Umar (c. 591-644) reigns as the second caliph. The Muslims subjugate Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia and Persia. Garrisons established in the conquered lands, and the Muslim rulers begin to take control of financial organisation.

635: Muslims begin the conquest of Persia and Syria.

635: Arab Muslims capture the city of Damascus from the Byzantines.

August 20, 636: Battle of Yarmuk (also: Yarmuq, Hieromyax): Following the Muslim capture of Damascus and Edessa, Byzantine Emperor Heraclius organizes a large army which manages to take back control of those cities. However, Byzantine commander, Baänes is soundly defeated by Muslim forces under Khalid ibn Walid in a battle in the valley of the Yarmuk River outside Damascus. This leaves all of Syria open to Arab domination.

636 (?): The Arabs under Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas defeat a Sasanian army in the battle of Qadisiyya (near Hira), gaining Iraq west of the Tigris. A second victory follows at Jalula, near Ctesiphon.

637: The Arabs occupy the Persian capital of Ctesiphon. By 651, the entire Persian realm would come under the rule of Islam and continued its westward expansion.

637: Syria is conquered by Muslim forces.

637: Jerusalem falls to invading Muslim forces.

638: Caliph Umar I enters Jerusalem.

639-42: Conquest of Egypt (642 taking of Alexandria) by 'Amr ibn al-'As. Muslims capture the sea port of Caesarea in Palestine, marking end of the Byzantine presence in Syria.

641: Islam spreads into Egypt. The Catholic Archbishop invites Muslims to help free Egypt from Roman oppressors.

641: Under the leadership of Abd-al-Rahman, Muslims conquer southern areas of Azerbaijan, Daghestan, Georgia, and Armenia.

641/2: Under the leadership of Amr ibn al-As, Muslims conquer the Byzantine city of Alexandria in Egypt. Amr forbids the looting of the city and proclaims freedom of worship for all. According to some accounts, he also has what was left of the Great Library burned the following year. Al-As creates the first Muslim city in Egypt, al-Fustat, and builds there the first mosque in Egypt.

644: Muslim leader Umar dies and is succeeded by Caliph Uthman, a member of the Umayyad family that had rejected Muhammad's prophesies. Rallies arise to support Ali, Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, as caliph. Uthman launches invasions to the west into North Africa.

649: Muawiya I, a member of the Umayyad family, leads a raid against Cyprus, sacking the capital Salamis-Constantia after a short siege and pillaging the rest of the island.

652: Sicily is attacked by Muslims coming out of Tunisia (named Ifriqiya by the Muslims, a name later given to the entire continent of Africa).

653: Muawiya I leads a raid against Rhodes, taking the remaining pieces of the Colossus of Rhodes (one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world) and shipping it back to Syria to be sold as scrap metal.

654: Muawiya I conquers Cyprus and stations a large garrison there. The island would remain in Muslim hands until 0966.

655: Battle of the Masts: In one of the few Muslim naval victories in the entire history of Islam, Muslim forces under the command of Uthman bin Affan defeat Byzantine forces under Emperor Constant II. The battle takes place off the coast of Lycia and is an important stage in the decline of Byzantine power.

661-680: Mu'awiya, founder of the Umayyad dynasty, becomes the caliph and moves the capital from Mecca to Damascus. The Umayyad family rules Islam until 750. Ali's followers form a religious party called Shiites and insist that only descendants of Ali deserve the title of caliph or deserve any authority over Muslims. The opposing party, the Sunnites, insist on the customs of the historical evolution of the caliphate rather than a hereditary descent of spiritual authority.

662: Egypt fell to the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates until 868 A.D. A year prior, the Fertile Crescent and Persia yielded to the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates, whose rule lasted until 1258 and 820, respectively.

667: The Arabs occupy Chalcedon, threatening Constantinope. Sicily is attacked by Muslims sailing from Tunisia.

668: First Siege of Constantinople: This attack lasts off and on for seven years, with the Muslim forces generally spending the winters on the island of Cyzicus, a few miles south of Constantinople, and only sailing against the city during the spring and summer months. The Greeks are able to fend off repeated attacks with a weapon desperately feared by the Arabs: Greek Fire. It burned through ships, shields, and flesh and it could not be put out once it started. Muawiyah has to send emissaries to Byzantine Emperor Constans to beg him to let the survivors return home unimpeded, a request that is granted in exchange for a yearly tribute of 3,000 pieces of gold, fifty slaves, and fifty Arab horses.

669: The Muslim conquest reaches to Morocco in North Africa. The region would be open to the rule of the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates until 800.

672: Muslims under Mauwiya I capture the island of Rhodes.

672: Beginning of the 'seven year' Arab siege of Constantinople.

674: Arab conquest reaches the Indus River.

August 23, 676: Birth of Charles Martel (Charles the Hammer) in Herstal, Wallonia, Belgium, as the illegitimate son of Pippin II. Serving as Mayor of the Palace of the kingdom of the Franks, Charles would lead a force of Christians that turn back a Muslim raiding party near Poitiers (or Tours) which, according to many historians, would effectively halt the advance of Islam against Christianity in the West.

677: Muslims send a large fleet against Constantinople in an effort to finally break the city, but they are defeated so badly through the Byzantine use of Greek Fire that they are forced to pay an indemnity to the Emperor.

680: Birth of Leo III the Isaurian, Byzantine Emperor, along the Turkish-Syrian border in the Syrian province of Commagene. Leo's tactical skills would be responsible for turning back the second Arab Muslim siege of Constantinople in 0717, shortly after he is elected emperor.

688: Emperor Justinian II and Caliph al-Malik sign a peace treaty making Cyprus neutral territory. For the next 300 years, Cyprus is ruled jointly by both the Byzantines and the Arabs despite the continuing warfare between them elsewhere.

691: Birth of Hisham, 10th caliph of the Umayyad Dynasty. It is under Hisham that Muslim forces would make their deepest incursions into Western Europe before being stopped by Charles Martel at the Battle of Poitiers in 0732.

698: Muslims capture Carthage in North Africa.

700: Muslims from Pamntelleria raid the island of Sicily.

711: With the further conquest of Egypt, Spain and North Africa, Islam included all of the Persian empire and most of the old Roman world under Islamic rule. Muslims began the conquest of Sindh in Afghanistan.

April 711: Tariq ibn Malik, a Berber officer, crosses the strait separating Africa and Europe with a group of Muslims and enters Spain (al-Andalus, as the Muslims called it, a word is etymologically linked to "Vandals"). The first stop in the Muslim conquest of Spain is at the foot of a mountain that comes to be called Jabel Tarik, the Mountain of Tarik. Today it is known as Gibraltar. At one time the Berbers had been Christians but they recently converted in large numbers to Islam after the Arab conquest of North Africa.

July 19, 711: Battle of Guadalete: Tariq ibn Ziyad kills King Rodrigo (or Roderic), Visigoth ruler of Spain, at the Guadalete River in the south of the Iberian peninsula. Tariq ibn Ziyad had landed at Gibraltar with 7,000 Muslims at the invitation of heirs of the late Visigoth King Witica (Witiza) who wanted to get rid of Rodrigo (this group includes Oppas, the bishop of Toledo and primate of all Spain, who happens to be the brother of the late king Witica). Ziyad, however, refuses to turn control of the region back over to the heirs of Witica. Almost the entire Iberian peninsula would come under Islamic control by 718.

712: Muslim governor of Northern Africa Musa ibn Nusayr follows Tariq ibn Ziyad with an army of 18,000 as reinforcements for the conquest of Andalusia. Musa's father had been a Catholic Yemenite studying to be a priest in Iraq when he was captured in Iraq by Khalid, the "Sword of Islam," and forced to choose between conversion or death. This invasion of Iraq had been one of the last military orders given by Muhammed before his death.

714: Birth of Pippin III (Pippin the Short) in Jupille (Belgium). Son of Charles Martel and father of Charlemagne, in 0759 Pippin would capture Narbonne, the last Muslim stronghold in France, and thereby drive Islam out of France.

715: By this year just about all of Spain is in Muslim hands. The Muslim conquest of Spain only took around three years but the Christian reconquest would require around 460 years (it might have gone faster had the various Christian kingdoms not been at each other' throats much of the time). Musa's son, Abd el-Aziz, is left in charge and makes his capital the city of Seville, where he married Egilona, widow of king Rodrigo. Caliph Suleiman, a paranoid ruler, would have el-Aziz assassinated and sends Musa into exile in his native Yemen village to live out his days as a beggar.

716: Lisbon is captured by Muslims.

717: Cordova (Qurtuba) becomes the capital of Muslim holdings in Andalusia (Spain).

717: Leo the Isaurian, born along the Turkish-Syrian border in the Syrian province of Commagene, revolts against the usurper Theodosius III and assumes the throne of the Byzantine Empire.

August 15, 717: Second Siege of Constantinople: Taking advantage of the civil unrest in the Byzantine Empire, Caliph Sulieman sends 120,000 Muslims under the command of his brother, Moslemah, to launch the second siege of Constantinople. Another force of around 100,000 Muslims with 1,800 galleys soon arrives from Syria and Egypt to assist. Most of these reinforcements are quickly destroyed with Greek Fire. Eventually the Muslims outside Constantinople begin to starve and, in the winter, they also begin to freeze to death. Even the Bulgarians, usually hostile to the Byzantines, send a force to destroy Muslim reinforcements marching from Adrianopolis.

August 15, 718: Muslims abandon their second siege of Constantinople. Their failure here leads to the weakening of the Umayyad government, in part because of the heavy losses. It is estimated that of the 200,000 soldiers who besieged Constantinople, only around 30,000 made it home. Although the Byzantine Empire also sustains heavily casualties and loses most its territory south of the Taurus Mountains, by holding the line here they prevent a disorganized and militarily inferior Europe from having to confront a Muslim invasion along the shortest possible route. Instead, the Arabic invasion of Europe must proceed along the longer path across northern Africa and into Spain, a route which prevents quick reinforcement and ultimately proves ineffective.

719: Muslims attack Septimania in southern France (so named because it was the base of operations for Rome's Seventh Legion) and become established in the region known as Languedoc, made famous several hundred years later as the center of the Cathar heresy.

July 09, 721: A Muslim army under the command of Al-Semah and that had crossed the Pyrenees is defeated by the Franks near Toulouse. Al-Semah is killed and his remaining forces, which had previously conquered Narbonne, are forced back across the Pyrenees into Spain.

722: Battle of Covadonga: Pelayo, (690-737) Visigoth noble who had been elected the first King of Asturias (718-0737), defeats a Muslim army at Alcama near Covadonga. This is generally regarded as the first real Christian victory over the Muslims in the Reconquista.

724: Hisham becomes the 10th caliph of the Umayyad Dynasty. It is under Hisham that Muslim forces make their deepest incursions into Western Europe before being stopped by Charles Martel at the Battle of Poitiers in 0732.

724: Under the command of Ambissa, Emir of Andalusia, Muslim forces raid southern France and capture the cities of Carcassone and Nimes. Primary targets in these and other raids are churches and monasteries where the Muslims take away holy objects and enslave or kill all the clerics.

725: Muslim forces occupied Nimes, France.

730: Muslim forces occupy the French cities of Narbonne and Avignon.

October 10, 732: Battle of Tours: With perhaps 1,500 soldiers, Charles Martel halts a Muslim force of around 40,000 to 60,000 cavalry under Abd el-Rahman Al Ghafiqi from moving farther into Europe. Many regard this battle as being decisive in that it saved Europe from Muslim control. Gibbon wrote: "A victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire; the repetition of an equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland; the Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Muhammed." Others, though, argue that the battle's importance has been exaggerated. The names of Tours, Poitiers, and Charles Martel do not appear in the Arab histories. They list the battle under the name Balat al-Shuhada, the Highway of Martyrs, and is treated as a minor engagement.

735: Muslim invaders capture the city of Arles.

737: Charles Martel sends his brother, Childebrand, to lay siege to Avignon and drive out the Muslim occupiers. Childebrand is successful and, according to records, has all the Muslims in the city killed.

739: Already having retaken Narbonne, Beziers, Montpellier, and Nimes during the previous couple of years, Childebrand captures Marseille, one of the largest French cities still in Muslim hands.

June 08, 741: Death of Leo III the Isaurian, Byzantine Emperor. Leo's tactical skills were responsible for turning back the second Arab Muslim siege of Constantinople in 0717, shortly after he was elected emperor.

October 22, 741: Death of Charles Martel (Charles the Hammer) in at Quierzy (today the Aisne county in the Picardy region of France). As Mayor of the Palace of the kingdom of the Franks, Charles had led a force of Christians that turned back a Muslim raiding party near Poitiers (or Tours) which, according to many historians, effectively halted the advance of Islam against Christianity in the West.

April 04, 742: Birth of Charlemagne, founder of the Frankish Empire.

743: Death of Hisham, 10th caliph of the Umayyad Dynasty. It was under Hisham that Muslim forces made their deepest incursions into Western Europe before being stopped by Charles Martel at the Battle of Poitiers in 0732.

750: The Arabian Nights, a compilation of stories written under the reign of the Abbasids, became representative of the lifestyle and administration of this Persian influenced government.

750 - 850: The Four Orthodox Schools of Islamic Law were established.

750: The Abbasids assume control of the Islamic world (except Spain, which falls under the control of a descendant of the Umayyad family) and moved the capital to Baghdad in Iraq. The Abbasid Caliphate would last until 1258.

September 755: Abd al-Rahman of the Umayyad dynasty flees to Spain to escape the Abbasids and would be responsible for creating the "Golden Caliphate" in Spain.

756: The Emirate of Cordova is established by Umayyad refugee Abd al-Rahman I in order to revive the defeated Umayyad caliphate which had been destroyed in 0750 by the Abbasids. Cordova would become independent of the Abbasid Empire and represents the first major political division within Islam. The political and geographic isolation of the Cordova Caliphate would make it easier for Christians to decisively conquer it despite their failures elsewhere, although this would not be completed until 1492.

759: Arabs lose the city of Narbonne, France, their furthest and last conquest into Frankish territory. In capturing this city Pippin III (Pippin the Short) ends the Muslim incursions in France.

768: Pepin's son, Carolus Magnus (Charlemagne), succeeded his father and became one of the most important European rulers of medieval history.

September 24, 768: Death of Pippin III (Pippin the Short) at Saint Denis. Son of Charles Martel and father of Charlemagne, in 759 Pippin captured Narbonne, the last Muslim stronghold in France, and thereby drove Islam out of France.

778: Charlemagne, King of the Franks and soon-to-be Holy Roman Emperor, is invited by a group of Arab leaders in northeastern Spain to attack Abd al-Rahman I, ruler of the Emirate of Cordova. Charlemagne obliges them, but is forced to retreat after only getting as far as Saragossa. It is during his march back through the Pyrenees that his forces are set upon by Basques. Among the many who die is the war leader Roland from Breton, killed in Roncevalles, whose memory has been preserved in the "Chanson de Roland," an important epic poem during the Middle Ages.

785: The Great Mosque in Cordoba, in Muslim controlled Spain, was built.

787: Danes invade England for the first time.

788: Death of Abd al-Rahman I, founder of the Umayyad Emirate of Cordova. His successor is Hisham I.

792: Hisham I, emir of Cordova, calls for a Jihad against the infidels in Andalusia and France. Tens of thousands from as far away as Syria heed his call and cross the Pyrennes to subjugate France. Cities like Narbonne are destroyed, but the invasion is ultimately hated at Carcassone.

796: Death of Hisham I, emir of Cordova. His successor is his son, al-Hakam, who would keep up the jihad against the Christians but would also be forced to contend with rebellion at home.

799: The Basques rise in revolt and kill the local Muslim governor of Pamplona.

800: North Africa falls under the rule of the Aghlabi dynasty of Tunis, which would last until 909.

800 - 1200: Jews experience a "golden age" of creativity and toleration in Spain under Moorish (Muslim) rule.

800: Ambassadors of Caliph Harunu r-Rashid give keys to the Holy Sepulcher to the Frankish king, thus acknowledging some Frankish control over the interests of Christians in Jerusalem.

801: Vikings begin selling slaves to Muslims.

806: Hien Tsung becomes the Emperor of China. During his reign a shortage of copper leads to the introduction of paper money.

813: Muslims attack the Civi Vecchia near Rome.

April 04, 814: Death of Charlemagne, founder of the Frankish Empire.

816: With the support of Moors, the Basques revolt against the Franks in Glascony.

822: Death of Al-Hakam, emir of Cordova. He is succeeded by Abd al-Rahman II.

June 827: Sicily is invaded by Muslims who, this time, are looking to take control of the island rather than simply taking away booty. They are initially aided by Euphemius, a Byzantine naval commander who is rebelling against the Emperor. Conquest of the island would require 75 years of hard fighting.

831: Muslim invaders capture the Sicilian city of Palermo and make it their capital.

835: Birth of Ahmad Ibn Tultun, founder of the Tulunid Dynasty in Egypt. Originally sent there as a deputy by the Abbasid Caliphate, Tultun will establish himself as an independent power in the region, extending his control as far north as Syria. It is under Tultun that the Great Mosque of Cairo is built.

838: Muslim raiders sack Marseille.

841: Muslim forces capture Bari, principle Byzantine base in southeastern Italy.

846: Muslim raiders sail a fleet of ships from Africa up the Tiber river and attack outlying areas around Ostia and Rome. Some manage to enter Rome and damage the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul. Not until Pope Leo IV promises a yearly tribute of 25,000 silver coins do the raiders leave. The Leonine Wall is built in order to fend off further attacks such as this.

849: Battle of Ostia: Aghlabid monarch Muhammad sends a fleet of ships from Sardinia to attack Rome. As the fleet prepares to land troops, the combination of a large storm and an alliance of Christian forces were able to destroy the Muslims ships.

850: The Acropolis of Zimbabwe was built in Rhodesia.

850: Perfectus, a Christian priest in Muslim Cordova, is executed after he refuses to retract numerous insults he made about the Prophet Muhammed. Numerous other priests, monks, and laity would follow as Christians became caught up in a zest for martyrdom.

851: Abd al-Rahman II has eleven young Christians executed in the city of Cordova after they deliberately seek out martyrdom by insulting the Prophet Muhammed.

852: Death of Abd al-Rahman II, emir of Cordova.

858: Muslim raiders attack Constantinople.

859: Muslim invaders capture the Sicilian city of Castrogiovanni (Enna), slaughtering several thousand inhabitants.

863: Under Cyril (0826 - 0869) and Methodius (c. 0815 - 0885) the conversion of Moravia begins. The two brothers were sent by the patriarch of Constantinople to Moravia, where the ruler, Rostilav, decreed in 863 that any preaching done had to be in the language of the people. As a result, Cyril and Methodius developed the first usable alphabet for the Slavic tongue - thus, the Cyrillic alphabet.

866: Emperor Louis II travels from Germany to southern Italy to battle the Muslim raiders causing trouble there.

868: The Sattarid dynasty, whose rule would continue until 930, extended Muslim control throughout most of Persia. In Egypt, the Abbasid and Umayyad caliphates ended and the Egyptian-based Tulunid dynasty took over (lasting until 904).

869: Arabs capture the island of Malta.

870: After a month-long siege, the Sicilian city of Syracuse is captured by Muslim invaders.

871: King Alfred the Great of England created a system of government and education which allowed for the unification of smaller Anglo-Saxon states in the ninth and tenth centuries.

874: Iceland is colonized by Vikings from Norway.

876: Muslims pillage Campagna in Italy.

879: The Seljuk Empire unites Mesopotamia and a large portion of Persia.

880: Under Emperor Basil, the Byzantines recapture lands occupied by Arabs in Italy.

884: Death of Ahmad Ibn Tultun, founder of the Tulunid Dynasty in Egypt. Originally sent there as a deputy by the Abbasid Caliphate, Tultun established himself as an independent power in the region, extending his control as far north as Syria. It is under Tultun that the Great Mosque of Cairo is built.

884: Muslims invading Italy burn the monastery of Monte Cassino to the ground.

898: Birth of Abd al-Rahman III, generally regarded as the greatest of the Umayyad caliphs in Andalusia. Under his rule, Cordova would become one of the most powerful centers of Islamic learning and power.

900: The Fatimids of Egypt conquered north Africa and included the territory as an extension of Egypt until 972.

902: The Muslim conquest of Sicily is completed when the last Christian stronghold, the city of Taorminia, is captured. Muslim rule of Sicily would last for 264 years.

905: The Tulunid Dynasty in Egypt is destroyed by an Abbasid army sent to reestablish control over the region of Egypt and Syria.

909: Sicily came under the control of the Fatimids' rule of North Africa and Egypt until 1071. From 878 until 909, their rule of Sicily was uncertain.

909: The Fatimid Dynasty assumes control of Egypt. Claiming descent from Fatima, daughter of the Prophet Muhammed, and Ali bin Abi Talib, the Fatimids would rule Egypt until being overthrown by the Auyybids and Saladin in 1171.

911: Muslims control all the passes in the Alps between France and Italy, cutting off passage between the two countries.

912: Abd al-Rahman III becomes the Umayyad Caliph in Andalusia.

916: A combined force of Greek and German emperors and Italian city-states defeat Muslim invaders at Garigliano, putting Muslim raids in Italy to an end.

920: Muslim forces cross the Pyrenees, enter Gascony, and reach as far as the gates of Toulouse.

929: Abd al-Rahman III transforms the Emirate of Cordova into and independent caliphate no longer under even theoretical control from Baghdad.

935 - 969: The rule of Egypt was under the Ikhidid dynasty.

936: The Althing, the oldest body of representative government in Europe, is established in Iceland by the Vikings.

939: Madrid is recaptured from Muslim forces.

940: Hugh, count of Provence, gives his protection to Moors in St. Tropez if they agree to keep the Alpine passes closed to his rival, Berenger.

953: Emperor Otto I sends representatives to Cordova to ask Caliph Abd al-Rahman III to call off some Muslim raiders who had set themselves up in Alpine passes and are attacking merchant caravans going in and out of Italy.

961: Death of Abd al-Rahman III, generally regarded as the greatest of the Umayyad caliphs in Andalusia. Under his rule, Cordova became one of the most powerful centers of Islamic learning and power. He is succeeded by Abdallah, a caliph who would kill many of his rivals (even family members) and has captured Christians decapitated if they refuse to convert to Islam.

961: Under the command of general Nicephorus Phokas, the Byzantines recapture Crete from Muslim rebels who had earlier fled Cordova.

965: Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus Phokas reconquers Cyprus from the Muslims.

965: Grenoble is recaptured from the Muslims.

969: The Fatimid dynasty (Shi'ite) takes Egypt from the Ikshidids and assumes the title of caliphate in Egypt until 1171.

969: Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus II Phocas reconquers Antioch (modern Antakya, capital of the province Hatay) from the Arabs.

972: The Fatimids of Egypt conquer north Africa.

972: The Muslims in the Sisteron district of France surrender to Christian forces and their leader asks to be baptized.

981: Ramiro III, king of Leon, is defeated by Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir (Almanzor) at Rueda and is forced to begin paying tribute to the Caliph of Cordova.

985: Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir sacks Barcelona

994: The monastery of Monte Cassino is destroyed a second time by Arabs.

July 03, 997: Under the leadership of Almanzor, Muslim forces march out of the city of Cordova and head north to capture Christian lands.

August 11, 997: Muslim forces under Almanzor arrive at the city of Compostela. The city had been evacuated and Almanzor burns it to the ground.

998: Venice conquers the Adriatic port of Zara.

c. 1000: Chinese perfect the production and use of gunpowder.

1000: The Seljuk Turkish Empire is founded by an Oghuz Turkish bey (chieftain) named Seljuk. Originally from the steppe country around the Caspian Sea, the Seljuks are the ancestors of the Western Turks, present-day inhabitants of Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan.

August 08, 1002: Death of Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir, ruler of Al-Andalus, on the way back from raiding the Rioja region.

1004: Arab raiders sack the Italian city of Pisa.

1007: Birth of Isaac I Comnenus, Byzantine emperor. Founder of the dynasty of the Comneni, Isaac's government reforms may have helped the Byzantine Empire last longer.

1009: Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, founder of the Druze sect and sixth Fatimid Caliph in Egypt, orders the Holy Sepulcher and all Christian buildings in Jerusalem be destroyed. In Europe a rumor develops that a "Prince of Babylon" had ordered the destruction of the Holy Sepulcher at the instigation of the Jews. Attacks on Jewish communities in cities like Rouen, Orelans, and Mainz ensue and this rumor helps lay the basis for massacres of Jewish communities by Crusaders marching to the Holy Land.

1009: Sulaimann, grandson of Abd al-Rahman III, returns over 200 captured fortresses to the Castilians in return for massive shipments of food for his army.

1012: Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, founder of the Druze sect and sixth Fatimid Caliph in Egypt, orders the destruction of all Christian and Jewish houses of worship in his lands.

1012: Berber forces capture Cordova and order that half the population be executed.

1013: Jews are expelled from the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordova, then ruled by Sulaimann.

1015: Arab Muslim forces conquer Sardinia.

1016: The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem is partially destroyed by earthquakes.

1020: Merchants from Amalfi and Salerno are granted permission by the Egyptian Caliph to build a hospice in Jerusalem. Out of this would eventually grow The Order of Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem (also known as: Knights of Malta, Knights of Rhodes, and most commonly as Knights Hospitaller).

1021: Caliph al-Hakim proclaimed himself to be divine and founded the Druze sect.

1022: Several Cathar heretics are discovered in Toulouse and put to death.

1023: Muslims expel the Berber rulers from Cordova and install Abd er-Rahman V as caliph.

1025: The power of the Byzantine Empire begins to decline.

1026: Richard II of Normandy leads a group of several hundred armed men on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the belief that the Day of Judgment had arrived. Turkish control of the region hampers their goals, however.

1027: The Frankish protectorate over Christian interests in Jerusalem is replaced by a Byzantine protectorate. Byzantine leaders begin the reconstruction of the Holy Sepulcher.

1029: Alp Arslan, "The Lion Hero," is born. Arslan is the son of Togrul Beg, conqueror of Baghdad who made himself ruler of the Caliphate, and great-grandson of Seljuk, founder of the Seljuk Turkish empire.

1031: The Moorish Caliphate of Córdoba falls.

1031: The emir of Aleppo has the Krak des Chevaliers contructed.

1033: Castile is retaken from the Arabs.

1035: The Byzantines make a landing in Sicily, but don't try to recapture the island from the Muslims.

1038: The Seljuk Turks become established in Persia.

1042: The rise of the Seljuk Turks begins.

1045 - 1099: Life of Ruy Diaz de Vivar, known as El Cid (Arabic for "lord"), national hero of Spain. El Cid would become famous for his efforts to drive the Moors out of Spain.

May 18, 1048: Persian poet Umar Khayyam is born. His poem The Rubaiyat became popular in the West because of its use by Victorian Edward Fitzgerald.

1050 - 1200: The first agricultural revolution of Medieval Europe begins in 1050 with a shift to the northern lands for cultivation, a period of improved climate from 700 to 1200 in western Europe, and the widespread use and perfection of new farming devices. Technological innovations include the use of the heavy plow, the three-field system of crop rotation, the use of mills for processing cloth, brewing beer, crushing pulp for paper manufacture, and the widespread use of iron and horses. With an increase in agricultural advancements, Western towns and trade grow exponentially and Western Europe returns to a money economy.

1050: Duke Bohemond I (Bohemond Of Taranto, French Bohémond De Tarente), prince of Otranto (10891111) is born. One of the leaders of the First Crusade, Bohemond would be largely responsible for the capture of Antioch and he secures the title Prince of Antioch (1098 - 1101, 1103 - 04).

1050: Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachos restores the complex of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.

1054: A famine in Egypt forces al Mustansir, 8th Fatimid caliph, to seek food and other commercial assistance from Italy and the Byzantine Empire.

July 16, 1054: Great Schism: The Western Christian Church, in an effort to further enhance its power, had tried to impose Latin rites on Greek churches in southern Italy in 1052; as a consequence, Latin churches in Constantinople were closed. In the end, this leads to the excommunication of Michael Cerularius, patriarch of Constantinople (who in turn excommunicates Pope Leo IX). Although generally regarded as a minor event at the time, today it is treated as the final event that sealed the Great Schism between Eastern and Western Christianity.

1055: Seljuk Turks capture Baghdad.

1056: The Almoravid (al-Murabitun) Dynasty begins its rise to power. Taking the name "those who line up in defense of the faith," this is a group of fanatical Berber Muslims who would rule North Africa and Spain until 1147.

1061: Roger Guiscard lands at Sicily with a large Norman force and captures the city of Masara. The Norman reconquest of Sicily would require another 30 years.

1063: Alp Arslan succeeds his father, Togrul Beg, as ruler of the Baghdad Caliphate and the Seljuk Turks.

1064-1091: The Normans recapture Sicily from the Muslims.

1064: The Seljuk Turks conquer Christian Armenia.

September 29, 1066: William the Conqueror invades England and claims the English throne at the Battle of Hastings. Because William is both the King of England and the Duke of Normandy, The Norman Conquest fuses French and English cultures. The language of England evolves into Middle English with an English syntax and grammar and a heavily French vocabulary.

1067: Romanus IV Diogenes becomes the Byzantine Emperor.

1068: Alp Arslan invades the Byzantine Empire and is repulsed by Romanus IV Diogenes over the course of three campaigns. Not until 1070, though, would the Turks be driven back across the Euphrates river.

1070: Seljuk Turks capture Jerusalem from the Fatimids. Seljuk rule is not quite as tolerant as that of the Fatimids and Christian pilgrims begin returning to Europe with tales of persecution and oppression.

1070: Brother Gerard, a leader of the Benedictine monks and nuns who run the hospices in Jerusalem. beings to organize The Order of Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem (also known as: Knights of Malta, Knights of Rhodes, and most commonly as Knights Hospitaller) as a more military force for the active protection of Christian pilgrims.

1071: Normans conquer the last Byzantine holdings in Italy.

1071-1085: Seljuk Turks conquer most of Syria and Palestine.

August 19, 1071: Battle of Manzikert: Alp Arslan leads an army of Seljuk Turks against the Byzantine Empire near Lake Van. Numbering perhaps as many as 100,000 men, the Turks take the fortresses of Akhlat and Manzikert before Byzantine Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes can respond. Although Diogenes is able to recapture Akhlat, the siege of Manzikert fails when a Turkish relief force arrives and Andronicus Ducas, an enemy of Romanus Diogenes, refuses to obey orders to fight. Diogenes himself is captured and released, but he would be murdered after his return to Constantinople. Partly because of the defeat at Manzikert and partly due to the civil wars following the murder of Digoenes, Asia Minor would be left open to Turkish invasion.

1072: Palermo falls to the Norman adventurers Roger I and Robert Guiscard. Guiscard allows to the inhabitants the right to practice their religion and a certain autonomy.

December 15, 1072: Malik Shah I, son of Alp Arslan, succeeds his father as Seljuk Sultan.

1073: Seljuk Turks conquer Ankara.

July 1074: El Cid marries Jimena, niece of Alfonso IV of Castile and daughter of the Count of Oviedo.

1078: Seljuk Turks capture Nicaea. It would change hands three more times, finally coming under control of the Turks again in 1086.

1079: Battle of Cabra: El Cid led his troops to a rout of Emir Abd Allah of Granada.

1080: Order of the Hospital of St. John is founded in Italy. This special order of knights was dedicated to guarding a pilgrim hospital, or hostel, in Jerusalem.

1080: An Armenian state is founded in Cilicia, a district on the southeastern coast of Asia Minor (Turkey), north of Cyprus, by refugees feeling the Seljuk invasion of their Armenian homeland. A Christian kingdom located in the midst of hostile Muslim states and lacking good relations with the Byzantine Empire, "Armenia Minor" would provide important assistance to Crusaders from Europe.

1081 - 1118: Alexius I Comnenus is Byzantine emperor.

1081: El Cid, now a mercenary because he had been exiled by Alfonso IV of Castile, enters the service of the Moorish king of the northeast Spanish city of Zaragosa, al-Mu'tamin, and would remain there for his successor, al-Mu'tamin II.

1082: Ibn Tumart, founder of the Amohad Dynasty, is born in the Atlas mountains.

1084: Seljuk Turks conquer Antioch, a strategically important city.

October 25, 1085: The Moors are expelled from Toledo, Spain, by Alfonso VI.

October 23, 1086: Battle of Zallaca (Sagrajas): Spanish forces under Alfonso VI of Castile are defeated by the Moors and their allies, the Almorivids (Berbers from Morocco and Algeria, led by Yusef I ibn Tashufin), thus preserving Muslim rule in al-Andalus. The slaughter of Spaniards was great and Yusef refused to abide by his agreement to leave Andalusia in the hands of the Moors. His intention was actually to make Andalusia an African colony ruled by the Almorivids in Morocco.

1087: After his crushing defeat at Zallaqa, Alfonso VI swallows his pride and recalls El Cid from exile.

September 13, 1087: Birth of John II Comnenus, Byzantine emperor.

1088: Patzinak Turks begin forming settlements between the Danube and the Balkans.

March 12, 1088: Urban II is elected pope. An active supporter of the Gregorian reforms, Urban would become responsible for launching the First Crusade.

1089: Byzantine forces conquer the island of Crete.

1090: Yusuf Ibn Tashfin, King of the Almoravids, captures Granada.

1091: The last Arabic fortress in Sicily falls to the Normans.

1091: Cordova (Qurtuba) is captured by the Almoravids.

1092: After the death of Seljuk Sultan (al-sultan , "the power") Malik Shah I, the capital of the Seljuks is moved from Iconjium to Smyrna and the empire itself dissolves into several smaller states.

May 1094: El Cid captures Valencia from the Moors, carving out his own kingdom along the Mediterranean that is only nominally subservient to Alfonso VI of Castile. Valencia would be both Christian and Muslim, with adherents of both religions serving in his army.

August 1094: The Almoravids from Morocco land near Cuarte and lay siege to Valencia with 50,000 men. El Cid, however, breaks the siege and forces the Amoravids to flee - the first Christian victory against the hard-fighting Africans.

November 18, 1095: Pope Urban II opens the Council of Clermont where ambassadors from the Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus, asking help against the Muslims, were warmly received.

FIRST CRUSADE (1096-99)

Spring, 1096: Peasants' (or PeopleÕs) Crusade sets out from Europe. Three armies don't make it past Hungary.

Spring-Summer 1096: Massacres against German Jews occur on the way to the Holy Land.Ê Crusaders believe that the battle against Christ's enemies ought to begin at home.

August, 1096: Emperor Alexius of Constantinople shipped the Peasants' Crusade over the Bosporus.

Late Summer, 1096: First Crusade leaders depart Europe.

October 1096: Peasants' Crusade annihilated in Anatolia by the Turks.

Spring, 1097: First Crusade contingents assembling in Constantinople.

End of April 1097: First Crusade began the march in Anatolia to Nicaea.

May 14ÐJune 19 1097: Siege of Nicaea.

July 1, 1097: Battle of Dorylaeum (Eskisehir).

October 21, 1097 Ð June 3, 1098: Crusader siege of Antioch.

December 31, 1097: First Battle of Harenc. Turkish prisoners were dragged within sight of the walls of Antioch and beheaded.

February 9, 1098: Second Battle of Harenc.

February, 1098: Emperor Alexius' general Tacitius abandons the siege of Antioch.

Mar 10, 1098: Citizens of Edessa give Baldwin control of the city.

Jun 1, 1098: Stephen of Blois and a large group of French crusaders flee the siege of Antioch with news of the arrival of Emir Kerboga of Mosul and his army of 75,000.

Jun 3, 1098: Antioch falls to Bohemond and the remaining crusaders.

Jun 5-9, 1098: KerbogaÕs army arrives before Antioch, forcing Bohemond to assume the role of the beseiged.

Jun 14, 1098: Peter Bartholomew discovers the supposed Holy Lance (the weapon which had stabbed Jesus during his crucifixion.)Ê Crusader morale skyrockets.

Jun 28, 1098: Battle of Orontes. Crusader victory forces Kerboga to lift the siege of Antioch.

Nov 27-Dec 11, 1098: Crusaders capture M'arrat-an-Numan.

Jan 13, 1099: Raymond of Toulouse, after disagreeing with Bohemund about the future crusader course of action, leads the majority of crusaders away from Antioch and toward Jerusalem.

Feb 14, 1099: Raymond begins the disorganized siege of Arqah, near Tripoli.

Late Mar, 1099: Godfrey and Robert of Flanders join the siege of Arqah.

April 20, 1099: Peter Bartholomew dies after attempting an ordeal by fire to prove the authenticity of the Hold Lance.

Mid-May, 1099: Raymond lifts the siege of Argah and pushes to Jerusalem.

Jun 7, 1099: Crusaders reach the walls of Jerusalem.

Jun 13, 1099: Crusaders fail to take Jerusalem by storm.

Jul 15, 1099: In the only fully coordinated operation of the First Crusade, Godfrey's forces succeed in scaling the walls of Jerusalem (near Herod's Gate) through the effective use of a massive siege tower and ladders.ÊÊ Once in the city, the Crusaders massacre the garrison of Fatimid Moslems and a large percentage of the Moslem and Jewish population.Ê Godfrey was elected Guardian of Jerusalem.

Aug 12, 1099: Battle of Ascalon. According to most accounts (both crusader and Muslim), the Fatimids were caught unprepared and the battle was short. Al-Afdal left behind his camp and its treasures, which were captured by Robert and Tancred. Crusader losses are unknown, but the Egyptians lost about 10-12 000 men. After the battle, almost all of the remaining crusaders returned to their homes in Europe, their vows of pilgrimage having been fulfilled. There were perhaps only a few hundred knights left in Jerusalem by the end of the year, but they were gradually reinforced by new crusaders, inspired by the success of the original crusade. Ascalon itself remained under Fatimid control and was soon re-garrisoned. It became the base of operations for invasions of the Kingdom of Jerusalem every year afterwards, and numerous battles were fought there in the following years, until it was finally captured by the crusaders in 1153.

1100: Baldwin, count of Edessa, escapes an ambush near Beirut and proclaims himself king of Jerusalem.

1104: Muslim victory at Harran, which checks the Crusaders' eastward advance.

1108: Two coalitions made up of Crusaders and Muslims confront one another near Tel Bashir.

1109: Fall of Tripoli after a 2000-day siege.

1110: Fall of Beirut and Saida.

1111: Ibn al-Khashab, the qadi of Aleppo, organizes a riot against the caliph of Baghdad to demand intervention against the Frankish occupation.

1112: Victorious resistance at Tyre.

1115: Alliance of Muslim and Frankish princes of Syria against an army dispatched by the sultan.

1119: Ilghazi, ruler of Aleppo, crushes the Crusaders at Sarmada.

1124: The Crusaders take Tyre. They now occupy the entire coast, except for Ascalon.

1125: Ibn al-Khashab is murdered by the Assassins sect.

1128: Failure of Crusaders thrust at Damscus. Zangi the ruler of Aleppo.

1135: Zangi fails to take Damascus.

1137: Zangi captures Fulk, king of Jerusalem, then releases him.

1140: Alliance of Damascus and Jerusalem against Zangi.

THE SECOND CRUSADE (1144-1155)

1144: Zangi takes Edessa, destroying the first of the four Frankish states of the Orient.

1146: Murder of Zangi. His son Nur al-Din replaces him in Aleppo.

1148: Debacle at Damascus for a new Frankish expedition led by Conrad, emperor of Germany, and Louis VII, king of France.

1154: Nur al-Din takes control of Damascus, unifying Muslim Syria under his authority.

1163-1169: The struggle for Egypt. Shirkuh, lieutenant of Nur al-Din, finally wins. Proclaimed vizier, he dies two months later. He is succeeded by his nephew Saladin (Salahuddin).

1171: Saladin proclaims the overthrow of the Fatimid caliphate. Sole master of Egypt, he finds himself in conflict with Nur al-Din.

1174: Death of Nur al-Din. Saladin takes Damascus.

1183: Saladin takes Aleppo. Egypt and Syria now reunited under his aegis.

THE THIRD CRUSADE (1187-1192)

1187: The year of Islamic victory.Ê Saladin crushes the Crusaders armies at Hittin, near Lake Tiberias. He reconquers Jerusalem and the greater part of the Crusaders territories. The Crusaders now hold only Tyre, Tripoli and Antioch.

1190-92: Setback for Saladin at Acre. Intervention of Richard the Lionheart, king of England, enables the Crusaders to recover several cities from the sultan, but not Jerusalem.

1193: Saladin dies in Damascus at the age of 55. After several years of civil war, his empire is reunited under the authority of his brother al-Adil.

THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CRUSADES (1194-1201)

1204: The Crusaders take Constantinople. Sack of the city.

THE SIXTH CRUSADE (1216-1218)

1218-21: Invasion of Egypt by the Crusaders. They take Damietta and head for Cairo, but the sultan al-Kamil, son of al-Adil, finally repels them.

THE SEVENTH CRUSADE (1227-1229)

1229: Al-Kamil delivers Jerusalem to the emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, arousing a storm of indignation in the Arab world.

1244: The Crusaders lose Jerusalem for the last time.

THE EIGHTH CRUSADE (1245-1247)

1248-50: Invasion of Egypt by Louis IX, King of France, who is defeated and captured. Fall of the Ayyubid dynasty; replaced by the rule of the Mamluks.

1258: The Mongol chief Hulegu, grandson of Genghis Khan, sacks Baghdad, massacring the population and killing the last Abbasid caliph.

1260: The Mongol army, after occupying first Aleppo and then damascus, is defeated at the battle of Ayn Jalut in palestine. Baybars at the head of the Mamluk sultanate.

1268: Baybars takes Antioch, which had been allied with the Mongols.

1270: Louis IX dies near Tunis in the course of a failed invasion.

1289: The mamluk sultan Qalawun takes Tripoli.

1291: The sultan Khalil, son of Qalawun, takes Acre, putting an end to two centuries of Crusader presence in the Orient.

(adapted from the Christianity vs. Islam: Timeline of the Crusades, with many additions.)

merry Christmas!!!!

2010-12-21T11:22:00.000-08:00

Some Christmas favorites, old and new, enjoy!!

In the ‘Green’ Economy, the Poor Pay More

2010-09-20T05:51:00.000-07:00

By Kelly Miller

September 20, 2010

Cap-and-trade legislation has died, with little hope of resurrection for a long time to come. What the representatives of the people cannot accomplish, however, the Environmental Protection Agency can.

The EPA’s Lisa Jackson has denied ^[1] ten petitions filed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Republican attorneys general from Texas and Virginia, and other conservative groups. The petitioners asked the EPA to reconsider its finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, and therefore must be regulated under the Clean Air Act. The EPA has refused to reconsider, and plans to regulate emissions from new cars and trucks this year, and emissions from power plants next year. The state of Texas is now threatening ^[2] not to conform to the new regulations.

Christians believe that when God created the world and created people in His image, He gave mankind a mandate to be stewards of the creation. Therefore, Christians should be especially concerned about treating the natural world with care and respect ^[3]. At the same time, the stewardship responsibility includes all of the resources we have – nature, the ecosystem, and technology; as well as our bodies, talents, and relationships with other people.

People of faith have no intention or desire to pit these responsibilities against one another. When a proposal to improve the environment negative consequences for our economic and technological ability to steward our resources and care for people created in God’s image, Christianity teaches that we should investigate whether the environmental policy is truly necessary to accomplish its stated goal, and whether it is possible to care for the environment in a way that also enhances human life and productivity.

To restrict energy usage is to restrict human ability to productively steward God’s creation. God ordained work as a good thing for Adam and Eve to do in the garden of Eden before sin came into the world. For this reason, Christians believe that productive cultivation of natural resources can improve, rather than damage, the health of God’s creation.

However, the Environmental Protection Agency generally treats human economic activity as climate enemy number one. Unfortunately, discussing climate issues through the EPA bureaucracy does not lend itself to a full and open investigation of the options and issues at stake. The legislative branch set up the bureaucracy in such a way that it can make difficult policy choices without facing electoral accountability. Joe Postell of The Heritage Foundation has explained why the progressive movement began setting this system in place ^[4] several decades ago:

The progressives sought to circumvent representative government by transferring power from Congress to a newly created fourth branch of government, our modern bureaucracy. Congress would no longer make laws but merely pass bills that consist of assignments to agencies. The actual laws then would be passed by agencies in the form of “rules” carrying the full force of law.

If the EPA believes it knows the best way to promote “public health and welfare,” it will not easily admit that it might be. EPA officials may have the best of intentions for crafting the best policy, but there’s no guarantee that they are safe from the lure of self-interest, much less from their own fallibility.

For instance, the EPA believes that regulating emissions will improve the American economy by creating “green” jobs. The evidence, however, does not support this line of reasoning. The government simply cannot create jobs in one industry without destroying jobs elsewhere. For every “green” job Spain has created by subsidizing wind and solar energy, it has destroyed ^[5] 2.2 jobs created by the private sector. Green jobs have done nothing to improve Spain’s 19 percent unemployment rate. Denmark actually spends more money on creating jobs in the wind energy industry than the jobs actually pay.

Politicians in the United States have already tried unsuccessfully for years to create technological innovation by legislative mandate, and there’s no logical reason to expect that more government mandates will produce efficient energy technology.

Rather than stimulating the American economy, full regulation of carbon emissions will damage it severely. Essentially, a cap or a regulatory burden on carbon emissions would create energy scarcity, making it just as expensive to purchase energy from fossil fuels as it is to purchase energy from “renewable” sources. The supply of efficient energy would drop in order to encourage production and consumption of inefficient energy, and prices would skyrocket as a result. Politicians themselves, including Barack Obama as a presidential candidate, have admitted ^[6] that skyrocketing prices are a crucial component of the carbon regulation strategy.

Under the cap-and-trade bill considered by the House of Representatives, the average American family would likely face a 90 percent increase in electricity prices, according to research done by The Heritage Foundation. Gasoline and natural gas prices would also rise by over 50 percent. The economic impact of EPA regulation would be even worse ^[7] than the impact of cap-and-trade legislation, because regulation would involve more compliance, administrative, and legal costs.

Skyrocketing energy prices would cause the prices of most other goods and services to rise as well, because energy is the lifeblood of the economy. Almost nothing happens – no manufacturing, no transportation, and no sales – without energy.
For people who already have plenty of money – think John Kerry and Bill Gates – this is not much of a problem. But economically vulnerable groups already spend much larger portions of their budgets on basic necessities than do those who are better off. The poor have less discretionary income to spend on things they don’t absolutely need, and therefore less room to breathe when expenses rise.

This economic burden would come in addition to other financial woes caused by carbon regulation. An economy struggling under dramatic decreases in employment, household income, and national GDP would make it even more difficult for low-income families to cover expenses, especially utilities. Families who could not afford to heat or cool their homes, especially the elderly, would risk their health and could end up homeless. After inability to pay rent, inability to pay utilities is the most common cause of homelessness.

The Environmental Protection Agency justifies this onerous economic burden with its finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare. However, its proposed regulation of emissions could endanger public health and welfare even more. Christian doctrine teaches that it is not acceptable to treat the poor unjustly, or take from them the ability to earn their own living and to productively steward the resources God has given them. Rather, we should investigate whether human economic productivity could be an ally rather than the enemy of our natural resources.

This article courtesy of the Acton Institute.

Article printed from Catholic Exchange: http://catholicexchange.com

URL to article: http://catholicexchange.com/2010/09/20/134486/

URLs in this post:

[1] denied: http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/bd4379a92ceceeac8525735900400c27/56eb0d86757cb7568525776f0063d82f%21OpenDocument

[2] threatening: http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/08/04/04greenwire-texas-defies-epa-on-regulation-of-greenhouse-g-31939.html

[3] care and respect: http://blog.acton.org/archives/17122-evangelicals-and-global-warming-2.html

[4] setting this system in place: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/06/constitution-in-decline/

[5] has destroyed: http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm2795.cfm

[6] admitted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqHL404zhcU

[7] even worse: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/01/the-epas-global-warming-regulation-plans

Pitchfork Politics: the Feds are Targeting Conscientious Doctors

2010-09-20T05:44:00.000-07:00

from: LifeSite News

September 20, 2010

by Dominique Monlezun and Kristan Hawkins

Get the pitchforks out — America is hunting physicians. Instead of calling off the dogs, President Obama is leading the charge. In March of 2009, Obama called to rescind the conscience protection clause that was implemented by Health and Human Services on January 20, 2009. Then he adamantly backed the passage of the healthcare reform law, which leaves physicians’ conscience rights open for attack from nearly all sides.

Why should you care about the conscience rights of doctors? Because whether doctors have conscience rights may determine whether you have a doctor.

The sacred doctor-patient relationship is based on the assumption that patients and their doctors share similar moral beliefs. Patients want doctors who can help them make informed decisions within our moral frame of reference because they share our values. And physicians want to be able to follow their consciences when they practice medicine and have the power to say “no” to certain medical procedures without having to fear being reprimanded or losing their jobs.

That’s not a hypothetical situation. The Washington Post noted that Obamacare does not protect medical professionals opposed to a procedure like abortion from discrimination by federal, state, and local governments, nor from hospitals and clinics. This means that if a physician refuses to perform an abortion because it violates her conscience, she could lose her job and have no recourse.

Catherina Cenzon-DeCarlo knows this all too well. This New York nurse was forced by her supervisors to help abort a 22-week-old preborn baby at Mount Sinai Hospital, despite her long-standing agreement with the hospital allowing her to opt out of abortion procedures. She states, “It felt like a horror film unfolding … I felt violated and betrayed.”

Starting in 2009 and continuing until today, polls have shown that most Americans oppose abortion. Amid the growing pro-life atmosphere in America, Obama supports a double standard that tells pro-life medical professionals that they cannot exercise their free will and conscience rights, while patients desiring abortions can.

But isn’t America just catching up to the times and is this not the situation across the world? No. For example, the Irish Medical Council’s 2004 Guide to Ethical Conduct and Behavior states: “Medical care must not be used as a tool of the State, to be granted or withheld or altered in character under political pressure. Doctors require independence from such pressures in order to carry out their duties.”

The nation is already facing a shortage of doctors and nurses. Because of Obamacare, millions more patients will be flooding the system in coming years. In an online survey of nearly 3,000 faith-based physicians, 95% of them said they would stop practicing Medicine rather than violate their conscience. And the New England Journal of Medicine published a survey that said one-third of all physicians would stop practicing if Obamacare was passed.

Where will patients go when doctors are forced out of their profession?

We must tell President Obama to call off the dogs. He preaches tolerance but does not tolerate medical professionals who decline procedures on religious or moral grounds. As long as these physicians are portrayed as inhuman monsters, government agencies and organizations will hunt them down with the pitchforks of lawsuits.

Dominique Monlezun is entering Tulane School of Medicine next fall. He is the National Coordinator of Medical Students for Life, a division of Students for Life of America. Kristan Hawkins is the Executive Director of Students for Life of America. Learn more at www.medSFL.org ^[1].

This article is courtesy of LifeSiteNews.com.

From BBC: John Boehner: the second of 12 kids from Ohio who is Barack Obama's elitist target

2010-09-17T05:59:00.000-07:00

The White House is attempting to cling on to Democratic control of Washington by portraying an Ohio congressman who grew up in near poverty as an elitist country club Republican controlled by wealthy lobbyists.

By Toby Harnden, Reading, Ohio
Published: 8:09PM BST 17 Sep 2010

President Barack Obama is doing his best to turn Representative John Boehner, the House minority leader, into Public Enemy Number One. If Republicans win back the House of Representatives in November, as polls indicate, he will replace Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House.

In a recent speech, Mr Obama mentioned Mr Boehner by name nine times. A fundraising email sent out from BarackObama.com this week stated that corporate interests and lobbyists “have put all their chips on one man: Congressman John Boehner”.

Democrats have started a BeatBoehner.com website that claims he spent $1 million on "luxury hotels, exclusive golf resorts and gourmet dining for himself and his fat-cat contributors". On the I-75 freeway outside Cincinnati, a huge poster showing a tanned Mr Boehner playing golf accuses him of teeing off 119 times in a year.

Yet Mr Boehner's life story is the type of classic up-by-the-bootstraps tale of the American Dream that can put a tear in a voter's eye. As his story becomes better known, the Democrats could even be drawing favourable attention upon him. Right now, most Americans have never heard of Mr Boehner, and fewer still can pronounce his name, which rhymes with Rayner. The alleged elitist country club Republican is an Ohio Congressman who grew up in near poverty.

His sister Lynda Meineke, who is 51, is a waitress and bar tender at Andy's Cafe in Carthage, Ohio, a family business that was founded by their grandfather Andy Boehner in 1938. As a child, one of Mr Boehner's jobs was to mop the floor.

Sitting outside the bar this week, sipping a bottle of Bud Light and smoking a cigarette, Mrs Meineke described her childhood as "cramped" but happy. "We learned how to share. If there was a toy, it wasn't just for you but for all the younger ones."

Mr Boehner, 61, is the second of 12 who grew up in a German-Irish family in Reading, Ohio, just outside Cincinnati. All but two of them still live within a few miles of each other. Two are unemployed and most of the others have blue-collar jobs.

The future Congressman started work as a janitor and took seven years to get his degree – the first in the family to do so – because he had several jobs to pay his way. He joined a plastics and packaging company, rising to president before entering local politics by being elected to the town board.

The family house on Hill Street initially had two bedrooms with Mr Boehner and three brothers sleeping in one, their sister in another and their parents on a pull-out bed in the living room. Their father Earl later built a three-bedroom extension.

Mrs Meineke, whose husband is an unemployed builder, still lives in the modest house. She remembers her father rising at dawn to go off to the café, which he ran with his twin brother and was a favourite with truck drivers.

"Then my mother would get up before all of us, and drink coffee and listen to the radio, packing our lunches and writing our names on all the brown bags.

"Then she'd start waking us up. You knew that if you didn't get up you'd be cutting your time in the bathroom in half. Sometimes, the boys had to go outside and pee by the tree."

Mr Boehner's deep tan is often mocked by Democrats. At a dinner last year, Mr Obama said: "He is a person of colour, although not a colour that appears in the natural world."

Like Mr Obama, Mr Boehner is a keen golfer and a smoker. His sister sniggered at the suggestion her brother might ever have been on a tanning bed. The "dark hair and olive skin", she said, came from her mother.

Bob Boehner, 62, the oldest of the 12, who sells real estate and is "looking for work", said: "We were conservative because we had to be. There wasn't the money to spend frivolously on things. We grew our own vegetables up on the hill. We learned early on that if you wanted something you had to go out and work for it."

His brother's childhood, he thinks, was good training for Congress, where, if he becomes Speaker, he will have 435 members to control. "He tried to make the younger ones do their homework and get the room cleaned up. He was somewhat of an authority figure to the younger ones.

"John is still an everyday person and we need more people like that in Congress because too many people there have never had a job and never had to balance a budget before."

Some Republicans believe that Mr Obama has allowed his personal animus to drive an anti-Boehner campaign that could well backfire. Shortly after Mr Obama won the 2008 election, Mr Boehner described him as a "chicken shit" for voting "present" so many times in the Illinois Senate. Reacting to Mr Obama's health care bill, which narrowly passed but appears to be an electoral millstone around Democratic necks, Mr Boehner shouted "Hell, no you can't!" on the House floor.

Liberal elements of the American press have enthusiastically taken up the Democratic theme of Mr Boehner as an out-of-touch plutocrat.

When the "New York Times" ran a front-page story this week under the banner "A GOP Leader Tightly Bound to Lobbyists", Robert Gibbs, Mr Obama's press secretary, sent a web link to article via Twitter, stating: "Headline says it all."

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank obliged by a description of Mr Boehner's "polished tassel loafers and perfectly tailored suit, a quarter-inch of white cuff revealed at the wrist".

Mrs Meineke said that at family gatherings at Andy's Bar Mr Boehner's nephews were more impressed by his Secret Service guards than the Congressman himself. "You see how he talks to Obama. He tells it how it is, right there in black and white. If all they can find on him is that he plays golf and he has a tan, well, whatever."

tragic radicals

2010-09-15T22:05:00.000-07:00

Why the Sexual Left Defends the Indefensible

By: Stan Guthrie|Published: September 7, 2010 12:00 AM

U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker’s decision last month striking down California’s Proposition 8, despite the expressed will of 7 million voters, undoubtedly is radical.

Al Mohler summed it up as “one brazen act of judicial energy.” The ruling was so radical that even the unquestionably liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overruled Walker’s order to immediately allow “gay marriage” while it reviews the decision.

But Walker’s language and reasoning are as radical as the decision itself:

Any belief that heterosexual relations are more moral, Walker wrote, “is not a proper basis on which to legislate.”
Proposition 8 “was premised on the belief that same-sex couples simply are not as good as opposite-sex couples.”
Walker said he “uncloaked” the voters’ main motive behind Proposition 8—”a desire to advance the belief that opposite-sex couples are morally superior to same-sex couples.”
“Children do not need to be raised by a male parent and a female parent to be well-adjusted,” he asserted, “and having both a male and a female parent does not increase the likelihood that a child will be well-adjusted.”

“The gender of a child's parent is not a factor in the child's adjustment,” Walker said.

“Same-sex couples,” he said, “are identical to opposite-sex couples in the characteristics relevant to the ability to form successful marital unions.”

“Gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage,” Walker asserted; “marriage under law is a union of equals.”
Proposition 8, Walker ruled after setting aside every argument offered in its favor, “fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license.”
“Indeed,” Walker said, “the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples.”

Yet the evidence indeed shows the indispensability of moms and dads for children. According to the Family Research Council book, Getting It Straight: What the Research Shows about Homosexuality, “Children reared in traditional families by a mother and father are happier, healthier, and more successful than children raised in non-traditional environments.”

Walker’s obnoxious dismissal of any arguments for marriage as a time-honored, life-affirming, bedrock Western institution has infuriated many observers. One simply labeled the ruling of Judge Walker, widely reported to be a homosexual, as an “anti-Proposition 8 farce.”

Karl Marx argued that history goes in cycles, “occurring first as tragedy, the second time as farce.” Since others have focused on the unmistakably farcical nature of Walker’s ruling, I would like to consider its tragic aspects.

Walker’s words seem more like the cry of a wounded lover than simply the latest legal maneuverings of an activist judge. This is not to deny the arguments of critics, but simply to put them in context. Walker’s indignation over Proposition 8 is out of place only if we expect a cool, dispassionate jurist to rationally review the law.

But Walker is invested in this issue. As a card-carrying member of the Sexual Left, Walker is expressing the inescapable hunger for transcendence that all of us experience, whether or not we acknowledge its true source and ultimate fulfillment. As the writer of Ecclesiastes notes, God has “set eternity in the hearts of men.” But our view of eternity can easily become blurred into a form of self-worship.

In days of old, men combined the religious impulse with the sensual in the temples of Aphrodite. We do the same thing; we’re just more subtle about it. Members of the Sexual Left try to fill Pascal’s God-shaped vacuum with sex, because they can think of nothing better. Because they have forgotten the ancient ordo amoris, the hierarchy of love, they worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator. Rejecting God, they attempt to mend their brokenness with sensation of every type.

They fight tooth and nail to protect their god of sexual hedonism, whether the specific issue is abortion, embryonic stem cells, or gay “marriage.” But a hedonistic quest to maximize pleasure and minimize pain is a recipe for perpetual disappointment.

Perhaps this is why members of the “gay community” are so seldom truly gay—that is, “happily excited, merry,” or “keenly alive and exuberant.” This may also be why “gay” people are more prone to depression than the rest of us.

Perhaps homosexuals hold so many “gay pride” parades because, deep down, they are not all that proud. After all, if homosexual attraction and practice are so “healthy and normal”—they aren’t on either count—would gays really have to work so hard to convince themselves?

Isn’t “gay marriage” just the latest version of the gay-pride parade? Instead of cheering themselves on, however, gays are attempting to join another parade in which they have no part—marriage—and demand that the rest of us cheer them on.

Homosexuals, in most cases, don’t need marriage if the goal is to enjoy the right to hospital visits, tax breaks, and other tangible benefits of marriage. Society has already granted them all this. But if the goal is to win not just tolerance but societal admiration, then redefining marriage is essential. And every god, even the self, will eventually demand our worship.

Make no mistake; homosexual “marriage” is selfish at its core. It dispenses with God’s law and with time-honored understandings—such as Ross Douthat’s description of marriage as a “commitment to lifelong fidelity and support by two sexually different human beings—a commitment that involves the mutual surrender, arguably, of their reproductive self-interest”—and labels them bigotry. With no procreative potential of its own, it requires that the rest of us supply it with children.

Christians, who sometimes struggle with their own sexual brokenness, do well to fight such farces in the courts of law and of public opinion. The well-being of children and of the larger society demands that we continue to speak up. But we will never argue any man or woman out of his or her homosexuality. It is too deeply rooted.

Nevertheless, we must be willing to lovingly reach out to men and women, made in God’s image, whose personal tragedy is expressed in their homosexuality. We must humbly learn again the old adage, “Love the sinner but hate the sin.” It won’t be easy in these challenging times, especially with the culture increasingly embracing the misdirected tenets of Judge Walker and the Sexual Left.

But it’s the right—and the radical—thing to do.

Stan Guthrie is author of All That Jesus Asks: How His Questions Can Teach and Transform Us, coming in November from Baker Books. He blogs at http://stanguthrie.com.

Articles on the BreakPoint website are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Chuck Colson or BreakPoint. Outside links are for informational purposes and do not necessarily imply endorsement of their content.

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The Oil Spill – A Lesson in the Cardinal Virtues

2010-06-14T11:07:00.000-07:00

The Oil Spill – A Lesson in the Cardinal Virtues

Posted By Robert Struble, Jr.

June 10, 2010 @ 12:03 am

The worst oil spill in US history owes a lot to the fading away of moral virtue. I’m unsure if all seven capital sins promoted the BP oil catastrophe. But without doubt, the surge in pride, greed and lust tended to smother the four cardinal virtues – prudence, fortitude, temperance and justice.

Virtue’s first foe was pride – the failing of the fallen angels. On April 20, 2010 an intemperate sense of self-worth took its toll on Curt Kuchta, captain of the Deepwater Horizon, causing him to obsess about his rank as commanding officer of the oil rig. According to a Wall Street Journal ^[1] report, not even extreme crisis could distract Kuchta from worrying about a slight to his authority. After the explosion, Andrea Fleytas, a 23 year old subordinate, had dared to take the initiative and broadcast a distress signal – an SOS which, in the chaos, the captain had neglected to issue: “Mayday, Mayday. This is Deepwater Horizon. We have an uncontrollable fire,” she announced over the airwaves.

In return for her presence of mind under pressure, captain Kuchta scolded her, “I didn’t give you authority to do that.” Minutes later, she ended up in the oily waters swimming for her life, and soon after the captain himself had to jump overboard.

Intuitively, deep water drilling contradicts the cardinal virtue of prudence. The imprudence of the operation is more obvious now that stopping the deepwater gusher in timely fashion has proven to be beyond human power. It seems that America’s vaunted technological prowess gave rise to pridefulness, and the capital sin of pride mixes with prudence about as well as oil with Florida’s white sand beaches.

“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). As a reckless driver scoffs at risk, so prideful corporate executives and technocrats drilled into the ocean floor with abandon. They discounted dangers, and paid too little heed to the hazards of the unexpected. They underrated the potential for human blundering. This want of prudence, this scarcity of carefulness, was personified by BP’s “company man,” tentatively identified as Donald Vidrine, (who was on board at the time of the explosion). First and foremost a profiteer, he overrode the insistence of some rig operators that the drilling process include more precautionary safeguards.

What prompted the foolhardy risk taking? At first glance it seems to have been the commonplace desire to cut costs and maximize profits. This natural (and economically laudable) principle of good business management became a vice, however, in proportion as greed or avarice canceled out the cardinal virtue of temperance. BP was so focused on financial gain that common sense caution got tossed overboard.

Temperance was also in short supply as regards the drug abuse widespread among the Federal inspectors of the drilling operation. The Minerals Management Service (MMS) was the government agency charged with enforcing safety regulations. But, according to reports, some of the inspections were performed while under the influence of drugs like cocaine and crystal methamphetamine. How does it affect your patriotic heart, O citizen, to know that our Federal taxes pay the wages of zonked-out druggies protecting our interests against corporate irresponsibility?

The sin of lust was also a factor in the intemperate behavior of some MMS inspectors, who had no scruples about downloading pornographic images onto their Federal Government computers at taxpayer expense. They also engaged in sexual trysts with oil company employees whom they were supposedly regulating. Cronyism, free hunting and fishing excursions, a trip to the Peach Bowl – this kind of fraternizing and gift exchange brought disaster upon our southern shore. According to acting Solicitor General, Mary L. Kindall, trading in favors appears “to have been a generally accepted practice” between the regulators and the regulated.

Could Titus 1:16 apply here? St. Paul excoriates some intemperate people of his own day, as follows, “…both their mind and their conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but by their works they disown him, being abominable and unbelieving and worthless for any good work.”

Another cardinal virtue stifled by lust – the lust for black gold – was justice. Reckless disregard for human life violates the Golden Rule, and cost saving shortcuts put the Deepwater Horizon’s crew of 146 in harm’s way. A number of workers were injured in the accident, and eleven died. Also, innumerable birds and other wildlife were killed, and thousands of fishermen and Gulf Coast residents lost their livelihoods. Flora and fauna will take years to recover, if not decades.

Nor is justice served in the democratic sense when BP can purchase millions of dollars worth of political influence. The scale of their plutocratic power reduces mere American citizenship to the status of an oil soaked seagull. Last year BP spent $16 million lobbying the Federal Government. Big oil was able to corrupt Federal regulators to such an extent that government forms used to document inspections got penciled in initially by oil company officials, and later traced over in pen by U.S. Interior Dept. inspectors.

Another cardinal virtue choked at the upper echelon by both BP and government officials was fortitude. Rather than answer questions in courageous fashion, BP obfuscated from the outset, underreporting the amount of leakage, and often refusing to grant interviews with representatives of the media. In his May 27th press conference, President Obama showed evasiveness about whether MMS head, Elizabeth Birnbaum, had been fired or resigned.

One of the few encouraging developments in this disaster is that everyone has pulled together to try and make the fix work, notwithstanding that it involves uncertain methods at unprecedented ocean depths.

There is general agreement in the nation about collective action to check the oil spill in the Gulf, but this is not the case when it comes to moral pollution. Powerful opposition emerges against every concerted attempt to cap the wellsprings of immorality in the country, and to stop its upsurge. The leaders and molders of public opinion seem hell bent to open gushers of immorality into every corner of society.

To cite one strikingly contemporaneous example: Even as the burgeoning masses of oil fouled the Gulf, the US House of Representatives was voting to end “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the longstanding compromise intended to check “unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.” In other words, the man-made assault on the environment in the Gulf isn’t bad enough. Simultaneously they want to downgrade the moral/spiritual atmosphere one must breathe as a soldier.

If only a collective cleanup of American culture could also be undertaken, without running into firestorms of rancor and resistance. Perhaps the array of black plumes in the Gulf, the repulsiveness of the oil spill might serve as a metaphor for the way society has been gradually but steadily despoiled. The national decadence is a half-century long “sin spill” into the culture where our families must live, and in which our children have to grow up.

The PR challenge is to alert more citizens to the severity of the problem. Busy people can easily overlook or downplay the gradual pollution of culture. As Abigail Adams discovered after living for a while in the high society of Europe, “daily example is the most subtle of poisons” — David McCullough, John Adams.

To motivate a cultural cleanup, we need to be assertive and creative in making the point that stewardship over the moral/spiritual environment is as vital to national life as care for the physical environment. Our aim should be to expose moral abominations as gushers that are darkening our cultural waters, corrupting our kids, and turning Americans into an unhappy people. How desperately we need the help of a benevolent Providence! Only under Almighty God can we the people recapture the flagship of state ^[2]. Then, with the cardinal virtues in mind, steer the national flotilla – the polity, economy, and culture – back toward concord with the Creator of clean waters.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The worst oil spill in US history owes a lot to the fading away of moral virtue. I’m unsure if all seven capital sins promoted the BP oil catastrophe. But without doubt, the surge in pride, greed and lust tended to smother the four cardinal virtues – prudence, fortitude, temperance and justice.

“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). As a reckless driver scoffs at risk, so prideful corporate executives and technocrats drilled into the ocean floor with abandon. They discounted dangers, and paid too little heed to the hazards of the unexpected. They underrated the potential for human blundering. This want of prudence, this scarcity of carefulness, was personified by BP’s “company man,” tentatively identified as Donald Vidrine, (who was onboard at the time of the explosion). First and foremost a profiteer, he overrode the insistence of some rig operators that the drilling process include more precautionary safeguards.

One of the few encouraging developments in this disaster is that everyone has pulled together to try and make the fix work. No major player in the Gulf is trying to throw a monkey wrench into the response, notwithstanding that it involves uncertain methods at unprecedented ocean depths. If only a collective cleanup of American culture could also be undertaken, without running into firestorms of rancor and resistance.

There is general agreement in the nation about collective action to check the oil spill in the Gulf. This consensus contrasts starkly with the culture war in America. Powerful opposition emerges against every concerted attempt to cap the wellsprings of immorality in the country, and to stop its upsurge. Consider the hue and the cry whenever pro-life legislation is proposed. Or try advocating for the return of religion to the public school classroom, and then brace yourself for the ad hominem attack. Count yourself fortunate if they call you nothing worse than a theocrat.

The leaders and molders of public opinion seem hell bent to open gushers of immorality into every corner of society. To cite one strikingly contemporaneous example: Even as the burgeoning masses of oil fouled the Gulf, the US House of Representatives was voting to end “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the longstanding compromise intended to check “unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.”

In other words, the man-made assault on the environment in the Gulf isn’t bad enough. Simultaneously they want to downgrade the moral/spiritual atmosphere one must breathe as a soldier.

As a potential silver lining to the array of black plumes in the Gulf, the repulsiveness of the oil spill might serve as a public relations awakener and motivator. Why not take the spill as a metaphor for the way society has been gradually but steadily despoiled? Let national decadence be seen as a half-century long “sin spill” into the culture where our families must live, and in which our children have to grow up.

To motivate a cultural cleanup, we need to be assertive and creative in making the point that stewardship over the moral/spiritual environment is as vital to national life as care for the physical environment. Our aim should be to expose moral abominations as gushers that are darkening our cultural waters, corrupting our kids, and turning Americans into an unhappy people. In the national debate to date, we have conceded too much because we argue the limits of civil liberties, rather than how to limit cultural pollution.

Above all, let us look to a benevolent Providence, which did (until America’s apostasy) abundantly bless our life as a country. Only under Almighty God can we the people recapture the bridge of the flagship of state. Then, with the cardinal virtues in mind, let the counterrevolution ^[2] begin. We need old fashioned statesmanship to steer the national flotilla – the polity, economy, and culture – back toward concord with the Creator of clean waters.

Bob Struble is a writer and retired history teacher. He is the founder of TeLL-USA.org and a spokesman for Protect Marriage Washington.

Gay Couple Take B&B to Human Rights Tribunal

2010-06-14T07:24:00.000-07:00

This shows the base cruelty of the homosexual agenda. This couple has no other livelihood, yet The Gay Mafia will not hesitate to utterly destroy this decent couple.
If this case is handled in the manner typical of Canada’s HRTs, it will end with the Molnars losing everything they have. As David Warren’s regular readers well know, the process is punishing enough, even if you win.~D

A retired British Columbia couple have closed their bed and breakfast as a result of a human rights complaint filed against them when they declined to host a homosexual couple.

“We’ve been harassed so bad we’re not running [the B&B],” explained Lee Molnar to the National Post.

Lee’s wife Susan received a call on June 18, 2009 from Shaun Eadie, who wanted to book a room for himself and his partner Brian Thomas. Susan took the names and booked the room, but was concerned that there were 2 men and only 1 bed. Lee called back and Eadie confirmed that they were a homosexual couple, so Lee canceled the booking.

Eadie filed his complaint with the Tribunal in July 2009, alleging discrimination based on sexual orientation. The Molnars filed an application to have the case dismissed, but it was denied.

“To allow a gay couple to share a bed in my Christian home would violate my Christian beliefs and would cause me and my wife great distress,” explained Lee Molnar in the application, reports the National Post.

The case was to be presented in Kelowna before the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal beginning on Wednesday but it was postponed because the complainants’ lawyer fell ill.

The Molnar’s lawyer, Ron Smith, told the National Post that the Molnars opened their Grand Forks B&B in 2002, after major renovations to their home to set up a separate area and install a jacuzzi for guests.

He explained that they felt the need to shut down the operation in the fall of 2009 out of fear that they would receive another request from a homosexual couple. “They don’t know what kind of behaviour they can say no to in their home,” Smith told the National Post. “They don’t want another human-rights complaint [filed against them].”

“They’re just a retired couple in Grand Forks who thought they would open their home to guests and here they are in the centre of a firestorm,” he said. “They’re a lovely couple. They don’t want to be thought of as discriminating, but they’re Christians who don’t feel they can violate their religious beliefs.”

Gwen Landolt, a lawyer and National Vice President for REAL Women Canada, said this case indicates “the relentless pursuit by homosexual activists to impose their values – not just to be tolerated, but to demand that society adapt to their values.”

Some would argue that closing one’s doors to homosexuals violates the Christian’s duty to welcome the stranger, but according to Landolt giving a homosexual couple a room at one’s bed & breakfast would actually put a stamp on their behaviour. “It would be approving something that their faith says is wrong,” she explained. “It would be looking the other way. It would be contrary to their faith and their religious belief.”

Landolt was strongly critical of the human rights tribunals, saying they are “totally intolerant” and “reigning like mad emperors or empresses.” The tribunals, she said, are “ruling not based on logic, common sense, or compassion, but based on the fact that they have the power.”

“Why must Christians put aside their faith in order to accommodate homosexuals?”

The left’s strange hostility to Hirsi Ali

2010-06-14T07:17:00.001-07:00

The left’s strange hostility to Hirsi Ali

Jun 10, 2010 by Mark Steyn

Gonzalo Fuentes / Reuters

Despite being a bit of an old showbiz queen, I’m not much for the huggy-kissy photo wall of me sharing a joke with various luvvies. I make an exception on the bureau behind my desk for a shot of yours truly and a beautiful woman, Somali by birth, Dutch by citizenship, at a beachfront bar in Malibu at sunset. I like the picture because, while I look rather bleary with a few too many chins, my companion is bright-eyed with a huge smile on her face and having a grand old time—grand, that is, because of its very normality: a crappy bar, drinks with cocktail umbrellas, a roomful of blithely ignorant California hedonists who’ll all be going back home at the end of the evening to Dancing With the Stars or Conan O’Brien or some other amusement.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali can’t lead that life. She lives under armed guard and was forced to abandon the Netherlands because quite a lot of people want to kill her. And not in the desultory behead-the-enemies-of-Islam you-will-die-infidel pro forma death-threats-R-us way that many of us have perforce gotten used to in recent years: her great friend and professional collaborator was murdered in the streets of Amsterdam by a man who shot him eight times, attempted to decapitate him, and then drove into his chest two knives, pinning to what was left of him a five-page note pledging to do the same to her.

What would you do in those circumstances? Ayaan and I had repaired to that third-rate bar after a day-long conference on Islam, jihad, free speech and whatnot. That’s usually where I run into her, whether in Malibu or at the Carlton Club in London or at a less illustrious venue. Would you be doing that with a price on your head? Or would you duck out of sight, lie low, change your name, move to New Zealand, and hope one day to get your life back? After the threats against the Comedy Central show South Park the other week, Ms. Hirsi Ali turned up on CNN to say that the best defence against Islamic intimidation is for us all to stand together and thereby “share the risk.” But, around the world, every single translator of her books has insisted on total anonymity. When push comes to shove, very few are willing to share the risk. The British historian Andrew Roberts calls her “the bravest woman I know.” I would say she is not only the bravest but also, given her circumstances, the most optimistic. I have an unbounded admiration for her personally, but a not insignificant difference philosophically, of which more momentarily.

RELATED ARTICLE
Maclean’s interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali — On living under a fatwa and why Christians should try to convert Muslims

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s great cause is women’s liberation. Unfortunately for her, the women she wants to liberate are Muslim, so she gets minimal support and indeed a ton of hostility from Western feminists who have reconciled themselves, consciously or otherwise, to the two-tier sisterhood: when it comes to clitoridectomies, forced marriages, honour killings, etc., multiculturalism trumps feminism. Liberal men are, if anything, even more opposed. She long ago got used to the hectoring TV interviewer, from Avi Lewis on the CBC a while back to Tavis Smiley on PBS just the other day, insisting that say what you like about Islam but everyone knows that Christians are just as backward and violent, if not more so. The media left spends endless hours and most of its interminable awards ceremonies congratulating itself on its courage, on “speaking truth to power,” the bravery of dissent and all the rest, but faced with a pro-gay secular black feminist who actually lives it they frost up in nothing flat.

The latest is Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times. Reviewing Ayaan’s new book Nomad, he begins:

“She has managed to outrage more people—in some cases to the point that they want to assassinate her—in more languages in more countries on more continents than almost any writer in the world today. Now Hirsi Ali is working on antagonizing even more people in yet another memoir.”
That’s his opening pitch: if there are those who wish to kill her, it’s her fault because she’s a provocateuse who’s found a lucrative shtick in “working on antagonizing” people. The Times headlines Kristof’s review “The Gadfly,” as if she’s a less raddled and corpulent Gore Vidal. In fact, she wrote a screenplay for a film; Muslim belligerents threatened to kill her and her director; they made good on one half of that threat. This isn’t shtick.

But Kristof decides to up the condescension. Of the author’s estrangement from her Somali relatives, he writes: “I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps Hirsi Ali’s family is dysfunctional simply because its members never learned to bite their tongues and just say to one another: ‘I love you.’ ”
Awwwww. Group hug! Works every time.

But maybe not so much in Somalia. This isn’t a family where they bite their tongues but where they puncture their clitorises. At the age of five, Ayaan was forced to undergo “FGM” (female genital mutilation), or, in the new non-judgmental PC euphemism, “cutting.” When she had her first period, her mother beat her. When she was 22, her father arranged for her to marry a cousin in Canada. While in Germany awaiting the visa for her wedded bliss in Her Majesty’s multicultural utopia, she decided to skip out, and fled to the Netherlands.

All she wanted was a chance to do what Nicholas Kristof takes for granted—to live her own life. What difference would saying “I love you” in a Lifestyle Channel soft-focus blur accompanied by saccharine strings make? As they see it, the perpetrators of “honour killings” love their daughters: that’s why they kill ’em. Would Kristof wish to swap his options for the set menu served up to Muslim women? How would he like it if, just as he was getting ready to head to Oxford on his Rhodes Scholarship, his dad had announced that he’d arranged for him to marry a cousin? Oh, and in Canada.

Which brings me to my big philosophical difference with Ms. Hirsi Ali: in 2006, she was one of a dozen intellectuals to publish a manifesto against radical Islam and in defence of “secular values for all.” Often in her speeches, she’ll do a heartwarming pitch to all of us—“black, white, gay, straight”—to stand firm for secular humanism. My problem with this is that, in Europe and elsewhere, liberal secularism is not the solution to the problem but the vacuum in which a resurgent globalized Islam has incubated. The post-Christian, post-modern multicultural society is too vapid to have any purchase on large numbers of the citizenry. So they look elsewhere. The Times of London recently interviewed a few of Britain’s many female converts to Islam, such as Catherine Huntley, 21, of Bournemouth (“I’ve always been quite a spiritual person”) and Sukina Douglas, 28, of London (“Islam didn’t oppress women; people did”).

RELATED ARTICLE
Maclean’s interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali — On living under a fatwa and why Christians should try to convert Muslims

In a way, the Western left’s hostility to Ayaan Hirsi Ali makes my point for me. In Terror and Liberalism, Paul Berman wrote that suicide bombings “produced a philosophical crisis, among everyone around the world who wanted to believe that a rational logic governs the world.” In other words, it has to be about “poverty” or “social justice” because the alternative—that they want to kill us merely because we are the other—undermines the hyper-rationalist’s entire world view. Thus, every pro-gay, pro-feminist, pro-black Western liberal’s determination to blame Ayaan Hirsi Ali for the fact that a large number of benighted thuggish halfwits want to kill her. Deploring what he regards as her simplistic view of Islam, Nicholas Kristof rhapsodizes about its many fine qualities—“There is also the warm hospitality toward guests, including Christians and Jews.”

Oh, for crying out loud. In the Muslim world, Christians and Jews have been on the receiving end of a remorseless ethno-religious cleansing for decades. Christian churches get burned, along with their congregations, from Nigeria to Pakistan. Egypt is considering stripping men who marry Jewesses of their citizenship. Saudi Arabia won’t let ’em in the country. In the 1920s, Baghdad was 40 per cent Jewish. Gee, I wonder where they all went. Maybe that non-stop “warm hospitality” wears you down after a while . . .

As Paul Mirengoff of the Power Line blog observes, traditionally when useful idiots shill for illiberal ideologies it requires at least “the illusion of progressivism” to bring them on board. Islam can’t provide that, but that’s no obstacle to getting the bien pensants to sign up. As much as anyone, secular leftists want meaning in their lives. But Communism went belly up; the postwar welfare state is bankrupt; environmentalism has taken a hit in recent months; and Christianity gives them the vapours. Nicholas Kristof will not be the first great thinker to talk himself into a view of Islam as this season’s version of Richard Gere Buddhism.

At a superficial level, the Islamo-leftist alliance makes no sense: gay feminist secular hedonists making common cause with homophobic misogynist proscriptive theocrats. From Islam’s point of view, it’s an alliance of convenience. But I would bet that more than a few lefties will wind up embracing Islam to one degree or another before we’re done.

Tags: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Islam, Mark Steyn, Nicholas Kristof
Posted in Mark Steyn, Top03 | 296 Comments

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DJ Dolce from WND.com

2010-06-14T06:51:00.000-07:00

Election official: I'd testify Obama not born in Hawaii

2010-06-14T06:26:00.000-07:00

BORN IN THE USA?
WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Election official: I'd testify
Obama not born in Hawaii
Clerk willing to swear in court
about no hospital birth record

Posted: June 13, 2010
5:10 pm Eastern

By Joe Kovacs

WorldNetDaily

The former Honolulu elections clerk who says President Obama was "definitely" not born in Hawaii and has no birth certificate from any hospital in the Aloha State says he's willing to testify in court to those facts.

"The things I've said, I don't mind testifying in court," Tim Adams, the senior elections clerk for the city and county of Honolulu in the 2008 campaign, told WND in an exclusive interview.

"I was working there, and this is what it was. I'm not a lawyer, just a civil servant. I know what I know. I know what I was told by the hospitals and by my supervisors."

The hottest book in America is the one that exposes the real Obama and all his men (and women)! Get your autographed copy only from WND!

Adams, a Hillary Clinton supporter who now teaches English at Western Kentucky University while he works on his master's degree, burst onto the scene last week in a WND story in which he asserted Obama was not born in Hawaii as the White House claims and that a long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate for Obama does not even exist there.

"There is no birth certificate," he said. "It's like an open secret. There isn't one. Everyone in the government there knows this."

Copy of original long-form birth certificate of Susan Nordyke, born in Honolulu the day after Obama's reported birthdate. President Obama has never produced any document like this

"I had direct access to the Social Security database, the national crime computer, state driver's license information, international passport information, basically just about anything you can imagine to get someone's identity," Adams explained. "I could look up what bank your home mortgage was in. I was informed by my boss that we did not have a birth record [for Obama]."

At the time, there were conflicting reports that Obama had been born at the Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu, as well as the Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women and Children across town. So Adams says his office checked with both facilities.

Tim Adams, the former senior elections clerk for Honolulu, says President Obama was "definitely" not born in Hawaii,and a long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate for Obama does not exist in the state.

"They told us, 'We don't have a birth certificate for him,'" he said. "They told my supervisor, either by phone or by e-mail, neither one has a document that a doctor signed off on saying they were present at this man's birth."

To date, no Hawaiian hospital has provided documented confirmation Obama was born at its facility.

Adams, 45, stressed, "In my professional opinion, he definitely was not born in Hawaii. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that he was not born in Hawaii because there is no legal record of him being born there. If someone called and asked about it, I could not tell them that person was born in the state."

WND confirmed with Hawaiian officials that Adams was indeed working in their election offices during the last presidential election.

"His title was senior elections clerk in 2008," said Glen Takahashi, elections administrator for the city and county of Honolulu.

Adams oversaw a group of 50 to 60 employees and was responsible for verifying the identity of voters, especially absentee voters.

(Story continues below)

He now expects his former co-workers still working in the elections office to say little, if anything, about the non-existent birth certificate because they fear for their jobs.

"If you're working in the civil service and you say this, you're done," Adams said. "Don't expect to have a good career, especially since the governor is on the other side. Embarassing them is not good for your career."

Gov. Linda Lingle, R-Hawaii

Last month, as WND reported, Hawaii's Republican Gov. Linda Lingle reignited Obama's origin on a New York radio show.

"It's been an odd situation," Lingle said. "This issue kept coming up so much in the campaign, and again I think it's one of those issues that is simply a distraction from the more critical issues that are facing the country.

"So I had my health director, who is a physician by background, go personally view the birth certificate in the birth records of the Department of Health, and we issued a news release at that time saying that the president was, in fact, born at Kapi'olani Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. And that's just a fact and yet people continue to call up and e-mail and want to make it an issue and I think it's again a horrible distraction for the country by those people who continue this."

Although the governor now claims she issued a news release stating Kapi'olani is Obama's birthplace, the actual release said no such thing, making no reference to Kapi'olani nor any other specific location of Obama's birth.

WND asked Adams about the governor's assertions about viewing a hospital-generated birth certificate from Hawaii.

"Then where is it? And why all the smoke and mirrors?" he responded. "They could end the controversy by producing the document, and they never have. It doesn't exist."

"Why would they say they've seen it and not produce it? I don't know," he added. "If they said they've seen the document, then why not produce the document? There's no need to put themselves out like that. I can't even begin to think why they did that except for some kind of political expediency. I'm too far down the totem pole [to know]."

While Adams, who noted he spent nearly 10 years in the islands and has a bachelor's degree from the University of Hawaii, says he's certain Obama was not born there, he also does think the president is indeed a U.S. citizen, since his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham was born an American.

He says he merely would like to see the truth come out and have the controversy over natural-born citizenship and presidential eligibility resolved once and for all.

"It's come to the point where it's a monster, and it's time to kill it," Adams said. "Solve the problem so that everyone can get back to cooperating to improve the country. People have lost sight that we're trying to make the country a better place."

WND's original report about Adams' claims has already been made into a YouTube video, getting thousands of hits:

To date, President Obama has still not provided simple, incontrovertible proof of his exact birthplace. That information would be included on his long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate which Obama has steadfastly refused to release amid a flurry of conflicting reports.

The White House has only proffered on the Internet a "Certification of Live Birth" to assert he was born in Hawaii, but that document was available to children not born in Hawaii at the time of Obama's birth.

Many people remain unaware a child could be born somewhere else and still receive a Hawaii COLB. State law specifically allows "an adult or the legal parents of a minor child" to apply to the health department and, upon unspecified proof, be given the birth document.

This short-form Certification of Live Birth image, which is not the same as a long-form, hospital-generated Certificate of Live Birth, was released by the Obama campaign June 2008.

"Anyone can get that [Certification of Live Birth]," said Adams. "They are normally given if you give birth at home or while traveling overseas. We have a lot of Asian population [in Hawaii]. It's quite common for people to come back and get that."

As WND reported last July, the Kapi'olani Medical Center trumpeted – then later concealed – a letter allegedly written by President Obama in which he ostensibly declares his birth at the facility.

A photograph taken by the Kapi'olani Medical Center for WND shows a letter allegedly written by President Obama on embossed White House stationery in which he declares the Honolulu hospital to be "the place of my birth," The hospital, after publicizing the letter then refusing to confirm it even existed, is now vouching for its authenticity, but not its content. The White House has yet to verify any aspect of the letter.

"As a beneficiary of the excellence of Kapi'olani Medical Center – the place of my birth – I am pleased to add my voice to your chorus of supporters," Obama purportedly wrote.

This excerpt from the alleged Obama letter is perhaps the first formal declaration from the president about his exact birthplace. The White House has still not confirmed if the letter or its contents are authentic.

But the authenticity of that letter remains in doubt. Since WND raised questions about the veracity of the letter itself and its content, the White House has refused to say if the message is real and if its text originated with the president.

Besides his actual birth documentation, documentation that remains concealed for Obama includes kindergarten records, Punahou school records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, passport, medical records, his files from his years as an Illinois state senator, his Illinois State Bar Association records, any baptism records, and his adoption records.

I Am Israel - Documentary Film HD Version

2010-06-12T06:52:00.000-07:00

Obama giving money to Hamas???

2010-06-11T06:48:00.000-07:00

Dhimmi Prince Charles urges subjects to follow "Islamic way"

2010-06-10T09:42:00.000-07:00

Does his Royal Majesty mean his subjects to protect the environment the same way islamic Jihadists do by blowing themselves and everything else up?? Because I don't think that's good for the environment, but then I'm just a simple American, what do I know?~D

ps: There is something going on with the editor on my blogger, because I can't type capital letters.
O.0

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+++~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

'Follow the Islamic way to save the world,' Prince Charles urges environmentalists

By Rebecca English
Last updated at 1:46 AM on 10th June 2010

Prince Charles yesterday urged the world to follow Islamic 'spiritual principles' in order to protect the environment.

In an hour-long speech, the heir to the throne argued that man's destruction of the world was contrary to the scriptures of all religions - but particularly those of Islam.

He said the current 'division' between man and nature had been caused not just by industrialization, but also by our attitude to the environment - which goes against the grain of 'sacred traditions'.

Outspoken: Prince Charles speaks to Islamic studies scholars at Oxford. He argued that man's destruction of the world was particularly contrary to Islam

Charles, who is a practicing Christian and will become the head of the Church of England when he succeeds to the throne, spoke in depth about his own study of the Koran which, he said, tells its followers that there is 'no separation between man and nature' and says we must always live within our environment's limits.

The prince was speaking to an audience of scholars at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies - which attempts to encourage a better understanding of the culture and civilization of the religion.

His speech, merging religion with his other favorite subject, the environment, marked the 25th anniversary of the organization, of which he is patron.

He added: 'The inconvenient truth is that we share this planet with the rest of creation for a very good reason - and that is, we cannot exist on our own without the intricately balanced web of life around us.

'Islam has always taught this and to ignore that lesson is to default on our contract with creation.'

Bored: Not everyone in the audience was as interested as Prince Charles though

Impressive setting: Charles spoke at Oxford University's Sheldonian Theatre

Before you boycott Israel!

2010-06-06T14:20:00.000-07:00

2010-06-05T08:08:00.000-07:00

Breaking: Bush gave Deep Water Horizon 6 citations for safety violations- Obama gave it safety awards

2010-05-17T08:10:00.000-07:00

AP IMPACT: Fed'l inspections on rig not as claimed

By JUSTIN PRITCHARD, Associated Press Writer Justin Pritchard, Associated Press Writer Sun May 16, 4:34 pm ET

LOS ANGELES – The federal agency responsible for ensuring that the Deepwater Horizon was operating safely before it exploded last month fell well short of its own policy that the rig be inspected at least once per month, an Associated Press investigation shows.

In fact, the agency's inspection frequency on the Deepwater Horizon fell dramatically over the past five years, according to federal Minerals Management Service records. The rig blew up April 20, killing 11 people before sinking and triggering a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Since January 2005, inspectors issued just one minor infraction for the rig. That strong track record led the agency last year to herald the Deepwater Horizon as an industry model for safety.

The inspection gaps are the latest in a series of questions raised about the agency's oversight of the oil drilling industry. Members of Congress and President Barack Obama have criticized what they call the cozy relationship between regulators and oil companies and vowed to reform MMS, which both regulates the industry and collects billions in royalties from it.

Earlier AP investigations have shown that the doomed rig was allowed to operate without safety documentation required by MMS regulations for the exact disaster scenario that occurred; that the cutoff valve which failed has repeatedly broken down at other wells in the years since regulators weakened testing requirements; and that regulation is so lax that some key safety aspects on rigs are decided almost entirely by the companies doing the work.

The AP sought to find out how many times government safety inspectors visited the Deepwater Horizon, and what they found. In response, MMS officials offered a changing series of numbers. The MMS has had long-standing issues with its data management.

At first, officials said 83 inspections had been performed since the rig arrived in the Gulf 104 months ago, in September 2001. While being questioned about the once-per-month claim, the officials subsequently revised the total up to 88 inspections. The number of more recent inspections also changed — from 26 to 48 in the 64 months since January 2005.

No explanation was given for the upward revisions. AP granted the officials anonymity because without that condition, communications staff at the Interior Department, which oversees MMS, would not have let them talk.

Based on the last set of numbers provided, the Deepwater Horizon was inspected 40 times during its first 40 months in the Gulf — in line with agency policy for offshore drilling rigs.

Even using the more favorable numbers for the most recent 64 months, 25 percent of monthly inspections were not performed. The first set of data supplied to AP represented a 59 percent shortfall in the number of inspections.

Interior Department spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff would not comment on the inspection numbers. Instead, she offered a general statement: "We are looking at all the questions that are coming out of the Deepwater Horizon incident."

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by AP, the agency has released copies of only three inspection reports — those conducted in January, February and April. According to the documents, inspectors spent two hours or less each time they visited the massive rig. Some information appeared to be "whited out," without explanation.

Since the explosion, the agency has reiterated several times the inspection-once-per-month assertion, which appeared on its website at least as early as 1999.

In an e-mail to AP, an Interior Department official emphasized with italics that the MMS inspects rigs "at least once a month" when drilling is under way. Monthly inspections of offshore drilling rigs are an agency policy, though not required by regulation, said David Dykes, chief of the agency's office of safety management for the Gulf region.

Last week, at a joint Coast Guard-MMS investigatory hearing in Kenner, La., MMS official Jason Mathews asked Michael Saucier, MMS's regional supervisor for field operations in the Gulf, "And how often do we perform drilling inspections in the Gulf of Mexico?"

"We perform them at a minimum once a month, but we can do more if need be," Saucier said.

The job falls to the 55 inspectors in the Gulf who are supposed to visit the 90 drilling rigs once per month and the approximately 3,500 oil production platforms once per year.

The Deepwater Horizon's inspection frequency numbers struck Kenneth Arnold, a veteran offshore drilling consultant and engineer.

"I'd certainly question it," he said. "I'd ask, 'Why aren't you doing it?'"

When the AP did ask, MMS and Interior would not answer directly. Instead providing a set of conditions when a rig would not typically be inspected — including during bad weather, when it is jumping among short-term jobs, when a rig is preparing to drill or is done drilling but hasn't left for another site.

Transocean Ltd., which owned the Deepwater Horizon and leased it to BP PLC, would not provide a detailed accounting of the rig's activity history. According to RigData, a Texas firm that monitors offshore activity in the Gulf, the Deepwater Horizon was working approximately 2,896 days of the 3,131 days since it started its first well — about 93 percent of the time. That number represents the total number of days between when the Deepwater Horizon broke the sea floor during a drilling operation to when it was released to another site.

A summary of the inspection history that the MMS officials provided AP said the Deepwater Horizon received six "incidents of noncompliance" — the agency's term for citations.

The most serious occurred July 16, 2002, when the rig was shut down because required pressure tests had not been conducted on parts of the rig's blowout preventer — the device that was supposed to stop oil from gushing out if drilling operations experienced problems.

That citation was "major," said Arnold, who characterized the overall safety record related by MMS as strong.

A citation on Sept. 19, 2002, also involved the blowout preventer. The inspector issued a warning because "problems or irregularities observed during the testing of BOP system and actions taken to remedy such problems or irregularities are not recorded in the driller's report or referenced documents."

During his Senate testimony last week, Transocean CEO Steven Newman said the blowout preventer was modified in 2005.

According to MMS officials, the four other citations were:

• Two on May 16, 2002, for not conducting well control drills as required and not performing "all operations in a safe and workmanlike manner."

• One on Aug. 6, 2003, for discharging pollutants into the Gulf.

• One on March 20, 2007, which prompted inspectors to shut down some machinery because of improper electrical grounding.

Late last week, several days after providing the detailed accounting, Interior officials told AP that in fact there had been only five citations, that one had been rescinded. The officials said they could not immediately say which of the six had been rescinded.

The agency's problems with providing information extends to the data on display on its website. For example, the accounting of accident and incident reports is incomplete, making it very difficult to perform a thorough data analysis of the agency's performance and preventing a full accurate tracking of safety records of the rigs.

Data problems date back at least a decade. According to John Shultz, who as a graduate student in the late 1990s studied MMS' inspection program in depth for his dissertation, the agency's data infrastructure was severely limited.

"The thing I regret most is that, to my knowledge, MMS has not fixed the data management problem they have," said Shultz, who now works in the Department of Energy's nuclear program. "If you have the data you need, the analysis becomes fairly straightforward. Without the data, you're simply stuck with conjectures."

Whatever the correct citation total — five or six — the Deepwater Horizon's record was exemplary, according to MMS officials, who said the rig was never on inspectors' informal "watch list" for problem rigs. In fact, last year MMS awarded the rig an award for its safety history.

___

Associated Press Writers Michael Kunzelman in New Orleans and Garance Burke in Fresno, Calif., contributed to this report.

Franklin Graham: Christians Will Lose the Power to Pray Outside Church Walls ‘Maybe in My Lifetime’

2010-05-15T07:50:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, May 05, 2010
By Pete Winn, Senior Writer/Editor

Franklin Graham, son of the Rev. Billy Graham, speaking at a 2009 event. (AP photo)

(CNSNews.com) – Two top evangelical leaders sounded a defiant tone on the eve of National Day of Prayer -- warning that the American right to freedom of religion “is being eroded every day” and may be lost in an onslaught of secularism unless Americans “have the guts to stand up.”

The Rev. Franklin Graham, who last month was officially “dis-invited” by the Army to speak at a National Day of Prayer ceremony at the Pentagon for statements he made about Islam, said he will not back down in preaching the Gospel as he sees it.

“We’re living in a time where we cannot compromise, we cannot back up, we cannot retreat,” Graham said Wednesday during a live Webcast from the Washington, D.C. offices of the Family Research Council.

“The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is to be preached to the ends of the Earth – that’s what He’s called us to do,” he said.

Graham, the honorary chairman of this year’s National Day of Prayer, made his comments in a sermon to an audience of leaders making final preparations for Thursday’s National Day of Prayer.

He alluded to Eastern Europe under communism, where Christians and others were allowed to pray only within their homes or inside the officially sanctioned churches that were allowed by the state.

“I think its coming to this country where we (will) have the freedom to preach inside a church wall, but we will lose the freedom to do it outside. That day will probably come – maybe in my lifetime,” Graham said.

Ironically, it was Graham’s famous father, the Rev. Billy Graham, who, in the 1980s became the first Western preacher allowed by the Soviet government to preach at a Russian church -- helping to open the door to greater religious freedom after 70 years of repression.

“(In the United States) we see everyday our rights being eroded. Just a little at a time, but its happening. Everyday. So let’s preach while we can. Let’s stand up and holler ‘Jesus Christ! King of Kings, Lord of Lords!’to the top of our voice,” the younger Graham said.

“The secularists are going to get ticked off, the news media’s going to hate it. I don’t know, maybe the people in the White House are going to be mad. But you know what, I don’t care. Because God has called us to take the Gospel -- His Gospel, the power of God and His Salvation -- unto the ends of the Earth.”

Graham was joined by James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, and Bishop Harry Jackson, Jr., who is leading efforts to stop and force a referendum on recent action by the Washington, D.C., city council creating homosexual marriage in the nation's capital.

Dobson, who praised Graham as a "model" for the restrained way he responded to a recent ruling by a federal judge in Madison, Wis., outlawing the statute creating the National Day of Prayer, said the right to publicly proclaim the Christian Gospel was one of the chief freedoms enshrined in the Constitution by the Founding Fathers.

“I am convinced that there are people in high places, people with a great deal of authority and influence, who want to eliminate every vestige of religion -- especially Christian religion, or evangelical religion – from the public square. They want to expunge it. They want to get rid of it. They want to take away our right to worship and to have a prayer service in a government building. That’s not unconstitutional!” Dobson said.

Dobson said 33 of 44 U.S. presidents have called for a National Day of Prayer.

“This has been our history. We dare not lose it now,” Dobson exclaimed. “And we will, if we don’t have the guts to stand up with that kind of intensity.”

Dobson, whose wife Shirley serves as chairman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force, recounted a case in Santa Rosa County, Fla. -- near Pensacola -- involving a high school principal and athletic director at an off-campus event who prayed at an off-campus meeting.

“Prior to the meeting, one of them said to the other, ‘Why don’t you say a word of prayer from wisdom and what we’re about to do?’ And he said a 16-second prayer. It was a prayer for their food! Sixteen seconds! It was reported and a judge in Northern Florida hauled them into court, harangued them for eight hours in one day, and threatened to put them in prison for six months,” Dobson said.

Dobson said the judge did not back off until members of the Congressional Prayer Caucus took up the cause.

Last September, after a day-long court hearing, U.S. District Judge M. Case Rodgers in Pensacola ruled that Pace High School Principal Frank Lay and Athletic Director Robert Freeman had not violated a 2008 court order banning school employees from praying publicly "at any time or at any place" in the Florida school district.

Lay had asked Freeman to pray at the dedication of a field house held during school hours, but conducted on the property of a nearby church.

The men had faced up to six months in jail and $5,000 in fines each for violating the order, which the same judge had issued as a result of a 2008 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of two anonymous students at the high school.

The judge held that the violation of the order had been "spontaneous" -- and not voluntary.

National Derangement

2010-05-14T07:55:00.000-07:00

By Charles Colson

On May 7, 2010

12:00 am In Chuck Colson |

Just when you thought it was safe to turn on your TV, there it was again—another mind-numbing story about politics.

You might have thought we’d catch a breath after President Obama’s historic election. But no, we’ve been treated to daily doses of political news ever since—the “historic” election of Republican Senator Scott Brown, Tea Party events, and weekly political scandals. Now, we’re looking ahead to November and the next “most historic election ever”—the one that will finally save America.

Are we all losing our minds, spending half our lives watching politics on the tube? I’m reminded of the words of Soren Kierkegaard, the 19th-century Danish philosopher. Almost 100 years before the invention of television, Kierkegaard predicted what would happen if such a thing were invented. “Suppose,” Kierkegaard wrote, “someone invented…a convenient little talking tube which could be heard over the whole land. I wonder if the police would not forbid it, fearing that the whole country would become mentally deranged.”

He was right: We are becoming deranged. We are succumbing to what French philosopher Jacques Ellul prophesied in the 1960s—the politicization of all aspects of life. Ellul foresaw the Information Age and the media’s need for a steady flow of information to feed the populace. Media therefore would gravitate to covering centers of power. Politicians would be willing accomplices, because they’d gain fame and clout.

We’ve succumbed to what Ellul predicted—the idea that every problem has a political solution. This, he warned, leads to increasing dependence on the state and decreasing citizen control of government.

The result: The structure of government becomes so unwieldy that it can hardly function. For example, we’ve spent billions fighting terrorism—but we couldn’t stop “the underwear bomber” from boarding a U.S.-bound plane, even though his name was on a terrorist watch list.

Ellul also foresaw that when government becomes all-intrusive, the intermediate structures that keep societies vibrant—families, churches, and voluntary associations—collapse and tyranny follows.

What’s the answer? First, we better recognize that politics is not the be-all and end-all. Politics is merely the expression of culture. Clean up culture—that’s our job—and politics will follow.

This happened when God’s people were awakened in England in the 18th and 19th centuries. England then was in worse straits than we are today, with slavery, child labor, and rampant political corruption. But along came William Wilberforce, the Oxford movement, and the Salvation Army. What followed was a great, century-long revival of Christian faith. England was not only saved in the Wesley revivals, it was stronger than ever.

So we as 21st-century Christians must do the same thing. And there is no time to lose. If, as I believe, the political illusion has America by the throat, there are only two likely outcomes—revolution, which is what the Tea Party people suggest (albeit peacefully), or tyranny.

God has acted again and again through His people to change history’s course. But for that to happen, the Church had better sober up, summon its spiritual resources, expose the political illusion, and begin to defend and live the Christian faith in our culture.

This update courtesy of BreakPoint.

“Sudden Jihad Syndrome"?

2010-05-12T07:39:00.000-07:00

Why Would Anyone Want to Blow Up Times Square?

By Daniel Pipes

May 8, 2010 @ 12:00 am In Politics

When news comes of Muslims engaging in violence, the triad of politicians, law enforcement, and media invariably presumes that the perpetrator suffers from some mental or emotional incapacity. (For a quick listing of examples, see my collection at “Sudden Jihad or ‘Inordinate Stress’ at Ft. Hood? ^[1]“).

Instead, I argue, they should begin with a presumption of jihadi intent. That is, the default expectation should be ideological passion, not insanity. Spreading Islam and applying Islamic law are the goals. Of course, some crazy Muslims exist and they do engage in violence, but they constitute a microscopic percentage of the 15,247 Muslim terrorist incidents since 9/11, as counted by www.thereligionofpeace.com ^[2].

The failed effort to blow up an SUV in New York’s Times Square prompted speculation about the would-be bomber’s motives even before the identity of Faisal Shahzad, an immigrant from Pakistan, had been made public. The Nation ^[3]’s Robert Dreyfuss discounted the possibility of a jihadi from the Pakistan-based Taliban, “it seems far more likely to me [he] was either a lone nut job or a member of some squirrely branch of the Tea Party, anti-government far right.”

Then, just hours after Shahzad had been arrested, authorities rushed to assure the public his action had nothing to do with Islam. Examples from May 4:

Mike Bloomberg ^[4], mayor of New York City: the bomb could have been placed by “somebody with a political agenda who doesn’t like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.”
Mahkdoom Qureshi ^[5], Pakistan’s foreign minister: “This is a blow back [for U.S. military activities in Pakistan]. This is a reaction. This is retaliation. And you could expect that. Let’s not be naive. They’re not going to sort of sit and welcome you eliminate them. They’re going to fight back.”
Nadeem Haider Kiani ^[6], spokesman for the Pakistani embassy in Washington: it’s too soon to tell exactly what motivated the bomber but early indications suggest he is “a disturbed individual.”
Cable News Network ^[7]: “It can confirmed that his house has been foreclosed in recent years. I mean, one would have to imagine that brought a lot of pressure and a lot of heartache on that family.”
CBS News ^[8]: “It isn’t clear if more suspects are at large OR what the motive could be.”
The Washington Post ^[9]: Under the title, “The economic crisis meets terrorism,” Ezra Klein notes that Shahzad’s house was foreclosed and comments: “This guy is like string theory for the media: He brings together the seemingly incompatible stories that drove the past decade. That said, you of course don’t want to speculate on why someone ‘really’ did something. The hearts of men are opaque, and motives are complex.”

And here’s a collection from [Wednesday's] papers

Law enforcement ^[10] (as reported by NY1): “Investigators say they still have no motive for Shahzad’s actions.” (May 5, 2010)
Kifyat Ali ^[11], a relative of Shahzad’s: “We are shocked. He had no connection with any political party or jihadi group.” (May 5, 2010)
Associated Press ^[12] headline: “NY car bomb suspect cooperates, but motive mystery.” (May 5, 2010)
Associated Press story ^[13]: “Federal officials aren’t talking about a motive in the arrest of a naturalized U.S. citizen charged with attempting to set off a bomb in New York’s Times Square.” (May 5, 2010)
New York Post ^[14] “exclusive”: Shahzad “said he was driven to evil by the slew of deaths among leaders of the terror group, law-enforcement sources revealed yesterday. Sources said he was an eyewitness to the onslaught throughout the eight months he spent in Pakistan beginning last summer.” (May 5, 2010)
USA Today ^[15] headline: “Motive of NYC car bomb suspect remains a mystery.” (May 5, 2010)
The Guardian ^[16] headline: “Times Square bomb: Pakistanis puzzled by bomber’s motives.” (May 5, 2010)

Comments:

(1) Some of these interpretations say the motives are mysterious, some of them speculate about one thing or another – but all assiduously avoid the elephant in the room.

(2) You can’t win a war if you don’t have the courage to name the enemy.

(3) Naming the enemy means changing some of the more pleasant aspects of Western life, and so is tough to do.

(4) I expect that naming the enemy will occur only after a cataclysm ends our patience with minced words.

(Originally published May 5th at National Review Online ^[17])

Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and the author of several books, including Militant Islam Reaches America and In the Path of God: Islam and Political Power (Transaction Publishers), from which this column derives. You may visit his website by clicking here and purchase his books by clicking here.

(This article courtesy of the Middle East Forum.)

Counting the Cost: Being Catholic in Mexic:Part V: Will Mexican Secularism Ever be Disconnected from Bigotry and Violence?

2010-05-10T07:32:00.000-07:00

Part V: Will Mexican Secularism Ever be Disconnected from Bigotry and Violence?

Posted By Chris Stewart

May 9, 2010 @ 9:33 pm

In Counting the Cost: Being Catholic in Mexico

In the first four parts of this series, we examined the current movement to amend the Mexican Constitution to include language that explicitly defines the Mexican Republic as laica, or secular. Then, we began a study of Mexican history to see how this movement relates to the larger historical context within Mexico. Now, we will crystallize the discussion to demonstrate how Mexican secularism has been historically associated with violence on the part of the government.

At least 90 percent of the population of Mexico is Catholic. When the Constitution of 1917[i] ^[1] went into force, this percentage was even higher. Thus, the language restricting religious ministers in general is primarily aimed at the Catholic hierarchy: priests, religious brothers and sisters, and bishops. As a practical matter, it is an act of bigotry, whose goal is to bring the Church to heel. And this language has been used violently by the Mexican government in the past. Brian Van Hove, S.J., writes in “Blood-Drenched Altars ^[2]:”

In 1926 there was a rebellion of Mexican Catholics against the regime which had been kept in power by military means and the will of the ruling National Revolutionary Party. The Party, an amalgam of Masons, Socialists, Communists, and greedy opportunists, had interpreted the anti-clerical laws arbitrarily and severely. This led to the killing of priests and the confiscation of churches, schools, religious houses of all kinds, and other properties[ii] ^[3].

This not just the shrill criticism of an isolated priest. Pope Pius XI himself weighed in with at least 2 different encyclicals that document and condemn the persecution of the Church in Mexico. The principle of non-intervention in internal affairs of the Church[iii] ^[4] was a dead letter. The government in Mexico City went so far as to sponsor a new Mexican Catholic Church[iv] ^[5]. So the principle by which the government would not establish any Church was also a dead letter, for how else does the government “sponsor” a religious organization except by “establishing” it? Many of us have heard of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association ^[6]. Well, Mexico had its own “Mexican Catholic Patriotic Association” some 80 or 90 years ago, well before the concept ever occurred to the Chinese government! This Mexican Catholic Church failed, but the principle of government intervention in the internal affairs of the Church was established, notwithstanding Constitutional language to the contrary.

Pope Pius documents the details of the Mexican persecution in Iniquis Afflictisque ^[7], published on Nov. 18, 1926. The government at the time made a radical interpretation of Constitutional Article 24, concerning education. Pope Pius reports that “[i]t is not permitted to teach children their religion even in a private school.”[v] ^[8] But this was a small thing compared to the real persecution: “[W]hole colleges of canons were rushed off to jail, the aged being carried there in their beds. Priests and laymen have been cruelly put to death in the very streets or in the public squares which front the Churches.”[vi] ^[9] Those priests that were not killed or exiled were left destitute, “for they must live from their holy office, and since they are poor and do not themselves possess anything and the Church cannot support them, they are obliged to live bravely in poverty and in misery.”[vii] ^[10] There’s more: “the government of Tabasco state required that priests be married as a necessary condition for allowing them to exercise their [ministerial] functions.”[viii] ^[11] Even the government’s campaign against those who defended themselves against this persecution was unnecessarily violent: “The Cristero[ix] ^[12] offensives never became a true threat for the government, but the pacification was slow and incomplete, and the arbitrary acts that the government troops committed in this campaign made it more difficult.”[x] ^[13]

In 1932, Pope Pius returned to the topic of the persecution in Mexico. Part of the Pope’s role had been to negotiate a modus vivendi with the Mexican government by which Mexican Catholics could continue to practice their religion in the wake of the government’s policy of overt repression. In Acerba Animi ^[14], he writes that the government of Mexico “frustrated every attempt to arrive at an understanding. On the contrary, it most unexpectedly broke the promises made to Us shortly before in writing, banishing repeatedly Our Representatives and showing thereby animosity towards the Church.”[xi] ^[15] He goes on to observe “that all lovers of order and peace among nations, on seeing that such an unheard of persecution differs but little, especially in certain [Mexican] States, from the one raging within the unhappy borders of Russia, may from this iniquitous similarity of purpose conceive fresh ardour to stem the torrent which is subverting all social order.”[xii] ^[16]

Thus do we arrive at the true thread of secular history within Mexico: the Mexican government has repeated used secularism – i.e. laicidad – as a club to pummel religion, the Catholic Church in particular given the overwhelming majorities of Mexicans who are Catholic. When Representative Juventino Castro y Castro[xiii] ^[17] indicates that the reform sought by amending Article 40 of the Mexican Constitution is to continue with the Reforms sought by the Constitution of 1857, he is placing himself and his policies within the historical thread that began with the 1857 Constitution, continued with the wars of Reform undertaken by Benito Juarez, and culminated in the overt, violent persecution of the Mexican Church in the 1920s and 1930s. While it is certain that Mexico today is not the same as it was yesterday, it is just as certain that Mexico is what she is because of the decisions of her people over the collection of all her yesterdays. Those decisions have included the affirmation of laicidad through violence. And thus, the modern affirmation of laicidad cannot completely separate itself from this violent history. They are both part of the same thread. Now, this does not mean that Representative Castro y Castro supports violent persecution of the Church himself. Quite the contrary, he may have the best of intentions. However, he cannot eliminate that history from the march of secularism in Mexico. For Mexico, to affirm secularism has been of one piece with violent persecution of the Roman Catholic Church.

The bishops in Mexico know this, of course. They have opposed the reform of Article 40 in measured language, given the formal limits placed upon their political participation in light of Article 130 of the Mexican Constitution. The reform of Article 40 now sits in the Senate, where Roberto Blancarte reports in the Mexican web portal, noroeste.com ^[18]: “The Catholic offensive now has enough supporters in the Senate to at least attempt to block the reform that includes the laicidad of the State.”[xiv] ^[19] Mr. Blancarte goes further to comment on a separate initiative begun by PRD[xv] ^[20] Senator Pablo Gómez to eliminate Section E from Article 130 of the Mexican Constitution: “One possible strategy of the bishops and [supporting] senators would then be to seek to negotiate the reform of Article 24 or 130 in exchange for the reform to article 40, following the logic that either both reforms advance or neither does.” It is a good and hopeful strategy. The separation of Church and State is an acceptable condition for the Church so long as the State allows the Church to function as she must. Such has rarely been the case in Mexico over the past 150 years – and the Church has suffered for it.

But if the advance of secularism also includes the establishment of real freedom of religion in Mexico, together with freedom of speech and association for Mexican bishops, priests, deacons, and religious, then the state of affairs in Mexico would actually improve. Mexico would be able to depart from the historic association between secularism on the one hand and governmental bigotry and violence on the other. Church and State could reach a real modus vivendi, wherein preaching, teaching, and evangelizing are freely permitted, even if the government representatives do not like what is said. After all, the government in Mexico – as in the U.S. – has ample resources at its disposal, far more than the Church does. Public debates between Church leaders and government leaders would be a welcome development.

But if the reform simply reinforces secularism without furthering the cause of real freedom of religion in Mexico, then Mexico regresses. After all, by reinforcing secularism, Mexico will already be repeating one of the gravest errors of its past since it will be defining its government as secular in direct opposition to the Catholic reality of the overwhelming majority of its citizens. This conflict is at the heart of the turbulent history of Mexico: a government at odds with its citizenry, a government, if you will, that is in harmony neither with the City of Man nor the City of God.

[i] ^[21] Recall form Part II that the Constitution of 1917 was adopted during the years of the Mexican Revolution.

[ii] ^[22] Van Hove, Brian, S.J. “Blood-Drenched Altars ^[2].” 1996, Eternal Word Television Network. Web. Retrieved March 7, 2010. Originally published in the Summer 1994 issue of “Faith & Reason.”

[iii] ^[23] As established by Article 130, Section B of the Constitution of 1917.

[iv] ^[24] Zoraida Vázquez, Josefina Lilia Díaz, Lorenzo Meyer, et.al. La historia general de México, Volumen 2. México, D.F.: El Colegio de México, 1976. Print. Page 1190. Hereafter, this is referenced as LHGM 2, with appropriate page numbers.

[v] ^[25] Pope Pius XI. Iniquis Afflictisque ^[7]. Web. Retrieved March 7, 2010. No 9.

[vi] ^[26] Iniquis Afflictisque ^[7]. No. 16.

[vii] ^[27] Iniquis Afflictisque ^[7]. No. 23.

[viii] ^[28] LHGM 2, Page 1190.

[ix] ^[29] The Cristeros were those Catholics who had the temerity to defend themselves against this persecution. Their principle was self-defense.

[x] ^[30] LHGM 2, Page 1191.

[xi] ^[31] Pope Pius XI. Acerba Animi ^[14]. Web. Retrieved March 7, 2010. No. 3.

[xii] ^[32] Acerba Animi ^[14]. No. 12.

[xiii] ^[33] See Part I for details.

[xiv] ^[34] Blancarte, Roberto. “Libertad política para los sacerdotes.” Noroeste.com: El Portal de Sinaloa ^[18]. Web. Retrieved March7, 2010.

[xv] ^[35] The PRD is by no means a monolithic political party in Mexico. Just as the Democratic Party here has people like Representative Bart Stupack who firmly opposes abortion, the PRD also has representatives who support the teachings of the Church.

Chris Stewart was received into full communion with the Catholic Church on the Feast of Christ the King in 2003. He and his wife homeschool their five children and have been a Spanish NFP teaching couple with the Couple-to-Couple League. His radio program, Hombre y mujer nos creó (Man and Woman He Created Us) aired weekly on Radio Maria Houston in 2006-2007. Aside from his domestic church, he currently is active as a team member and music leader on an occasional ACTS retreat.

Doctors Without Borders Clinic Attacked in Somalia

2010-05-08T07:53:00.000-07:00

Alisha Ryu | Nairobi0

6 May 2010

Officials with the aid group Doctors Without Borders say they do not know why Islamist insurgents attacked one of the group's clinics near the Somali capital, Mogadishu. The attack Wednesday forced the clinic to shut down.

There is growing concern for thousands of internally displaced people who relied on the clinic for free medical care.

The aid group Doctors Without Borders says it is still investigating the attack on its Hawa Abdi clinic, located about 20 kilometers south of Mogadishu, on a road that connects the capital to the town of Afgoye. Officials with the group, known by its French acronym MSF, declined to speculate on a motive for the attack.

Witnesses say heavily-armed Hizbul Islam insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades at the clinic before storming it. The attack sparked a firefight between the insurgents and security guards at the clinic, killing one guard and wounding others.

Hizbul Islam fighters briefly detained 20 local staff before shutting down the clinic. The closure has reportedly spread fear and panic among tens of thousands of internally displaced people who have received free consultations and medical care at the clinic since 2007. Hizbul Islam, one of Somalia's two main radical Islamist insurgent groups, has not responded to claims it targeted the clinic.

More than 250,000 internally displaced people live along the Afgoye corridor in harsh conditions. The majority fled there from Mogadishu three years ago, following the start of the violent, Islamist-led insurgency against the U.N.-backed Transitional Federal Government.

An African Union peacekeeping force, known as AMISOM, has been deployed in Mogadishu since 2007 to keep the fragile government from being toppled. Most of the capital and many key areas of southern Somalia are under the control of al-Qaida-linked, al-Shabab militants, who are fighting to turn the Horn of Africa into an ultra-conservative Islamic state.

Al-Shabab, which is believed to have al-Qaida-trained foreigners among its ranks, has carried out numerous suicide attacks against peacekeepers and government officials. The African Union peacekeeping force says it foiled a suicide car bombing at one of its bases just last week.

In recent days al-Shabab has been the apparent target of three separate bombings inside mosques in Mogadishu and in the southern city of Kismayo. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks. But al-Shabab said foreign mercenaries in Somalia were behind the blasts. Senior militant leaders have vowed to take revenge.

On Wednesday, officials with the A.U. peacekeeping force warned that "armed opposition groups" are planning a series of synchronized suicide car bombings in public places. They said mosques and markets will likely be targeted and urged civilians in the Mogadishu area to be on the look out.

One Somali parliament member says he blames the African Union peacekeeping force and its western backers for plunging the country deeper into turmoil.

The parliament member, Dahir Abdulkadir Muse, says he is calling for the immediate withdrawal of the 5,300 A.U. peacekeeping troops from Somalia, because their presence is perpetuating the conflict. He says African Union troops are doing far more harm than good.

AMISOM says extremists are lashing out in desperation because they are badly divided by infighting and losing popular support.

Counting the Cost: Being Catholic in Mexico:Part IV: Making Clergy Second Class Citizens

2010-05-08T07:30:00.000-07:00

Part IV: Making Clergy Second Class Citizens

Posted By Chris Stewart

May 8, 2010 @ 1:49 am

In Counting the Cost: Being Catholic in Mexico

We have taken a wild and rough ride through Mexican history in the first three parts of this series of articles that analyzes the effort currently underway in Mexico to amend the Constitution in order to declare the country a secular, or laica, Republic. Taking the lead from current Mexican Representative Juventino Castro y Castro of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), we have sought to understand the roots of this effort by studying the circumstances under which the Liberal[1] ^[1] Constitution of 1857 was adopted. We saw how the Mexican government expropriated Church property and examined in some detail the negative consequences this would have had for the poor who had depended on the Church for their economic well-being. Moreover, we examined how the Liberal Reform was consolidated and reached its peak with the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz. Finally, we briefly studied the Mexican Revolution which gave Mexico its Constitution of 1917, which remains the supreme law of the land. In Part IV, we look directly at the text of the Constitution of 1917.

Article 3 ^[2] declares, among other things, that education is a right of all persons in Mexico, and that “the aforementioned education shall be laica and for this reason, shall be completely separated from all religious doctrine.” Article 24 ^[3] stipulates that “every person is free to profess his preferred religious belief;” that “the Congress cannot dictate laws that establish or prohibit any religion;” and that “[t]he acts of public religious worship are ordinarily celebrated in the temples. Those which are extraordinarily celebrated outside the temples will be subject to the appropriate regulations.” These two articles are ordinary enough. Except for the fact that a free and secular education is dictated by legislative and judicial acts in the U.S., and not by Constitutional fiat, the language of these two sections is close enough to what we are already used to here. However, Article 130 ^[4] turns a radical corner, establishing in Constitutional language one of the primary aims of the Constitution of 1857 and the nineteenth century Liberal ideology that followed it. Section A requires all Churches and religious groups to obtain a government registration in order to exist. Section B stipulates that the government authorities will not interfere in the internal life of religious associations. Section C establishes that Mexican citizens may practice any religion but in doing so must satisfy all conditions established by law. Section D prohibits religious ministers from exercising any public governmental office. And the odious Section E states:

Religious ministers may not assemble for political purposes nor may they proselytize in favor of or against any candidate, political party, or political association; they may not oppose the laws of the land nor any of its institutions nor may they offend in any way against any of the national symbols, in any public reunion, in acts of worship, or in any religious advertising or publication

Reading the text of these various Constitutional articles makes one wonder why the Mexican government would waste any time attempting to amend Article 40 to include the word, laica, in its definition of the Republic. Article 3 already establishes the laica character of education within the Republic. Article 24 expresses the right to freedom of religion. And Article 130 goes so far as to formally strip active religious ministers of their rights before the law. In the U.S., religious organizations may assemble peacefully to protest unjust laws. They may speak out to explain the meaning of their doctrines, including the public consequences of those doctrines. The U.S. bishops, for example, may explain what respect for life means, and they have lawful means at their disposal to translate that respect for life into an organized, active opposition to the current health care bills which support abortion.

Not so in Mexico. Religious ministers have second class status when it comes to the right to freedom of speech – and this is already the de facto state of Mexican law. One wonders why anyone would seek to amend the Mexican Constitution to add formal language establishing the laica character of the Republic. Such language already exists! And the laws which support that language have teeth. I recall reading a newspaper article in Mexico in the 1990s which explained that any priest who preached politics from the pulpit could be fined about 300 days of the current minimum wage – several hundred or perhaps a couple thousand dollars at the time – per incident. And the judge of what was or was not political language would be the same government that issued the fines.

Thus, it is clear that the efforts to adopt secularist Constitutional language in language have been associated with bigotry, even violence. One may argue that the violent wars led by Benito Juarez were necessary to ensure the stability and independence of the nascent Republic; those arguments have been made, and they are good ones. But just as certainly, that violence led to such a strong desire for stability that Mexico accepted the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz. And that dictatorship, in turn, led to the extreme, unimaginable violence of the Mexican Revolution. With more violence, we see a return to anti-Catholic bigotry expressly written into the Constitution of 1917. In Part V, we will study how this bigoted language affected post-Revolutionary Mexico.

[1] ^[5] Recall that the term Liberal is not identical to the modern term of the same name. Rather it refers to an historical movement led by secular forces to dissolve the largely monarchical European political order at the time and to diminish or eliminate the power of the Church.

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[2] Article 3: http://info4.juridicas.unam.mx/ijure/fed/9/4.htm?s=

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Being Catholic in Mexico: Part III: First the Treasure, Then the Blood

2010-05-07T07:22:00.000-07:00

Part III: First the Treasure, Then the Blood

Posted By Chris Stewart

May 6, 2010 @ 8:00 pm

In Counting the Cost: Being Catholic in Mexico

In Part I ^[1] of this series, we examined the scene in modern Mexico, observing that there is an effort underway to amend Article 40 of the Mexican Constitution to add the word laica, or secular, to the definition of the Mexican Republic. In Part II ^[2], we began the journey through Mexican history that helps us to define the historical antecedents of this effort, which led to the establishment of the Constitution of 1857. This document, and the events that surround its establishment, is our point of departure for understanding the modern effort to amend the current Mexican Constitution.

One June 19, 1867, Emperor Maximiliano of Mexico was executed by the victorious Republican army, with Benito Juarez at its head and Porfirio Diaz as its principle military general[i] ^[3]. It is at this point that the Constitution of 1857 could be put into practice[ii] ^[4]. This Constitution explicitly includes the text of the Lerdo Law, named for Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, Mexican Treasury minister in 1856. Under this law, the government “expropriated the property of the Church.”[iii] ^[5] Juarez is today remembered as a hero throughout Mexico and Latin America for his role in re-establishing Mexican rule and establishing the Constitution of 1857. Expropriating Church property was one of the causes célèbres of nineteenth century Liberals throughout Latin America. Part of the justification for this was economic: the expropriation was “a resolution that would put an end to one of the economic errors which had contributed greatly to… prevent the country’s development.”[iv] ^[6] To this day, mainstream histories praise the expropriation of Church property as a huge advance in Mexican history.

Nevertheless, the mainstream histories are wrong. When the 19th century Liberals expropriated Church property, that property was not taken from a monolithic or static entity. The Church, then as now, was a corporate entity. There were 10 dioceses, 1,000 parishes, and 300 convents and monasteries[v] ^[7]. Still, “10 bishops and 177 canons spent two-thirds” of Church income, a situation that demonstrated the “difference between low and high clergy, [though] the anticlerical tonic at the time made it appear to be a unity.”[vi] ^[8] “Priests lived almost exclusively from parish income and the Masses. The rest lived off the money from renting their farms, from alms, and from bequests, which continued to be the largest source of income.”[vii] ^[9] Parsing this sort of dense text can be difficult. Parish income would have come from donations and quite probably from small cottage industries that operated with lay participation on parish property. Farm rental was exactly that: people worked the land and paid a portion of what they grew in exchange. Given the huge concentrations of land in the hands of a few landowners, the Church’s participation in the farm rental business was probably a significant boon to large numbers of poor families. These would have been able to keep enough of the fruits of their labor for themselves and their families.

The few people who did get rich off this arrangement were at the top of the pyramid, so in this the Church differed little from the rest of the country. Though lots of people were already living off the property held by the Church – and others would have survived off of Church alms[viii] ^[10] – Church properties became a target of the State. Nevertheless, when the Liberal government expropriated this property, it did not suddenly pass into some mutual benefit society, nor did the government offer social welfare for the good of the people. Rather, many of the people living off this land would have lost everything, and ownership of the land would have passed on to the people who had conquered with the Reform – the Republican Liberals. This is the most likely explanation of the rise to power of the Liberal general, Porfirio Diaz: the Liberals had become rich off of properties seized from the Church and (most likely) from some of the defeated Conservatives. They needed stability in order to consolidate and build upon their wealth. This wasn’t a static event; they began lots of new economic activities, and a lot of these activities were good. But much of this was done at the expense of the poor whom the Church had traditionally supported with her alms and her property. Those alms were now gone, completely.

When Porfirio Diaz was elected to the presidency with 98% of the popular vote[ix] ^[11], it was the next logical step for the Liberal Reform. The mainstream histories do not tie Diaz directly to this Reform. Instead, they tend to repudiate him as a dictator and lament the circumstances under which he assumed the Presidency. However, the fact remains that Diaz was Juarez’s general and a Liberal hero from the Reform years. Attempts to distance Diaz from anti-Catholic Liberalism must ignore this. Following the simple line of history, the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz was the next logical step for the Liberal Reform and a thoroughly secular act. The great landowners and captains of industry who supported Diaz were the secular Liberals themselves, and their descendants. The penury into which the bulk of the populace sunk in consequence was so great that the disaster of Mexican Revolution resulted. The Mexican Revolution began with Diaz’s ouster in 1910; at least in part, it was a reaction against the reformers who had seized property and made it their own to the exclusion of others.

The Mexican Revolution was the most violent war ever fought in the Western hemisphere. Around 600,000 to 700,000 ^[12] people died during the U.S. Civil War. This was in a total population of about 31 million ^[13]. It is possible that as many as 3.5 million people died ^[14] during the Mexican Revolution, in a population of about 15 million persons ^[15]. This disaster was in direct proportion to the disaster which preceded it: dictatorship led to total war, and that on an almost unimaginable scale. The whole country was at war, rich and poor alike, but when the violence began to settle, the poor armies led by Francisco Villa in the north and Emiliano Zapata in the south were defeated and so had little influence over the legal framework that emerged. This legal framework is captured in Constitution of 1917, which remains the supreme law of the land in Mexico. Articles 3, 24, and 130 have kept the anti-Church tone of the prior Constitution.

In part IV, we will look directly at the text of the Mexican Constitution of 1917.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note:

The title here is a bit melodramatic. Direct government persecution of the Church will come after the Mexican Revolution and is discussed in a later part of this series. The point I was after in the discussion of the Mexican Revolution was to place it in the context of the historical unfolding that began in 1857. The Reform wars led by Juarez and Diaz did establish stability and local rule, and these were good things. However, just as certainly, they led to a social and political order whose primary basis was power.

Many analyses of the period conclude that Diaz was a Conservative — either that he always was one in his heart of hearts or that he became one later on. This really stretches things. Diaz fought the Reform wars as the primary Luiberal general, and the most likely reason is that he was, and remained, a committed Liberal (in the 19th century definition).

Following the wars, the Church did find a way to exist, but then again, the Church finds a way to exist even in such places as modern Sudan, where its members suffer from the policy of genocide of the central government there. But this does not mean that Diaz was suddenly a Conservative, only that he needed some level of popular support in order for his stability to reign. The Church has always been popular in Mexico, down to the present day, so Diaz’s policies in this regard were prudent.

However, the vast bulk of the population did live in extreme poverty, and Diaz’s rule, once it weakened towards the end, crumbled altogether. Emiliano Zapata’s slogan was Tierra y Libertad: Land and Liberty. Economics played a role in the Revolutionary explosion. But the larger role, I think, was the vacuum left once Diaz left. He had governed through personality and, no doubt, some level of fear. Once these power structures were gone, the country simply exploded.

However, a host of factors led to the Mexican Revolution: economics, the vacuum left by a departing despot, and so forth. Specific persecution of the Church was not on the agenda. Everybody died in great abundance during these horrific years.

One of the fascinating dynamics was the pattern of war itself. In the U.S. Civil Watr, both sides were formal armies of constituted States. The power of any informal armies, if it existed, was negligible or quickly wiped out. In Mexico, there were at least four different factions, any of which might be associated with the central government power at one time or another. Zapata’s army and Villa’s army were completely independent of one another, and neither was associated with any formal governmental power — unless they conquered that power. In the northwest, another army fought. It is from this army that Mexican president (from 1920 to 1924) Alvaro Obregon emerged. In the northeast, yet another army fought; Mexican president (from 1917 to 1920) Venustiano Carranza would emerge from here. Moreover, fighting was everywhere: army-against-army; army-against-would-be-army; army-against-civilians. About the only thing that brought an end to hostilities was sheer exhaustion from it all. By then, Zapata was dead, and Villa was weakened (he would later retire to a government-granted hacienda and be murdered).

The Constitution which emerged from all this was a reflection, therefore, of the power structure, which was highly reflective of the Reform years. There was a land reform. Most of that was almost sterile land given to some peasants here and there. Juan Rulfo’s Nos han dado la tierra is a short story published in his work, Llano en llamas. In this story, a peasant walks across a desert landscape, and we learn that this desert is what the poor gained by their efforts of fighting in the Revolution. In other words, nothing.

The larger point here, is that the Mexican Revolution had many causes and hurt everybody. One of the causes rarely mentioned, however, is that it is simply a logical next step from what happened in the Reform years. I argue that this last cause is important.~ Chris Stewart

[i] ^[16] Zoraida Vázquez, Josefina, Lilia Díaz, Lorenzo Meyer, et.al. La historia general de México, Volumen 2. México, D.F.: El Colegio de México, 1976. Print. Page 895. Hereafter, this is referenced as LHGM 2, with appropriate page numbers.

[ii] ^[17] LHGM 2, page 908.

[iii] ^[18] LHGM 2, page 833.

[iv] ^[19] LHGM 2, page 833.

[v] ^[20] LHGM 2, page 786.

[vi] ^[21] LHGM 2, page 786.

[vii] ^[22] LHGM 2, page 787.

[viii] ^[23] The secular histories are largely blank on this note, but almsgiving is a traditional role of the Church. I am forced to wonder whether some of the two-thirds of Church income controlled by the bishops and canons went to serve this sort of purpose. It’s hard to tell without a more exhaustive search, that would probably need to look directly at the Church receipts of the era.

[ix] ^[24] LHGM 2, page 955.

Counting the Cost: Being Catholic in Mexico: Part II: The Shadow of The Terror and Catholic Fears

2010-05-05T07:20:00.000-07:00

By Chris Stewart
May 5, 2010 @ 2:30 pm
In Counting the Cost: Being Catholic in Mexico

In Part I ^[1], we examined the scene in modern Mexico, observing that there is an effort underway to amend Article 40 of the Mexican Constitution to add the word laica, or secular, to the definition of the Mexican Republic. Moreover, we left our discussion with the words of Representative Juventino Castro y Castro of the lower House of the Mexican Congress: expressly defining the Republic as laica reinforces the definition made by the Constitution of 1857[1] ^[2], which was a “positive solution for coexistence between majority and minority religions, and to prevent the beliefs of the few from becoming dominant by means of the force of the State.”[2] ^[3] Thus, the next logical step is to look at the events surrounding the adoption of the Constitution of 1857 and then to move forward through Mexican history to see how those events have helped shape more recent time.

We briefly examined the early history of modern Mexico, noting in particular the new Republic had problems with foreign invasion, seemingly never-ending internal conflict, and was even ruled for a brief period by a foreign monarch. This was the atmosphere in which the Constitution of 1857 developed. Violence was a dominant theme of conflict resolution in those years, not just in Mexico but throughout Europe and even the United States[3] ^[4]. The formal institutions of the Church allied themselves loosely with the monarchists; they were known as Conservatives. The opposing side followed the ideals of the French Revolution; they were known as Liberals.

The question that comes immediately to my mind in observing this set of facts is why would the Church choose to be on the wrong side of history? In other words, why would the institutions of the Church choose the monarchist, Conservative side in an epic struggle when it appeared that the republican, Liberal side was going to win? The first answer to this question is that at the time, no one could predict the future. The world had been a monarchical world for centuries. The nascent Revolutions in the U.S. and in France by no means appeared to be the wave of the future at the time.

The second reason is that the Church is often politically naive. The political shrewdness of Pope John Paul II ^[5] in dealing with the Soviet threat in the 1980s was born of his earlier years living under communist rule in Poland. But politically-savvy prelates are not necessarily the norm; there is a reason that the Church does not assert her infallibility in political or economic matters: history simply does not support such an assertion, and the Church is wise enough to assert that historical lesson even if her institutions sometimes repeat the mistake. But the most likely reason the Church chose her side was probably fear. The history books adequately tell the tale of the anti-religious bigotry and violence that surged from the French Revolution, but this tale rarely captures what the sufferers of that violence really went through. The Church suffered this Revolutionary violence intimately. Perhaps no one captures this seething atmosphere better than Baroness Emma Orczy, in the first chapter of The Scarlet Pimpernel:

During the greater part of the day the guillotine had been kept busy at its ghastly work: all that France had boasted of in the past centuries, of ancient names, and blue blood, had paid toll to her desire for liberty and for fraternity[4] ^[6].

Those who went to the guillotine in France were Catholic. They died Catholic no matter how harshly moderns may condemn violence with their words, and they died Catholic no matter how much we moderns may wish to point out that they were wealthy, noble, even royal. They were Catholic. Catholics faced with Liberal and Republican Revolutions elsewhere in the world knew what happened in France. They knew what could happen to them if the Liberal factions gained power. Many were no doubt sympathetic to Liberal goals, but the feared the consequences and the means. And no matter how noble the cause, no matter how great the work, violence — directed at Catholics, in particular – was part and parcel of the Liberal advance. Catholics knew this, and they were scared.

In this atmosphere of violence and turbulence, the conflict between Mexican Liberals and Conservatives would reach its first critical mass (the second would occur later, during the reign of Emperor Maximiliano, who had been supported by the Conservatives). Ignacio Comonfort was elected president on December 1, 1857, with Benito Juarez as his designated vice-president. However, even before his election, the Mexican Congress had granted Comonfort “extraordinary faculties and issued a decree suspending various constitutional articles pertaining to [rights] guarantees,… authorized the government to obtain loans,… provided 20,000 men for the national guard,… and authorized the government to dictate all the Treasury and war decisions it deemed necessary to re-establish peace.”[5] ^[7] By December 17, the Constitution of 1857 was abolished, and Vice-President Juarez was imprisoned. Later, on January 11, 1858, Juarez was freed, and by January 19, Juarez “declared his government to be established [in Guanajuato], proceeded to organize his cabinet, and published a manifest that began the revolution of the Reform.”[6] ^[8] This Reform pitted the Liberals — and the ideals of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity which they had appropriated from the French Revolution — against the Conservatives, who counted the Catholic Church as one of their allies.

And so it would go until 1867: Conservatives against Liberals; Liberals against Conservatives. War. Multiple governments laying the same claims to central State power. Foreign potentates ruling from Mexico City. Any reading of nineteenth century Mexican history is breathtaking. It seems that someone, somewhere, was always establishing a new government, while foreign powers routinely invaded, and the same names appeared again and again at the top of the lists of government power. Comonfort himself was President prior to the establishment — and almost immediate nullification – of the Constitution of 1857. The infamous General Antonio López de Santa Anna was President several times, dictator once. At one moment, he was the remarkably competent general who helped to establish the Mexican Republic in the 1820s following the War for Independence from Spain; at another moment, he was the almost comical general whose superior forces were routed in Texas.

The Church, it must be made clear, was not an active ally of either party. It did not condone war. And the Church did defend her own rights to teach, preach, and evangelize. But the Liberal ideology was drawn from the French Revolution, and so Liberals were inclined against the Church. The mere fact that the Church had a role in society and worked with a Conservative government was enough to indict her. And it was the Church’s supreme misfortune to be associated with the Conservatives who sought monarchical help from Europe, which assistance culminated in the crowning of Maximiliano in 1864.

Today, most people misunderstand the conflicts between Liberals and Conservatives – or else they cast the conflict exclusively in the light of Democratic and Republican ideals pitted against Royalists. This is not history. It is a caricature of history, and it is important that we set aside caricature if we wish to understand the motives of the people who made that history. This is as important in Mexico as elsewhere. In Part III, we will see how this thread of Mexican history develops further.

[1] ^[9] Again, the Constitution of 1857 is a predecessor of the current Constitution of 1917.

[2] ^[10] Méndez, Enrique and Roberto Garduño. “Oficializa la Cámara de Diputados que México es una República laica ^[11]”, 12 Feb 2010. Web. Retrieved 7 Mar 2010.

[3] ^[12] Recall ^[13], for example, the U.S. Revolutionary War did not conclude until 1783; that the U.S. Consitution did not formalize a reasonably strong central government until 1788; that the U.S. was back at war with Great Britain by 1812 and had some nearly bellicose encounters with Canada ^[14] along the way; that the U.S. push west was a violent ^[15] one; that the U.S. and Mexico fought their own war ^[16]; and that all of this culminated in the U.S. Civil War ^[17].

[4] ^[18] Orczy, Emmuska. The Scarlet Pimpernel. New York: Dover Publications, 2002. Print. Page 1.

[5] ^[19] Zoraida Vázquez, Josefina, Lilia Díaz, Lorenzo Meyer, et.al. La historia general de México, Volumen 2. México, D.F.: El Colegio de México, 1976. Print. Page 840-841. Hereafter, this is referenced as LHGM 2, with appropriate page numbers.

[6] ^[20] LHGM 2. Page 840.

Counting the Cost: Being Catholic in Mexico:Part I: The Long Conflict Between Church and State

2010-05-04T07:17:00.000-07:00

Part I: The Long Conflict Between Church and State

Posted By Chris Stewart

May 4, 2010 @ 4:59 pm

In Counting the Cost: Being Catholic in Mexico

Mexico is a beautiful country and a beautiful nation. The two terms are not identical. Properly understood, country speaks of the natural and human gifts which God has seen fit to bestow upon a particular part of His creation. In Spanish, we say país, and this is important, for the natural gifts are paisaje and the human gifts — our brothers and sisters — are paisanos.

Nation, on the other hand, is what we humans build in the country. In Spanish, the word is almost identical — nación — and those with nationality or citizenship ties to the nación are known as nacionales or ciudadanos. That last term is of particular interest. Ciudadanos are literally members of the city, or ciudad, and both the English and Spanish terms are derived from the Latin, civitate. This latter term is suddenly of intense interest to all of us as Catholics. Augustine’s famous treatise on heaven and the world is known as Civitate Dei ^[1], the City of God.

Augustine contrasts this City of God to the City of Man — or if you prefer, the City of the World — well over a thousand years before Spanish was ever spoken in the Mexican nation. Augustine clearly teaches that the citizens of the City of Man do not and must not relinquish their citizenship in the City of God. Equally, those happy souls who recognize their proper citizenship in the City of God do not therefore abandon the City of Man. The two coexist, at least in the persons of the citizens themselves. With this, we turn to Mexico, where the tension between the City of God and the City of Man is not well resolved. And this in spite of the war between Man and God which continues in her City, in her Republic, even down to the present day.

Article 40 of the Constitution of the United Mexican States stipulates that “it is the will of the Mexican people to set themselves up as a representative, democratic, federal Republic made up of free and sovereign States.” On February 12 of this year, the lower house of the Mexican Congress voted to modify this article so that it reads, “it is the will of the Mexican people to set themselves up as a representative, democratic, federal, laica Republic made up of free and sovereign States.”

The addition of this simple little word, laica has raised a lot of controversy in Mexico. Laica is the Spanish word for lay — as in layperson or laity — but at the same time it carries with it the connotation that we express in English with the word, secular. Thus, this Constitutional amendment – which is now in debate in the Mexican Senate and if approved there, will move on to the states — will expressly define the Mexican Republic — understood here as the government — as a secular one. The question, then, is this: is it good for a government to be explicitly secular?

Those who voted in favor of the amendment think so. César Augusto Santiago Ramírez of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) said following the vote that “there is no intention to attack any religion or to prevent the citizens of Mexico from exercising fully their most felt rights.”[i] ^[2] Feliciano Martin of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD): “Laicidad[ii] ^[3] is an important instrument, for example, for the defense of women’s rights when they are limited or subordinated for religious reasons in how they make decisions about their own bodies.”[iii] ^[4] But the most apt argument, perhaps, came from Juventino Castro y Castro, also of the PRD; he said that expressly defining the Republic as laica reinforces the definition made by the Constitution of 1857[iv] ^[5], which was a “positive solution for coexistence between majority and minority religions, and to prevent the beliefs of the few from becoming dominant by means of the force of the State.”[v] ^[6] This last comment best captures the intent of the Mexican Congress in pushing for this Constitutional amendment: it is a reinforcement of the thread of history instituted by the Constitution of 1857.

So our journey necessarily digs deeper into the history of Mexico. In the years leading up to 1857, the central Mexican government was weak. Mexico formally declared its independence from Spain in 1810 but the two nations fought over the issue until 1821. Immediately following independence, the threat of Spanish re-conquest loomed[vi] ^[7]. From that point until about 1887 or so, the country suffered one civil war after another; fought against France, Texas, the United States, and Great Britain; and even had to suffer the disgrace of being ruled for several years by the Hapsburg monarch, Fernando Maximiliano, who reigned as emperor of Mexico from 1864 to 1867.

The Constitution of 1857, referred to by Representative[vii] ^[8] Juventino Castro y Castro, was itself adopted on February 12, 1857. Later that same year, there was a problem with the Spanish government over the payment of debts owed by Mexico. At the same time, the Archbishop of Mexico would condemn “the constitutional precepts [that were] ‘hostile to the Church.’”[viii] ^[9] In March, 1857, the Archbishop sent a “notice to all priests ‘preventing them from granting absolution without prior retraction to any of the faithful that had sworn to the Constitution” (same reference). In the coastal highlands of the Sierra de Alica, northwest of Guadalajara in the state of Nayarit, “Manuel Lozada took up arms on his own to commit acts of vandalism.”[ix] ^[10] Mexico was a mess, and the perception was that the Church had intervened unnecessarily in the action of the State.

So began the conflict between Church and State[x] ^[11] in modern Mexico. This conflict has helped to define, for better or worse, the historical path that Mexico has trod. This article is the first in a five-part series that will examine the current effort to modify the Mexican Constitution in the light of Mexican history. The history that will be told here is not well known, not even among most Mexicans. However, that history is crucial if we are to understand the undercurrents of the current movement to explicitly define the Mexican Republic as laica, or secular. On the surface, it seems an innocuous effort, perhaps even a positive development. After all, most of us have been taught that “secular” simply means neutrality on the question of religion. We will see, however, that in Mexico laica is anything but neutral.

[i] ^[12] Méndez, Enrique and Roberto Garduño. “Oficializa la Cámara de Diputados que México es una República laica ^[13]”, 12 Feb 2010. Web. Retrieved 7 Mar 2010.

[ii] ^[14] Lacidad is the characteristic of that which is laica.

[iii] ^[15] Méndez and Garduño ^[13].

[iv] ^[16] The Constitution of 1857 is a predecessor of the current Constitution of 1917.

[v] ^[17] Méndez and Garduño ^[13].

[vi] ^[18] Zoraida Vázquez, Josefina, Lilia Díaz, Lorenzo Meyer, et.al. La historia general de México, Volumen 2. México, D.F.: El Colegio de México, 1976. Print. Hereafter, this is referenced as LHGM 2, with appropriate page numbers. The post-independence problems with Spain are detailed on pages 737-768, in particular.

[vii] ^[19] Representative is not the most apt term. In Spanish, the lower House of Congress is known as the Cámara de Diputados, and the elected members are known as Diputados. This is often translated into English as Deputy or Federal Deputy, but the term means Representative, and that is what many of us are most familiar with.

[viii] ^[20] LHGM 2, page 840.

[ix] ^[21] LHGM 2, page 840.

[x] ^[22] The conflict proper has its roots in the colonial period, with difficulties becoming greater as Spain began its own internal conflict between monarchists loosely associated with the Church and republicans loosely associated with the ideals of the French Revolution. This spilled over into Mexico. See LHGM 2, pages 737-768 for further details.

Oh brave New World that has such people in it!!

2010-02-04T17:25:00.000-08:00

I can just see this series being used in sex ed classes through out American education.
God help us all.
D~

Fake Reality Show "Bump" has Viewers Deciding Which Woman Gets Abortion

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
February 3, 2010
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new Internet-based web site reality show called "Bump" is generating intense opposition and controversy. The program is a fake reality show that has viewers deciding which of the pregnant women "contestants" will kill their child an in abortion.

The show is satirical in nature and supposedly inspired by President Barack Obama's infamous speech to graduating students at Notre Dame.

The creators say they want to spark an honest discussion about abortion and plan to determine the ending of each storyline by comments and discussion from viewers.

Kathryn Jean Lopez, the pro-life editor of National Review Online, responded to the Bump show and the controversy surrounding it.

"I was stuck by two things: 1) How fringe it appears — I don't think this would fly on a major television network or cable channel, even HBO. And 2) how dehumanizing the whole endeavor seems," she writes.

Lopez is struck by the insensitivity towards human life the contestants display but says it mirrors reality.

"There's one especially clueless-seeming gal who goes on about Starbursts. It makes it all — the human lives at stake in real-life pregnancies — seem so unreal. Unfortunately, the reality is all too life and death," she writes.

"What scares me about this project is that some desperate, alone young women looking for help of any kind on the Internet are going to happen upon this Bump . . . and I don't see it helping them any, just contributing to confusion and pain," she concludes.

Bryan Kemper, the president of Stand True ministries, a national pro-life group for youth and young adults, also opined recently on the Bump show. He said he was surprised by his reaction to it.

"I watched the first two episodes looking for something to blast this show about. I have to admit I went into it wanting to hate it. The problem I see is that many who, like me, will want to hate it, might not after watching the show," he said. "I can see people saying that this show is neutral and a good tool for instigating conversation about abortion."

While the show sets up various situations about when it might be advisable for a girl to get an abortion -- such as one girl who is in an abusive relationship and another who cheated on her husband who is serving in the military -- Kemper says it still results in promoting abortion.

"The problem is that this show is merely pulling on the heartstrings of people by taking them down rabbit trails and away from the core issue of the personhood of the child in the womb. This is a classic debate tactic of pro-abortion activists; they play on the emotions and stay away from the fact that we are talking about the life of a human person," he says.

"While I understand the desire for honest discussion about abortion, it should not be centered around situations in which people may seek one, but rather centered on what abortion is. The discussion needs to be focused on the life and personhood of the child in the womb, the main victim of abortion," he adds.

Kemper says he is "deeply concerned" that the show will water down true abortion discussion.

He is asking pro-life advocates to go to the web site of the show and promote respect for unborn children and better options for women than abortion.

"Don't be led down rabbit trails, but go and be a loud, loving and firm voice for the babies," he says.

Related web sites (not endorsed by LifeNews.com):
Bump - http://bumptheshow.com

Message from 'breakpoint"

2010-02-02T18:25:00.000-08:00

An Unexpected Totalitarianism

February 2nd, 2010

by Charles Colson

My wife Patty was reading a book about Chinese history and the rise of the Chinese nationalists under Chiang Kai-Shek. You may remember that the U.S. supported Chiang Kai-Shek during and after World War II. Unfortunately, Chiang was, well, a tyrant. This helped explain why Mao and his communists were able to win the support of the Chinese people.

So Chiang’s fascist tyranny was replaced by an even more virulent communist tyranny.

When Patty put the book down, she asked me a great question: Is totalitarianism the same as communism or fascism?

Well, any ideology can lead to totalitarianism. Totalitarianism simply means that the state-the government-exercises complete control of public and even private life.

So Hitler (a right-wing fanatic) and Hitler (a left-wing fanatic) were little different. One promised a master race, the other a worker’s paradise. But they both erected totalitarian dictatorships, where the state controlled the media, the economy, everything.

So I answered Patty that communism and fascism were simply economic and political disguises for the totalitarian impulse, which at some level has tempted every human ruler throughout history.

But as I have explained in my books, the West has mostly resisted the totalitarian impulse, thanks to our Christian heritage and the Protestant Reformation.

The Western experiment in liberal democracy, best embodied in the United States, achieved representative government, balance of powers, sphere sovereignty, the rule of law. These are bulwarks against totalitarianism.

But the very astute French observer of American democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville, warned that even America could descend into soft despotism. That could happen, he warned, when the people expect their elected leaders to take care of them and their needs. Sound familiar?

But I’ve thought of another way democracy can slide into totalitarianism-the moral foundations of society erode so badly that the people become malleable. They embrace relativism, as we have in America today; they no longer believe in right and wrong. So popular culture, the educational and political elite, teach us that it’s wrong to judge other people. Tolerance becomes the supreme public virtue.

When that happens, however, somebody has to enforce the tolerance. So-called cultural arbiters-the media, the academics, political leaders-begin to prescribe which things are in bounds and which things are out of bounds for public discussion.

Look what happened with political commentator Brit Hume. He recommended that Tiger Woods consider Christianity. He was pilloried in the process.

Last week, I talked about Tim Tebow’s heartwarming TV ad scheduled for the Super Bowl. It tells how his mother, against medical advice, decided to give birth to him rather than abort. Pro-choice groups hit the roof, demanding that CBS pull the ad.

This is akin to the soft despotism de Tocqueville warned about, the tyranny of tolerance where the cultural elites seek to eliminate the free expression of moral views in American life.

And that, my friends, is totalitarianism of an unexpected kind. It’s the kind that can catch you by surprise, where you’ll wake up one day to find that you have lost your freedom.

This update courtesy of BreakPoint.

Al-Qaida Offers to Arm and Train Nigerian Muslims

2010-02-02T17:55:00.000-08:00

Monday, 01 Feb 2010 01:26 PM

The leader of North Africa's al-Qaida branch offered training and weapons to Nigeria's Muslims to fight the Christians there following an outbreak of sectarian violence.

Abdelmalek Droukdel, leader of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, in a statement posted on an Islamic Web site Monday, accused the Nigeria's Christians of killing hundreds of Muslims in a "Crusader war."

Droukdel promised to train Muslim youths, supply them with weapons and equipment.

"We are ready to train your sons on using weapons, support them with men, weapons, ammunition and equipment to enable them defend themselves," he said, exhorting Nigerians to "push your sons into the fields of jihad to become the fighting vanguard in defense of the Muslims' blood and honor."

Violence between Christians and Muslims in central Nigeria left 326 people dead late last month, but Droukdel, also known as Abu Musab Abdul-Wadud, maintained that over 500 innocent Muslims were killed.

He criticized Western and Arab media for portraying the events in Nigeria as sectarian, tribal or economic but "it is a clear massacre against Muslims only."

Droukdel told Nigerian Muslims that "the only way to get end these continued massacres and to restore your rights ... is to prepare yourselves for the holy war and the best example for you is your brothers in Somalia who confront the Ethiopian Crusaders."

Sectarian violence in this central region of Nigeria has left thousands dead over the past decade. The latest outbreak came despite the Nigerian government's efforts to quell religious extremism in the West African country.

There are conflicting accounts about what unleashed the recent bloodshed. According to a state police commissioner, skirmishes began after Muslim youths set a Christian church ablaze, but Muslim leaders denied that.

Muslims say it began with an argument over the rebuilding of a Muslim home in a predominantly Christian neighborhood that had been destroyed in November 2008.

Al-Qaida in North Africa, which holds French hostage Pierre Camatte for more than two months, demanded the release of four of its members arrested by Mali several months ago, in exchange for his release.

The group operates mainly in Algeria, but has ranged widely across the vast Sahara desert to carry out operations in Mali, Mauritania and elsewhere.

Story about back door taxes is being yanked all over because Obamamao doesn't want the truth to get out

2010-02-02T10:26:00.000-08:00

Tax Break Expiration's May Hit Middle Class

The Obama administration's plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor taxes increases - quietly raising taxes by allowing billions of dollars in tax breaks to expire by the end of the year. While... Full Article at Nightly Business Report | PBS

Backdoor taxes to hit middle class

Posted: 02/02/2010 00:48:11

NEW YORK (Reuters.com) --The Obama administration's plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.

Full Story:

CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL SOURCE

And thank God for Ron Paul, he didn't yank the story:

Backdoor taxes to hit middle class Submitted
by xntryk1 on Tue, 02/02/2010 - 10:34

Current Events

Mon Feb 1, 4:09 pm ET

Backdoor taxes to hit middle class
By Terri Cullen

In the 2010 budget tabled by President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House wants to let billions of dollars in tax breaks expire by the end of the year -- effectively a tax hike by stealth.

While the administration is focusing its proposal on eliminating tax breaks for individuals who earn $250,000 a year or more, middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases.

The targeted tax provisions were enacted under the Bush administration's Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. Among other things, the law lowered individual tax rates, slashed taxes on capital gains and dividends, and steadily scaled back the estate tax to zero in 2010.

If the provisions are allowed to expire on December 31, the top-tier personal income tax rate will rise to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. But lower-income families will pay more as well: the 25 percent tax bracket will revert back to 28 percent; the 28 percent bracket will increase to 31 percent; and the 33 percent bracket will increase to 36 percent. The special 10 percent bracket is eliminated.

Investors will pay more on their earnings next year as well, with the tax on dividends jumping to 39.6 percent from 15 percent and the capital-gains tax increasing to 20 percent from 15 percent. The estate tax is eliminated this year, but it will return in 2011 -- though there has been talk about reinstating the death tax sooner.

Continue

Backdoor taxes to hit middle class

Mon Feb 1, 4:09 PM

By Terri Cullen

In the 2010 budget tabled by President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House wants to let billions of dollars in tax breaks expire by the end of the year -- effectively a tax hike by stealth.

While the administration is focusing its proposal on eliminating tax breaks for individuals who earn $250,000 a year or more, middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases.

Millions of middle-class households already may be facing higher taxes in 2010 because Congress has failed to extend tax breaks that expired on January 1, most notably a "patch" that limited the impact of the alternative minimum tax. The AMT, initially designed to prevent the very rich from avoiding income taxes, was never indexed for inflation. Now the tax is affecting millions of middle-income households, but lawmakers have been reluctant to repeal it because it has become a key source of revenue.

Without annual legislation to renew the patch this year, the AMT could affect an estimated 25 million taxpayers with incomes as low as $33,750 (or $45,000 for joint filers). Even if the patch is extended to last year's levels, the tax will hit American families that can hardly be considered wealthy -- the AMT exemption for 2009 was $46,700 for singles and $70,950 for married couples filing jointly.

Middle-class families also will find fewer tax breaks available to them in 2010 if other popular tax provisions are allowed to expire. Among them:

* Taxpayers who itemize will lose the option to deduct state sales-tax payments instead of state and local income taxes;

* The $250 teacher tax credit for classroom supplies;

* The tax deduction for up to $4,000 of college tuition and expenses;

* Individuals who don't itemize will no longer be able to increase their standard deduction by up to $1,000 for property taxes paid;

* The first $2,400 of unemployment benefits are taxable, in 2009 that amount was tax-free.

Freedom of Political Speech Restored: Citizens United v. Obama

2010-01-31T18:28:00.000-08:00

January 30th, 2010

by Dr. John A. Sparks

Suppose you were arrested on criminal charges because you were the head of an organization that had produced a film critical of the wife of a former political leader, who was now running for office herself. What country would have such a law? Cuba, Myanmar, China? None of these. Actually, you would be talking about the United States of America.

Fortunately, on January 21, 2010, by a narrow 5-4 majority, the U.S. Supreme Court changed that law by rendering its decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. What is even more interesting, and astounding, is that President Obama does not like the decision one bit-as was evident in his State of the Union address on Wednesday evening.

The case dealt specifically with a 90-minute documentary produced by an organization called Citizens United. The group, a non-profit advocacy corporation, put together a production called “Hillary: The Movie,” which urged viewers to oppose the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. However, fearing that such programming might be viewed as illegal under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (also known as “McCain/Feingold”), Citizens United asked for a judicial ruling on the matter. The provision that concerned Citizens United was 441b, which prohibited a corporation from communicating to the electorate about a candidate within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election, and under threat of criminal prosecution. The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Court’s majority found that McCain/Feingold restrictions on corporate speech were unconstitutional under the First Amendment, which prevents the government from abridging freedom of speech. In deciding as it did, the Court strengthened one of most important liberties that citizens, individual or corporate, can exercise: the right to criticize the existing government, its office holders, or those aspiring to office. The Court minced no words in pointing out what the federal law limiting corporate funding of political documentaries, books, or other communications really meant. Justice Kennedy said candidly: “The law before us is an outright ban backed by criminal sanctions. Section 441b makes it a felony for all corporations-including nonprofit advocacy corporations-either to expressly advocate the election of or defeat of candidates or to broadcast electioneering communications within 30 days of a primary election and 60 days of a general election.”

Kennedy gave examples of actions that would be considered felonious under the law. Sierra Club officers would be felons if they ran an ad in the prohibited timeframe disapproving of a Congressional candidate “who favors logging in national forests.” In like manner, added Kennedy, the National Rifle Association’s officers could end up in jail if that organization published “a book urging the public to vote for the challenger because the incumbent U.S. Senator supports a handgun ban.”

The defenders of such restrictions argued that the restrictions on corporately financed speech were necessary to prevent well-financed corporations and unions from replacing a true democracy of the people. Corporate money would dominate and “distort” the political process.

The Court rejected that argument in a flurry of cogent rebuttals both in the majority opinion and the concurrences. As Justice Scalia pointed out in concurring, the First Amendment “is written in terms of ‘speech’ not speakers. Its text offers no foothold for excluding any category of speaker, from single individuals … to incorporated associations of individuals.”

The Court discovered a glaring contradiction in the exemption of “media corporations” from 441b. If “electioneering communications” close to the time of the primary or election were disseminated by media corporations like CBS or the New York Times, those news stories or broadcasts would not put CBS or Times executives in violation. So, in effect, as the Court correctly discerned, 441b allowed the established print and electronic media corporations to hawk their views with impunity right up to election day due to an exemption in the law, while business and labor entities were silenced by the threat of prosecution if they did the same. Therein is the key to the political left’s unhappiness with the Court’s holding.

The disapproval of this decision comes from the liberal side of the political spectrum, including by President Obama. The reason? Section 441b, in effect, sheltered the political speech of news outlets-part of the liberal-leaning U.S. media-while other corporate points of view, potentially more moderate or conservative, were criminalized by the legislation. Now, the threat of prosecution under 441b for these formerly marginalized corporations is gone, swept away by the Roberts’ Court. In essence, the right to pre-election political speech for all persons, corporate and otherwise, has been reestablished.

Will the political marketplace now be crowded with new corporate entrants? Probably, but voters will likely do what they do with the claims, assertions, and arguments of commercial vendors. They will weigh them, accept some and reject others, and, in the end, make their determination for or against candidates. That is what the Founders intended when they penned the freedom of speech portion of the First Amendment. And that is what was restored by the Court in its Citizens United decision.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dr. John A. Sparks is dean of the Alva J. Calderwood School of Arts & Letters at Grove City College, Grove City, Pennsylvania and is a fellow in Educational Policy at the College’s Center for Vision & Values.

Islamic misogyny and suicide bombers

2010-01-28T17:11:00.000-08:00

There a joke that sprang up soon after 9/11 where there are two Muslim mothers sitting together on a park bench sharing memories of their children growing up and the punch line ends with "They blow up so quickly'.
Ha ha.
Reading the following article is really enlightening and actually takes the 'funny' out of the above joke. it's not funny. Its tragic. Every human is precious to the Creator who has revealed to us he is our Father, and they do not even know it. They regard themselves are mere creatures, slaves, no-more.

I tried to imagine what is is like to be a woman growing up in a muslim household, and I could not. I grew up in a world that told me that to God, I am precious and beloved. The refrain of the Te Deum echoes in my memory, underscoring that God made me, God made women and all that god created is good, and "When He tookest it upon Himself to deliver man,
He didst not disdain the Virgin's womb,"

..............because human life is sacred, created in the image of God, and therefore women are precious because it is from the wombs of women that immortal souls of human beings are formed. Muslim women are not told this truth. They are debased with a lie from their birth: The lie that they are less then men and that they are the source of evil. Oh what a smear on the sublime dignity of women, and subsequently also on the sons they bear right from the bowels of hell!

I just could not fully imagine what it is like where you are told you and all women in general are the cause of all evil from the outset, where all the men in your life are allowed to lord it over you, where your genitals are mutilated when you're very young, but old enough to remember the horror of it so that you are sexually traumatized with the pain and agony from it??

Can you even imagine? And if scarring is left, every sexual act with your husband is then further agony, but you must submit because he has literally the power of life or death over you. What must it be like for women when child birth is a real danger to your life because of genital scarring and you are restricted in who and when you can go to the doctor as well!! And as far as being a true lover to your husband,well that is impossible! How is it even possible to have true intimacy between two people when one is master over the other??

Women in many Muslim societies can not drive, they can't vote, they can't go to school, or if they do, they really can not get work outside the home anyway, and if their husband wants a divorce sharia law always sides with the husband and she must part with her children.The only chance they have of any affection is if they train their sons and daughters up to be suicide bombers. How sad is that???

I feel so sorry for these women.And to add insult to injury, women are not allowed any formal part in worship. they are rarely even allowed in the mosque and if they are, it is in the back behind screens, apart. They are told from a young age that God made them inferior and loves them less.

What a sick, evil and perverted religion Islam is!!

I found this article tragic and I now truly pity all muslims.

Father God in heaven, creator and lord, You love women. You proved this by sending your Son to save us through a woman. Please, in your mercy, deliver these people, especially the women, from this evil lie! Amen.

d.

Sexual Starvation and Jihad Fantasies

Posted by Miranda Devine
Jan 27th, 2010 and filed under FrontPage.

rage

[This article is reprinted from The Sydney Morning Herald.]

The 23-year-old Nigerian charged with trying to detonate a bomb on a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit on Christmas Day was lonely and sexually repressed, according to messages left on an Islamic website.

As a US Senate Homeland Security committee continued to argue this week about how to handle Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the emotional anguish in his web posts provides an insight into fanatical Islam and what drives often hapless young men to become suicide bombers. Much as we would like them to be, they are not monsters.

Being the son of a wealthy banker, and living in London, Abdulmutallab had no real beef with Western life, did not complain about racism or express concern for downtrodden Muslim brothers.

But, like the September 11 bombers, who visited strip clubs before their date with destiny, when his devout religious beliefs conflicted with his corporeal desires, he found that blowing himself up along with a whole lot of infidels was preferable to being sexually frustrated.

As the New York Post put it: “The bomb wasn’t the only thing burning in his pants.”

On the Islamic Forum of the Gawaher website in 2005 and 2006 were more than 300 posts by Farouk1986 – Abdulmutallab’s middle name and birth year.

Under the heading: “I think I feel lonely,” Farouk1986 complains he has never found “a true Muslim friend”.

“As I get lonely, the natural sexual drive awakens and I struggle to control it, sometimes leading to minor sinful activities like not lowering the gaze.

“And this problem makes me want to get married to avoid getting aroused … but I am only 18.” In another post, he writes ”the hair of a woman can easily arouse a man”.

He also writes of “my dilemma between liberalism and extremism … how should one put the balance right?”

He talks at one point about his fantasies: ”The bad part of it is sometimes the fantasies are a bit worldly rather than concentrating in the hereafter.”

He tries instead to focus on more acceptable “jihad fantasies”.

”I imagine how the great jihad will take place, how the Muslims will win Insha’Allah and rule the whole world, and establish the greatest empire once again!!!”

As the youngest of 16 children and the son of his father’s No. 2 wife, he reportedly spent most of his childhood at an English boarding school in West Africa. The trajectory to extreme violence of this gentle, pious young man who wanted so much to be good and consequential, and yet was consumed with guilt about sex, fits with much of what is known about other Islamist suicide bombers.

Perhaps the best psychological explanation comes from United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror, the recent book by Jamie Glazov, the managing editor of FrontPage Magazine.

In a chapter entitled “To Hate a Woman”, he describes in chilling detail the oppression of women in parts of the Muslim world and the “theological justification” for violence against females “from the very moment of their birth”.

Islamist hatred of women has “fertilised the soil in which … terrorism and the new death cult have grown”.

He claims there is an “Islamist war on private love [which] derives most of its energy from a deep-seated misogyny. Women’s empowerment, independence and self-determination, especially the sexual variety, pose a threat to Islamism’s very existence.”

Islamist misogyny, he claims, comes from Islam itself. “The notion that women are by their very nature inferior to men is the underpinning of the entire structure and derives its legitimacy from numerous traditional teachings.”

It is no coincidence that the Arabic word “fitna” has two meanings – beautiful woman and social chaos.

Glazov writes that in many Islamic societies, “women are supposed to dehumanise themselves in order to be tolerated … Women are considered to be the incarnation of shahwa [desire] which comes from the devil. In this environment the pathological notion arises that a man and a woman cannot be alone without the ominous threat of evil in their midst.

“The men denigrate the object of their lust so as to diminish their own shame. In this dynamic of sexual repression and misogyny, love is reduced to violent domination which becomes directly intertwined with terrorism against societies that allow women freedom, especially sexual freedom.”

Practices such as polygamy and repudiation – in which a man can divorce his wife by pronouncing certain words – conspire to “minimise the possibility of private love even among married couples”.

“Islam teaches that the sexual act is dirty and consequently surrounds it with rituals. The objective is to build a wall between the lovers themselves.”

Polygamy, Glazov writes, has a disastrous effect on Muslim boys who grow up with “all kinds of siblings born of different women which gives them the idea that none of these women, including their own mother, was good enough to be cherished alone. The boys internalize this misogyny which leads in turn to self hate.”

Their psychological abandonment of their mothers is “directly connected to their urge for terror and suicide”.

Female genital mutilation, in which a woman’s clitoris – or entire external genital organs – is removed is an attempt to “deny women even the possibility of personal happiness and sexual satisfaction”.

Glazov writes of Saudi instructional TV programs about wife-beating and cites a report from the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences which estimated 90 per cent of Pakistani wives had been beaten or sexually abused for offenses such as cooking an unsatisfactory meal.

These stories are not remote from Australian concerns. The Islamic Women’s Welfare Council of Victoria, in a 2008 report, since removed from its website, concluded that some Australian Muslim religious leaders condoned rape within marriage, polygamy and domestic violence.

In gang rape trials, Muslim men have mounted the defence that their strict religious upbringing made them believe they could rape Australian non-Muslim girls.

This week, in Melbourne, an Afghan refugee is being tried for allegedly strangling his wife with her veil after complaining she was “becoming Australian”. The jury was told the victim had claimed her husband punched her and told her her only purpose was to have babies.

D.J. Dolce

2010-01-21T18:44:00.000-08:00

Barack Hussein Obama

2009-12-31T09:15:00.000-08:00

No greater evil

I apologize ahead of time to those who are attentive to this space on a weekly basis; the process of addressing key topics I hold as vitally important in the coming months – but of which those coming across my columns for the first time may not be yet apprised – may convey the appearance of redundancy.

One of those topics is the deeply- and long-held Marxist philosophy on the part of our current president, Barack Hussein Obama.

The reason I consider this to be vitally important is because by the time Americans find themselves saying, "My God, what have we done?" – it will be far too late. At that juncture, mentioning God, even in private, may not be the most prudent move, either.

The dream of global communism did not die with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall or The People's Republic of China adopting aspects of capitalism. As we now know, American communists have been quietly working, though in earnest, since the Bolsheviks gained power in Russia, toward a similar revolution in the United States. Despite a popular swing toward the right in America during the 1980s and mid 1990s, those factions have been in high gear since the civil-rights movement.

As of now, they are operating in the open; all that remains, truly, is for them to lay claim to the brand "communist."

Whether the individual far-left zealot in America is stupid, deluded or evil, the end game shall play out in the same manner: It will result in a society in which an unproductive, mediocre, larcenous few squeeze everyone else for their profit and pleasure.

Our current president is one of those few. This is indeed sad, for, in addition to the groundbreaking nature of his presidency, Barack Obama is obviously a gifted man. He could have actually accomplished something meaningful with his life; instead, he has dedicated that life – from early on, mind you – to destroying the greatest nation, and people, that has ever come along.

Can you think of a greater evil?

It is amusing – in a decidedly grim vein – to hear government and media mouthpieces attempt to defray accusations of socialistic and communistic elements within this White House's policies. Health-care reform legislation springs to mind, of course. Aside from the criminally intrusive ("criminally" meaning in a constitutional sense) nature of the current proposed legislation, it is an incontestably transparent payoff to Democrat political dependents and cronies. Then, there is the admitted affinity for Marxism on the part of Obama and certain of his acolytes (by way of validating this charge).

When I hear President Obama complain about "fat-cat bankers" and the harm they've done to our economy vis-à-vis the economic implosion that became manifest in fall 2008, for example, once again I experience that grim amusement. I am amused (as well as appalled and incensed) because Obama knows that it was socialist oligarchs such as Sens. Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, and communists such as himself and Wade Rathke who poured sugar into America's economic gas tank.

Those who surround our president (to whom he admonished us to pay attention, by the way) are among those unproductive, mediocre and larcenous few as well, as are many of our lawmakers. As this Politburo polishes so-called health-care reform measures that aren't really health-care reform measures (see the quote from Sen. Harry Reid in linked article), members of the establishment press now feel eminently comfortable disclosing their political biases. Last week, Chris Matthews, the incomprehensibly vapid and obsequious commentator for the MSNBC television network, called radical communist-nihilist Saul Alinsky "one of our [America's] heroes."

There was a time in America when being perceived as a communist was akin to being perceived as a child molester. It was once generally understood that, other than the power and glory communism brought to those in power, it held no redeeming qualities whatever. Yet, it remained possible for those middling, unimaginative fools who romanticized communism in their youth to coalesce that coveted power here.

If you believe that we are all God's children (which I do), then there is nothing evil nor dishonorable in being a marginal or mediocre individual. In capitalistic nations, in fact, marginal, mediocre people often do quite well. If you want to know what far-left doctrine – communism in particular – really amounts to, this is it: A malevolent contrivance by which the marginal and mediocre enslave majority populations. This is the way it has always been, from Lenin on down to Obama. The scale and depth of human suffering this Congress and this administration is poised to initiate will, if these people are not stopped, earn them a spot among history's worst villains.

I do not advocate extreme measures. However, if Americans who have recently become aware of how deeply imperiled we are, and those who shortly will be, do not dedicate themselves to utterly disenfranchising the political left over the next five to 10 years, they will, in a very short time, become impossible to extricate without the expenditure of force, blood and lives.

Mark my words.

---------------

Erik Rush is a columnist and author of sociopolitical fare. In 2007, he was the first to give national attention to the story of Sen. Barack Obama's ties to militant Chicago preacher Rev. Jeremiah Wright, initiating a media feeding frenzy. Erik has appeared on Fox News' "Hannity and Colmes," CNN, and is a veteran of numerous radio appearances. He is the author of several books; his latest, "Annexing Mexico: Solving the Border Problem Through Annexation and Assimilation", was a 2007 New York Book Festival winner in the "Best Nonfiction" category.

Through the looking glass

women on hormonal birth control tend to reject masculine men, and men who are around women on BC tend to have lower testosterone levels..

The Tricky Chemistry of Attraction

Taking Birth-Control Pills May Mask the Signals That Draw the Sexes Together, Research Shows

By SHIRLEY S. WANG

Seductive Science

merry Christmas!!!!

In the ‘Green’ Economy, the Poor Pay More

Pitchfork Politics: the Feds are Targeting Conscientious Doctors

From BBC: John Boehner: the second of 12 kids from Ohio who is Barack Obama's elitist target

The White House is attempting to cling on to Democratic control of Washington by portraying an Ohio congressman who grew up in near poverty as an elitist country club Republican controlled by wealthy lobbyists.

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Obama giving money to Hamas???

Dhimmi Prince Charles urges subjects to follow "Islamic way"

Does his Royal Majesty mean his subjects to protect the environment the same way islamic Jihadists do by blowing themselves and everything else up?? Because I don't think that's good for the environment, but then I'm just a simple American, what do I know?~D

'Follow the Islamic way to save the world,' Prince Charles urges environmentalists

Before you boycott Israel!

Breaking: Bush gave Deep Water Horizon 6 citations for safety violations- Obama gave it safety awards

AP IMPACT: Fed'l inspections on rig not as claimed

Franklin Graham: Christians Will Lose the Power to Pray Outside Church Walls ‘Maybe in My Lifetime’

National Derangement

“Sudden Jihad Syndrome"?

Counting the Cost: Being Catholic in Mexic:Part V: Will Mexican Secularism Ever be Disconnected from Bigotry and Violence?

Doctors Without Borders Clinic Attacked in Somalia

Counting the Cost: Being Catholic in Mexico:Part IV: Making Clergy Second Class Citizens

Being Catholic in Mexico: Part III: First the Treasure, Then the Blood

Counting the Cost: Being Catholic in Mexico: Part II: The Shadow of The Terror and Catholic Fears

Counting the Cost: Being Catholic in Mexico:Part I: The Long Conflict Between Church and State

Oh brave New World that has such people in it!!

Message from 'breakpoint"

An Unexpected Totalitarianism

Al-Qaida Offers to Arm and Train Nigerian Muslims

Story about back door taxes is being yanked all over because Obamamao doesn't want the truth to get out

Tax Break Expiration's May Hit Middle Class

Full Story:

Backdoor taxes to hit middle class

Freedom of Political Speech Restored: Citizens United v. Obama

Islamic misogyny and suicide bombers

D.J. Dolce

Barack Hussein Obama