Peace in our time but not for me

AustinBay writes about stories below the fold that might blow up and affect the election.

Of course, the problem will be controlled by the MSM, but as he notes as problem number 5: They are losing credibility.

but the reason I am posting this is problem number 4

P4: South China Sea and North Korea A world away from Libya, China’s power is growing and North Korea tests nuclear weapons. China has built and fortified islands in the South China Sea and claims sovereignty over a vast region. Chinese security forces spar with those of the Philippines, a U.S. ally. The U.S. claims the right of freedom of navigation in the region. China objects—your ships need our permission, Beijing says.  A U.S. Navy carrier group is entering the region this week.

With timid bush back by the Obama administration, and nary a protest by "green" groups, China has not only chased out our fishemen, but has destroyed coral reefs (and the ecology of the west Philippine sea) to build islands that could block the shipping routes from India/the Middle East to Japan and Korea

The Rappler quotes the UKGuardian (last year) but not many other articles:

On April 13, 2015, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) released a statement calling out China’s reclamation activities as causing “irreversible and widespread damage to the biodiversity and ecological balance of the South China Sea (SCS)/West Philippine Sea (WPS).” The DFA pointed out that China’s activities have so far caused destruction to over 300 hectares of coral reef systems, amounting to an annual economic loss of US$100 million as well as constituting a threat to the livelihood of peoples and communities in the littoral countries.

 but even here, the article is "balanced" to hint of the sins of others, and pretends China has a claim.

Yes, China insists they owned it during the Han dynasty: Which is sort of like saying the Vikings own Canada or that Rome owns the UK.

what makes all of this ominous is that China is busily rearming, and keeping a lot of this activity "off the books" so it won't get noticed.

From StrategyPage:

Meanwhile, the big mystery is figuring out what the Chinese military is up to with all this unofficial spending? This question's been rattling around inside intelligence agencies, and among diplomats, since 2000. There are some obvious culprits. For example the Chinese Coast Guard is not part of the defense budget but it is known to be undergoing enormous expansion. Hundreds of new coast guard ships are being built, most of them large (over 1,000 tons) and many of them 3,000 to 4,000 tons. While lightly armed, these “patrol ships” are very much in use as weapons of war and are being used, in lieu of more heavily armed ships, to take control of the South China Sea and other bits of disputed territory off China’s coast.

translation: They chase Pinoy fishermen away from their traditional fishing grounds, and let the Chinese fish there and collect endangered species without the Philippines being allowed to stop them even though it is within our economic zone by UN law.

then there is good news in this: China is just as corrupt as the Philippines, so a lot of this military acctivity is a way to line their pockets, but because China lacks a free press so outsiders don't notice.

To outsiders, it looks like the Chinese are preparing for something ominous. This is reinforced by the increasingly aggressive Chinese attitudes towards its neighbors over ownership of uninhabited islands (often just rock outcroppings that are barely visible at low tide). Outright possession of these islets gives the owner possession of nearby oil or natural gas deposits. Something worth fighting for and that's what worries neighbors when it comes to China's growing naval strength. Yet the Chinese aren't really all that active, given the size of their forces. In reality, a lot of the budget still disappears into questionable projects or non-military activities. Corruption remains a major problem in the military, as it has for thousands of years. China does not like to give this much publicity and foreign media tends to ignore it. Corruption in the Chinese military is not as sexy a media event as, say, Chinese warships moving past Okinawa towards the United States...

so why all that stuff?

hina insists that its growing military power is for defense only. That makes sense, as a lot of money is going into the navy, which protects the imports (mainly of food and raw materials) and exports (of manufactured goods) that are driving the unprecedented economic growth. The Chinese try to explain away the military buildup opposite Taiwan as political theater. This may be true, for a failed attempt to take Taiwan by force would not only disrupt the economy (and create a lot of unhappy Chinese) but would be a major failure by the government. Dictatorships cannot survive too many such failures, or too many angry citizens. So it makes sense that the Chinese military growth is largely for defense. But those large defensive forces can also be used to bully or intimidate neighbors, which is what the neighbors are worried about. 

in the interconnected world, the depression causing US economic slowdown is not just giving you Trump, but is affecting China's economy.

AlJez edit

China is not in any immanent danger of default, despite scares over thebanking sectorand local government debt. What China faces is the same kind of long-term fiscal paralysis that plagues almost every other middle-income country.Over the next five years the Chinese government will go from being cash-rich to cash-poor. As it does, it will find it more and more difficult to deliver on the grandiose commitments it is making in its latest five-year plan.

the editorial notices their aging population, and promises to clean up the environment, then notes:

It doesn't take an advanced degree in mathematics to figure out that if budget commitments are growing at double-digit rates while the economy is growing at single-digit rates, something has to give. That something is the fiscal deficit. China is going into debt - in a serious way....

and ALJ also notes how the Iran/Saudi proxy fight in Syria could really really mess up their economy. China is pro Iran, but trades a lot with Saudi, but now is facing attacks on it's people both inside China and outside China by Saudi inspired jihadis.

There have been reports that China hasdispatched military advisers to aid the fight against ISIL in Syria, with the People's Liberation Army Navy roaming the Mediterranean to provide any necessary support in an event of contingency.

Hmmm...

hopefully it won't destroy Saudi: We have 2 million OFW in the area, who would need to come home.

Chesterton alert

GK Chesterton is best known today for his "Father Brown" mysteries, but his essays (which can be found on Project Gutenberg or audio files in Librivox) are still being quoted.

From Insight Scoop /CWR blog about the US 2016 election: GKC writing about the UK's 1924 election:

"The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes," wrote Chesterton, who then stated:
The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types -- the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution.

then we have Dricoll at Instapundit quoting GKC:

FALLACIES DO NOT CEASE TO BE FALLACIES BECAUSE THEY BECOME FASHIONS, as G.K. Chesterton said

Instapundit always has the latest about the college idiots, who seem ignorant of basic things like economics (Driscoll's links are about the minimum wage leading to fewer jobs) or "protesters" who now are using Hxtory instead of history...presumably this is a mimic of feminist idiots who used "herstory" for "history", but of course, the word has nothing to do with the word "his": but presumably the protesters are ignorant of where the word came (ancient Greek)...

from Greek historia "a learning or knowing by inquiry; an account of one's inquiries, history, record, narrative,"

of course the Greek word derives from the word for wise man, so I guess they have a point. But then maybe they should change the non pc word and substitute moros  or more properly ηλίθια γυναίκα

Someone has too much time on their hands.

Or as GKC wrote:

“Being surrounded with every conceivable kind of revolt from infancy, Gabriel had to revolt into something, so he revolted into the only thing left — sanity. But there was just enough in him of the blood of these fanatics to make even his protest for common sense a little too fierce to be sensible.” ― G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

well, given the state of NSA surveillence, the novel the Man who was Thursday, where most of the the dangerous radicals turn out to be detectives who infiltrated the radicals...heh, sounds like it was written about today's protests (or the protests of the 1960's).

as for the elections:

The coming peril is the intellectual, educational, psychological and artistic overproduction, which, equally with economic overproduction, threatens the wellbeing of contemporary civilisation. People are inundated, blinded, deafened, and mentally paralysed by a flood of vulgar and tasteless externals, leaving them no time for leisure, thought, or creation from within themselves. G. K. Chesterton Toronto, 1930

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Podcast of the week

The Chinese classic the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is looonng, but now there is a podcast that will give you the book summarized with background stuff to help your understanding this Chinese classic.

LINK

Soundcloud link

It's also on iTunes.

Surviving the apocalypse in real life

I ran across this essay from a survivor of the war in Bosnia, relating how they survived when their town was blockaded during that terrible war.

While listing what you really need (hygiene stuff, antibiotics and food) he includes Bic lighters:

You must own small, unnoticeable items. For example, a generator is good, but 1,000 BIC lighters are better. A generator will attract attention if there’s any trouble, but 1,000 lighters are compact, cheap and can always be traded....

Yes, but coffee and cigarettes were even more expensive. I had lots of alcohol and traded it without problems. Alcohol consumption grew over 10 times as compared to peacetime. Perhaps today, it’s more useful to keep a stock of cigarettes, lighters and batteries. They take up less space.

In our area, when hit by a typhoon etc. it helped that we lived in a rural area, and could get gasoline for our generator, and that we had our own pump for clean water.

We have crime here, but enough neighbors to keep us safe. Our house is concrete, so survives floods and typhoons, but I worry what would happen if we got hit by an earthquake (we are on a major fault line that last moved in 1990).

 In a real time of chaos, we would probably move to the farm area where we store our rice and also have our own water pump and generator. Water is important because diarrhea is a major cause of death.

One generator runs on gasoline, one runs on diesel, so in case of long term survival, we'd probably rely on alcohol or biodiesel, or go back to the good old days of using wood for fire and palm oil for lamps.

When WWII hit, Lolo's brother was in the militia and took off to the hills, but he and his mom and cousin walked to the farm to hide until things settled down.

Ironically, there are few novels or stories from those times: The elite often cooperated with the Japanese and don't want those times remembered, and my husband's generation is dying off and only talk about it with each other.

But a lot of barter went on, and there were Japanese in this small town: He relates one soldier who the kids loved because he would give them candy, but my husband also related about a suspected "spy" executed in front of his house, and a cousin who was tortured to death to try to find where the local guerrillas were hiding. He also pointed out the house where this occurred: It is know as being haunted, but they use it in films and commercials.

No, we didn't have these problems when I worked in Africa. The local guerrillas would tell us where the mines were when we went to get supplies so we wouldn't be killed; in return, we would "accidentally drop" a box of medical supplies at a designated place along the road.

But the danger usually wasn't from the regular guerrillas, who were trained by the local communists and who tried to keep their people in order: It was the deserters from either side who found a gun could let them live off stealing and who killed or worse because they could.

One reason for a lot of the Africa atrocities are that these groups are not disciplined, but about power.

StrategyPage report on the growing chaos in central Africa.

the four horsemen of the apocalypse are; War famine disease and anarchy.

The problems of war, famine and disease are terrible, but in the case of societal collapse what will make the first three things more lethal is that anarchy part, because anarchy destroy the very essence of how society survives: By trust between strangers, and families who sacrifice to protects the weak.

Backstories behind the news

Diversity is good, right?

Uh, maybe: but actual studies don't back up that widely held assumption.

As a woman who is scientifically oriented, might I suggest that including a woman who thinks like a man might not be diversity; including a radical "feminist" is diversity, but might not help you, since she sees you (and most other women) as the enemy and has an agenda to push her radical views on the company will not help, but including a woman who actually has experience in the real world might indeed help.

where diversity helps is when the group can become a group, with interpersonal relationships and trust.

so why should people object when these fake claims are made?

Uh, maybe because it makes a lot of us with a hard science background suspicious that "social science" is just a way to push a political agenda, more "social" and not really science...

or as the article notes:

First of all, social science myths make a mockery of evidence-based advocacy and policy. 

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News reports on Fukushima affecting health were few.

Corporations and government agencies had disproportionate access to framing the event in the media, Pascale says. Even years after the disaster, government and corporate spokespersons constituted the majority of voices published. 
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-03-news-coverage-fukushima-disaster-health.html#jCp

a lot of US sailors were nearby. And the seafood caught nearby was contaminated.

Yes, which is why you need to read sites like Mom Jones or listen to "conspiracy" radio programs like C2C...

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BEER!

South and Meso American Indians drank beer made from corn before Colombus.

And WesternDigs has the backstory: reconstructing diet via tarter on teeth. Fascinating study: one of several ways to figure out what was eaten in the past.

they note stories that this was used "ritually", but I suspect folks just brewed and drank it in the same way ordinary folks do today...

My (adopted) son relates how his grandmother would brew a batch and the neighbors would come over and drink it while listening to the portable radio (no electricity in their town).

Western Digs webpage includes link to stories of cocoa and other drinks...including a drink that induces vomiting that might indeed be part of a ritual.

I just finished reading a story where a Navajo sing ended by the person going out and vomiting the evil spirit. What is interesting about this is that Derek Prince the Pentecostal preacher mentions that in serious cases of demon oppression, sometimes vomiting the spirit shows you have been delivered.

Psychologically it makes sense. And of course, doctors until recent times purged and induced vomiting as a cure for various diseases.

Wonder if there is a study on the history of vomiting in medicine on the web? Will have to google about it later.

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Do you understand cat? And does your cat understand you?

I understand cat, but I always assumed they understood me but preferred to ignore me.

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Family News

Today would have been Lolo's 91st birthday, so we went to mass and then visited the grave.

The house is almost finished: The "pretty touches" are being placed there now.

The first contracter stopped after the second payment, so I hired one of our workers to finish it. But his estimate was low, so I stopped him when I had run out of the money from my budget. But Joy sold some rice for a profit and is busy supervising him and finishing the gravesite "house"...they are there planting flowering plants now, but I came home.

One advantage in being retired is when you are tired and achy, you don't have to push yourself to work anymore. So I am busy doing nothing. Wonnderful.

Headlines below the fold

StrategyPage: Mexico's highway of Death
The war no one wants to talk about

a lot of information about how the drug gangs are infiltrating the USA.

and for those old enough to remember the "golden triangle, here is a report about Burma China and drugs smuggling.

Except now it includes Meth.

the dirty little secret is that these drugs require LEGAL chemicals to process: and there are a lot of businesses who will sell it to them. Ditto for money laundering.

Right now, the growing use of drugs is becoming a problem here in the Philippines, and may be one reason that we see Duterte posters all over town.

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Don't look now: UN wants a global tax

A high-level panel of the UN just issued its report that will inform the World Humanitarian Summit this May in Istanbul.
A global tax for the benefit of the UN was a part of their agenda.

they'll use it tpo push population control and abortion in the name of "sustainability".

Being the UN, of course, there is no democratic input on how they use it, and of course, they are not open to outside regulation.

I figure they will use it to put into the pockets of the crooked UN officials, or to give to local officials to use for "projects" (while skimming off 20 percent user fees).

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from the UKMail:
Do protective helmets actually protect the head?
actually it is a good discussion of the problems of head protection in sports.

for the military, indirect trauma from explosions is a major problem, but you also need bullet and other protection while being comfortable and not too restrictive to vision. StrategyPage discusses it HERE. (a bit technical).

one problem is fitting well: could 3D printed helmets work better?

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Aggh! the Mark of the Beast is Here

when I say Mark of the Beast, I mean that...

Literally:

The UK plans to make it mandatory to microchip ALL DOGS

only costs 30 British pounds per microchip...for the estimated 9 million dogs living in the UK..
They are pushing to because of 100 thousand lost or abandoned dogs cost the gov't money.

Well, 30 time 9 million means 270 million UKpounds spent on the project. or 370+ million dollars to save 100 thousand lost dogs.

add to the cost: the experts tell you using "nicey nice" language that makes it sound soo good for everyone involved.

Your dog will be lost without a chip!

Having your pet microchipped is one of the best ways to increase your pet’s chances of getting home. Unlike dog tags and collars, which can fall off or be removed, microchipping is a more permanent form of identifying your dog. But don’t forget the law says all dogs must wear a collar and tag, with their owners name, address and telephone number on it.

sounds so good until you realize: You will be fined 500 pounds if you don't.

so far most have indeed done so, but 1.5 million people have not.
So who is going to go around and check all the dogs? The local officials and the local police.

And most of the newspapers just mouth off the Orwellian language,
So what could go wrong?
WideshutCo. points out it won't stop dangerous dogs, but is a major breach of privacy

With seemingly everyone but the government agreeing that microchipping is not the answer, one has to wonder who they are representing and whether there’s an ulterior motive.

Is it simply another veiled addition to the surveillance state?

One extra database to keep track of everyone?

Or is it perhaps a stealth tax during a time of austerity? 

uh, do you really want all that personal information on a database where it might be hacked by any teenager?

I mean, if they hackers can get hold of my personnel file from the federal government, what is to keep them from getting personal information from here?

And all the reasons they insist are really really necessary to protect your dog are the same reason they will soon insist your medical information or your credit information should be similarly on a microchip.

I told my stepson that doing this on people would cost too much, but given this insanity it looks like the dogs are a test project if people will comply and the chips can be used for people.

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Reality is...part two

Reality sucks. Podcast about Hobbs.

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doctors ignore science pretend the patient will do fine.

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the curse of the high IQ.
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 Feminist science gibberish.

Glaciers, gender, and science: A feminist glaciology framework for global environmental change research

 headsup Driscoll at instapundit

Give the guy a break: This is actually supposed to be how glacial changes affect South Americans, which is valid if you know how various cultures such as the Moche (400 AD) there were destroyed by climate factors....the guy's expertise is history of science and how science affects culture: fair enough.

the real problem:  locals might not think the same way that feminist academics do, so his analysis is biased or worse than useless.


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an example of how feminist theology doesn't echo local beliefs can be found in this sad article, where modern Argentinian women were killed because they put themselves into danger by not understanding local culture or the reality of going home with men who are drunk.

Ah but if you point out their stupidity, you are blamed on the twittersphere...Women have a right to be safe they insist. True. But going home drunk/high with strangers who are also drunk/high is ignoring reality....sort of like the tourist killed who just wanted to take a selfie with a tiger: ignoring reality is not a smart thing to do.

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related item:

Why is McDonalds pushing the gay agenda in Taiwan

there is a local opposition but the gay rights groups of course just blames the bigotry of local Christians.... In a country with 4% Christians...

Presumably this will be blamed on Jesus too:

China is pushing back on such propaganda on their TV shows. But one must admit they also censor showing religious rituals and other subversive ideas on their TV.

nor is the American decadence being accepted in trinidad: A nude selfie by a female gymnast is upsetting locals who don't think she should represent her country in the Olympics. The title says body policing and identity politics, but it is actually about local standards of decency.

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a lot of this is pushing the individualism of the powerful.

Women are now petitioning the Supreme court that they if they didn't abort their baby, they couldn't have their careers.

So what is next? LINK

Reality is ...(depends what the meaning of IS is)

Astronomy cast has two podcasts about philosophy:

There the things we know, the things we don’t know, and the things we can’t know. How do we know which one is when when we’re deciding to fund research and direct our scientific inquiry. Download the show [MP3]

Last week we talked about knowledge, what we do and don’t know. This week we talk about questions which are impossible to ask, where the answers don’t actually exist. Download the show [MP3]

and, of course, there are things we don't know we don't know.

When people talk about the problem of religion and science, they are using a straw man argument, since the assumption that reality is real and man is able to understand it is a Christian assumption of reality.

So all those "think this and you get rich" or "let's evolve to a higher power" type stuff is magical thinking, or compatible with eastern religions where reality is not real. The difference, of course, is that in Eastern religions, you try to find the reality behind the illusion, and in the new age, you try to manipulate the illusion to get power.

See JP2 

or watch this course.

Want to live simply? Bah humbug

Most "green" imagination of the old fashioned life is by them looking at a poor village and seeing these nice people who seem happy.
Or else we see survivalist type stuff on what to do when society collapses (mostly get a gun).

Well, to see how people lived, try reading things by those a bit closer to those wonderful times.

Librivox: home life in Colonial Times.

Turf houses anyone?

The back to the land isn't a new impulse.

An oldie but goodie: The Egg and I.

The movie is here, but I can't view it here in the Philippines, so you will have to check it out if it works.

but the computer read of the book can be found HERE.




she also has a book The Plague and I, about her stint with tuberculosis. Luckily, she managed to get into a sanitarium and was cured.

yes, disease is also one of the side effects of living the primitive lifestyle.

Dr Thomas Rea, thalidomide, and Armadillos

Doctor Thomas Rea, a dermatologist who ran a clinic for Hansen's disease (leprosy) in California has died.

LATIMES: Dr. Thomas Rea, a dermatologist whose discoveries led to treatments that allowed patients with Hansen's disease - leprosy - to live without stigma, has died. He was 86. (Richard Dominguez)

 he worked to investigate the connection between the immune system and this disease.

One of the ways he did this was promoting the use of thalidomide to treat the painful and deforming aspects disease.

Some of us are old enough to remember the epidemic of malformed babies (lacking arms and legs) in Europe because docs used this medicine for the nausea of morning sickness.

Thanks to one stubborn lady doctor, Dr Frances Kelsey, working for the FDA,  it was never approved in the USA, but this epidemic was one of the reasons touted for the need to change the abortion laws back then.

Yet the medicine has limited uses because of it's use in treating painful Leprosy nodules, and also some cancers.

why does it work? From Everyday Health Site

Thalidomide is a type of drug called an immunomodulator. This means it works by altering the immune system or the body's ability to fight disease.
How it works in myeloma treatment is still being studied.
This is what the studies have shown so far:

Thalidomide blocks the flow of blood to tumor cells.
Thalidomide interferes with the growth of tumor cells in the bone marrow.
Thalidomide stimulates the immune system to attack tumor cells.

that part about blocking the growth of new blood vessels is why it helps those painful nodules and neurological problems in Leprosy, but it also is the reason that we see the limb defects in babies: it blocked new blood vessels needed in early pregnancy to supply blood to the limb buds.

I had a patient on it for his multiple myeloma, and he and his wife were required to sign lots of papers saying she would not get pregnant and that they would keep the medicine locked up.

this WAPO article is about it's use in cancer, and other diseases such as "graft vs host" problems after transplants.

Alas, in third world countries, regulation is not quite so good, so there are still a few babies born of moms taking the medicine every year.

related article: Leprosy in Medieval Europe

for medical historians, the interesting thing was that Leprosy was common in medieval Europe, but then disappeared (some think the Black Death plague killed most people due to their weakened immune system)...but one side effect was that most Europeans have inborn immunity to the disease.

and one factoid about the disease: the germ is impossible to grown in ordinary lab animals, except the foodpad of some mice--- and in the lowly armadillo, which are now used for lab experiments in the disease.

which leads us to this NYTimes article, that informs you that one third of all cases of leprosy in the US caught it from armadillos, and vice versa:

Some studies have shown that as many as 20 percent of armadillos in some areas are infected with leprosy.

WTF: armadillo?

http://news.discovery.com/human/armadillo-culprit-for-leprosy-cases-in-southern-united-states-110427.htm

Armadillos are often used in the study of leprosy, since they, along with mangabey monkeys, rabbits and mice (on their footpads), are among the few known species that can contract the disease systemically. They are particularly susceptible due to their unusually low body temperature, which is hospitable to the leprosy bacterium,Mycobacterium leprae. (The leprosy bacterium is difficult to culture and armadillos have a body temperature of 34 °C (93 °F), similar to human skin.) Humans can acquire a leprosy infection from armadillos by handling them or consuming armadillo meat.^[14] Armadillos are a presumedvector and natural reservoir for the disease in Texas and Louisiana.

In Texas and the Southern USA, the most common place to see armadillos is dead in the middle of the road, leading to this variation of the common joke::

the question no one is asking

A couple of media columns about Trump saying he would use torture and bomb the families of terrorists...one military person said that he wouldn't obey such an order, so there are questions if the military would obey Trump in any orders.

Really?

How about this question:

Would you torture a captured terrorist about details of the plan to car bomb the Pope to save his life and the lives of hundreds of civilians who would be nearby?

as for targeted killing vs "collateral damage", Rev Sensing remembers when FDR and Churchill did just that...

Now, I have another question.

maybe, given what is going on in Canada, we should ask instead:

If the President (actually the Supreme court) tells you you have to kill your patients, would you obey?

Been there done that... I was failed in medical school for refusing to cooperate with abortions (reversed on appeal) and many nurses were coerced and "reeducated" to help.

Nowadays, our beloved President Obama has made a law mandating cooperation with things considered immoral by many Christians.


Christian cake makers, the Little Sisters of the Poor and EWTN are legally being sued for disobedience to the law.

Maybe someone should consider this as an election issue...

Anyone? Anyone?

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related link: Rappler on the plot to kill JP2, the threats against Pope Francis when he visited here, the "philippine connection" of many of these terrorists (not to mention the OKC bomber) and notes the internet recruiting of "lone wolf" terrorists.

includes this quote:

Let’s be clear. This is not about religion. Former Philippine immigration commissioner Andrea Domingo told me: “Their goal is world dominion, and they are using religion as the battle cry.”
What Pakistan’s former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, told me decades before her death formed my paradigm for analyzing al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden: “He was able to tap different youths in different regions on different issues by pegging it all as a war between Islam and the West, but in fact, he was damaging the regional conflicts for his own agenda, which was to topple important Muslim countries and seize power for himself.”

stuff below the fold

Uncle Orson dumps on Drumpf..

unlike most of the exaggerations and talking point triades I am scanning on the internet, it actually it is quite a thoughtful essay...

It brings up the Constitution, the oligarchy in ancient Athens, the time when the US banned scary religious zealots from immigrating, and William Jennings Bryant...to put the Trumpette phenomenum into context.

Yes, Trump is very very scary. Read the whole thing and think about it.

Tolkien and the lost king

what does Bonnie Prince Charlie have in common with Aragorn?

a long essay bookmarked for later reading.

In the struggle between Tradition and Modernity, three famous monarchs lost their lives: Charles I, Louis XVI, and Nicholas II. While the first and last were not officially Catholics, they were at least culturally so. ...Each owed their deaths to two items: a desire to uphold the Traditional constitution of Church and State in their respective realms, and a personal weakness or flaw which reduced their effectiveness in so doing. They also shared heroic deaths which, to great degree, redeemed their mistakes in the eyes of many of their subjects.

Just like Braveheart revived the story of a lost Scootland,  will the Outlander cycle remind people about Bonnie Prince Charlie?

As Robert Burns observed:
The Church is in ruins, the State is in jars,delusions, oppressions, and murderous wars.We dare nae well say it, but we ken wha's to blame,There'll never be peace 'till Jamie comes hame. As it became apparent that Jamie would not come home, nor would Don Carlos, nor Dom Miguel, nor the Comte de Chambord, many looked for less regal saviours. From such desires emerged (and emerge) such men as Franco, Pilsudski, and many of the better Latin American Caudillos. In a sense, this Catholic political messianism is even present in the careers of such diverse figures as Kennedy and Castro.
Aragorn succeeds where Bonnie Prince Charlie and the others failed. Instead of the field of Culloden's defeat and mourning, we have the field of Cormallen's victory and rejoicing. In Middle Earth, the "good old cause" triumphs. The Dunedain, so like the Jacobites, Carlists, and Legitimists for most of their history, gain at last the victory.

headsup TeaAtTrianon

I'll have to think about this...but this impulse may be behind the revolt of the Trumpettes in the USA.

Be Afraid. Be very Afraid

Canada's supreme court okayed euthanasia by fiat, supposedly for hard cases.

But the actual law now proposed will allow suicide on demand for all sorts of people, depressed, disabled, or just tired and lonely, including children, and hey, doctors and nurses will be forced to kill patients by law...

Question to the Trumpettes and Clintonites:

Will you stop the US Supreme court from making laws by fiat?

If not, why not?

The problem: like abortion, many cases will occur as the "first" option of treatment, and often the patient will mention it and whoosh, everyone joins the chorus yes yes yes, when maybe they want someone to say: Don't worry. You are not a burden, or, well, wait and we'll adjust your medicine to help you feel better.

And remember: Ten percent of people are sociopaths, and alas this includes doctors...Once the taboo is lifted, some will "just do it" on those they feel need it or those they see as "life unworthy of life".

And if you think "Black lives matter", do you think that minorities who already fight medical discrimination and snobbish doctors who look down on them will be protected from being "offed" out of "compassion"?

Stuff around the web

the Library of Congress has a talk from a film maker whose latest documentary is about the ancient church of Ethiopia.

Spotlight? Nah, it wasn't just Boston

blog post about the indictment of the SOB bishop of Altoona removed: I googled around and found not only was this common knowledge when I lived there in the 1990's but that the local newspaper did  quite a few exposes on it in 2002.

After checking why this was finally discovered now, I suspect the backstory is that the attorney general behind this headline seems to be digging up 20 year old dirt to save her political career, not to amend things...,

I mean, yes I am happy about this: But the news was well known 15 years ago.

What is the backstory is cronyism in Pennsylvania politics. Not just the bishop, but a lot of crooked judges and politicians (not to mention the Sandusky affair) got away with a lot of stuff back then.


Much of the stuff about the bishop's promotion of gays in his fiefdom, the fact that he bribed someone to become bishop, and reign of terror against his pious redneck flock is still on my other blog, if you want to see stuff.

Podcast of the week

There is an Ottoman history podcast that tells stories from a Turkish perspective. Most are about history but some have cultural aspects too.

This week's episode: How a volcano in Iceland affected the Ottoman empire.

During the late eighteenth century, a series of volcanic eruptions at a site called Laki in Iceland created climatic effects that spanned the entire globe.
In this episode, Alan Mikhail shares his research on the impacts of these eruptions on the agrarian economy of Ottoman Egypt through an explanation of the localized climatic and environmental effects of Laki on the Nile River.
We discuss how climatic events shape or accelerate historical processes and explore how climate history can serve as a means of thinking about unseen connections between different world regions.

Censorship hits Harry Potter's mum

The BBC reports there is a move to prosecute "fake profiles" if you harass someone on the internet.

The Crown Prosecution Service says adults should be charged if they use fake social media IDs to harass others. 

Cases would also follow if posts were indecent, grossly offensive or so false they caused distress and anxiety. 

Ah, but that is a subjective feeling, not a fact. Libel is a fact. Threats are facts. Causing anxiety to a snowflake SJW is easy: Just tell them they are wrong.

 "It is vital that prosecutors consider the bigger picture when looking at evidence and examine both the online and offline behaviour pattern of the defendant," said the director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders. 

so they will have the cops investigate your behavior? What behavior pattern do they mean? Checking if a person goes around blowing up mosques and not just tweeting threats, or will they interview those around you if you ever told a dirty joke about a female/black/sexual minority politician?


Also from the BBC:

HarryPotter author once thanked someone for helping a charity, so she is being accused of bigotry.

And she is not pleased at this accusation, which is not a joke or a satire but borders on being a libelous charge. (and remember, the UK has a strict libel law).

K Rowling has suggested she may sue for defamation after an MP accused the Harry Potter author of defending "abusive misogynist trolls" on Twitter.

the item involved is that Ms Rowling thanked ione jokster/political satirist guy for helping raise money for a children's charity.

But never mind: In the SJW universe, one bad quote is able to destroy anyone.

Ms McGarry had initially tweeted: "W.ow @jk_rowling vanity searches her name & then defends abusive misogynist trolls. Almost makes me regret queuing for books."
Ms Rowling, who was a high-profile supporter of Scotland remaining in the UK during the independence referendum, replied that she would "love an explanation of this accusation".
She later tweeted: "You are a politician making a public accusation. Show me where I have defended abusive, misogynist trolling."
The Brian Spanner account is one of the 281 followed on Twitter by Ms Rowling, who has more than 6.6 million followers.
The account is regularly used to post abusive comments about SNP politicians.

 if you actually go to the account, he is not being abusive, he is ridiculing them...doing a bad imitation of Perez or Bill.

what this is doing is silencing the political opposition by calling anyone who agrees with them a bigot.

Uh, sort of like the @freestacy kerfuffle?

Mourning the murder of the most helpless

 March 1st, is the 2016 Disability Day of Mourning – a day for disability communities, organizations, and groups around the country to gather and cherish the memories of those who we have lost to senselessness violence

NotDeadYet, a disability rights organization notes that in the last 5 years, 180 disable people have been murdered.
These acts are horrific enough on their own. But they exist in the context of a larger pattern. A parent kills their disabled child. The media portrays these murders as justifiable and inevitable due to the “burden” of having a disabled person in the family. If the parent stands trial, they are given sympathy and  comparatively lighter sentences, if they are sentenced at all. The victim is disregarded, blamed for their own murder at the hands of the person they should have been able to trust the most, and ultimately forgotten. And then the cycle repeats.
Today, we gather, and speak the names of those taken from us. 

Expect more propaganda in the media promoting death as the answer to sickness, aging, and disability.

It will be promoted in the name of "choice" (never mind that others pressure the person to that choice, in the same way abortion is often done under coercion).

Indeed, most of the cases of elderly euthanasia are propaganda, often by folks who are following a fad (similar to teenagers who kill themselves after there has been a suicide in their high school).

Ironically, the three patients I had who requested suicide/death from me all suffered from the same medical problem: Hyponatremia.

All lived once we got their electrolyte imbalance normalized they changed their mind.

Often the proud bring up the suicide of the samurai \ or Roman stoic, ignoring that in these societies, slaves and unwanted babies were routinely killed.

as for the caretakers: The answer is getting others to help, which is mainly done by family, churches and neighbors, and sometimes by social policies that fund caregivers.

but the dirty little secret is that getting rid of the expensive useless eaters is cost effective in a society where money, power, and self sufficiency are god.

Pope Francis is going around warning the west about this, but of course these pronouncements don't get much coverage in the news

Pope Francis  also quoted from Misericordiae Vultus, the Bull of Indiction announcing the Year of Mercy, which urges people to be close to those who are suffering “so they can feel the warmth of our presence, our friendship and our fraternity.”
Pope Francis thanked the volunteers of the association for their sixty years of performing “works of Christian mercy”, noting “we will be judged” on the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, because in “each of these ‘smallest ones’, Christ himself is present.”

a reminder:  40 million Americans are caregivers who sacrifice time, money, and often quit their job or cut back their working hours to do so.

Psst: Anyone talking about the persecution of Christians?

StrategyPage has a long summary.

and why don't you hear about it?

 Christians in countries with Moslem majorities, or large minorities, are having a difficult time getting the rest of the world to recognize that most (as in about 80 percent) of the religious violence (not counting Islamic terrorism) in the world is carried out against Christians and most of the violence is committed by Moslems. This is because the Islamic world, while unable to do much in terms of economic, scientific, or cultural progress, or even govern themselves effectively, have proven quite adept at convincing leaders and media organizations in the West that Islam is not the aggressor and is actually the victim. 

read the whole thing.

Sigh SuperTuesday Uggh

The bad news: Trump won quite a few states on Supertuesday.
The Good news: Cruz got Texas and Rubio got Minnesota.
Huh? There are Republicans in Minnesota?

Via Instapundit, they quote the WaPo

So far, Trump wins open primaries and Cruz wins closed … and the calendar is starting to change toward more closed primaries

they attribute this to Democrats voting in open primaries, and are happy because they think that it means Democrats are trying to diss the Republicans to pick a losing candidate.

The article then rejoices figuring Cruz will win since most of the primaries that are to come are "closed" and allow only Republicans to vote, and Cruz, the darling of the day, will win. They hopefully point out that this might mean that Trump isn't necessarily winning the Republican "base" and even call this problem his "achilles heel".

I read it differently (as does Politico).
Trump is winning the Reagan Democrats.

And that is bad news for Hillary.

in the meanwhile, the press is pushing the meme that Trump didn't refuse David Duke's support and hasn't condemned the KKK fast enough.

The problem: Duke denies supporting Trump. And no one in his right mind thinks Trump supports the KKK... it is merely another "gotcha" tactic by a press trying to stop him, or help the Democrats in their talking point that he hasn't condemned them enough.

In the meanwhile, crime, economic problems, Obama essentially has opened the border, Russia is bombing Sunnis in Syria, Iran had an election, and China's aggression against the Philippines continues, the EU is falling apart, and no one seems to worry about this or ask the candidates what they would do.

Hillary has some expertise in this but you wouldn't know it...

If the Donald gets in, Europe will have a conniption fit. But then, I remember their conniption fit when Reagan got in too.

In the meanwhile, we are facing elections in the Philippines, and locals have Duterte stickers up. He is Marcos lite, promising strong arm tactics to rid the country of corruption and crime.

the bad news: he is soft on China and might stop the US from getting bases back, because Obama is ignoring the Chinese excursions to steal our traditional fishing areas. So he might let China "help us" develop the gas resources if they stop their incursions.

in the meanwhile Binay is insisting he used to be poor so vote for him and you too can be rich.

The Binay ad is also consistent with the Vice President's long-standing message that what he has already done in Makati, where he was mayor for 21 years, is what other politicians are only starting to promise to the voters.
Things are currently looking bright for Binay, who topped the latest Pulse Asia survey at 33% despite a string of corruption chargesand allegations of unexplained wealth. – Rappler.com

Is Madonna being edgy, or just a bad Mel Brooks imitation?

Madonna's "edgy" concert is nothing more than mocking what is good to appear "Hip".

But this part isn't exactly original

from the ManBul article

2. Dancers wearing what looked like a nun’s headdress paired with bra tops and panties came out to do some pole dancing. It may be well-choreographed but it was somewhat disturbing.

you mean, like THIS?

or watch and fast forward to 6.00 minutes:



the first is deliberate blasphemy to earn money, by an overaged female singer.....because the dirty little secret is that right now, religious bigotry against people of faith is "in".

in contrast, the second is just Mel destroying bigotry and anti Semitism in the way he knows best: Ridicule. And he ridicules everyone...

Headlines below the fold

While you were watching the hyperventillating talking heads on superTuesday, other stuff was going on.

StrategyPage has a report on Iran's election, what it means, and about the Saudi/Iran fight proxy fight in Yemen.

The EU and US are not the only ones where the hoi polloi is restless.

 Preliminary results of the February 26 national elections indicates that the reformers did much better, more than tripling representation in parliament from about ten percent to at least a third. Unlike 2012 the ruling clerics did not try to rig the voting. There were two main reasons for that. First, many hardliners have become pro-reform. Second the ruling clerics know they are in trouble. 

hmm...seems like the clerics not only pulled back from stealing this election after the demonstrations from the last one....and they are in trouble because they got rich from corruption while punishing women if their chadors are too lose...

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BBC: China punishes those behind a huge investment scam.

MBulletin reports China's manufacturing is not expanding.
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also BBC: Barclay's bank is pulling out of Africa.

complicated, but a lot of it is about the fall in worth of the South African Rand.

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The Pakistani lady who won her second Oscar...
for a short film about honor killing and forgiveness.

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stem cells from the patient's bone marrow restore retina and some sight.


I assumed the "controversial" part of the headline was about using fetal cells, but here like in most successful stem cell treatments, ethical stem cellswere used...the controvery was about bypassing the paper work and preliminary experiments to just treat the patients.the problem: because of the lack of basic investigations, they don't know why the treatment worked.

via Instapundit.

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so for the last 19 years the GAO can't make out the books?

 Katie Watson of the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group says GAO just announced – for the 19th consecutive year – that the federal government’s accounting is so bad that it “did not render an opinion on the federal government’s consolidated financial statements.”
Think about that for a moment. 

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The problem with the "two minute hate" on Facebook and Twitter that they impose "groupthink".

And as ABC (Aus) science news points out:  too much groupthink stops innovation.

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how to survive a shooting attack.

Might come in handy here, since election season is a blood sport in our area.

problem? It didn't work for our nephew, who was leaning over one of the victims when he was shot. We debate is he was applying first aid (he was a doctor) or if he was trying to find the guy's gun to shoot back. Sigh.

We have gun control in the Philippines. Most people have an illegal gun hidden in their homes for protection, but you can get jail time if the roaming police roadblocks find you carry one without a hard-to-get permit.

Alas, If our nephew had a close carry permit, he might be alive today, because he took after his father who had been the police chief, and like my husband was a good shot.

No, we don't have a gun in our house: I am a poor shot, and his son is a Christian who refuses to break the law. But until his stroke, my husband kept a handgun and his old World War II machine gun in the closet.

My husband always carried a legal hand gun in his car when we lived in the USA because he carried morphine with him for housecalls and emergencies... and even back then there were a lot of druggies around.

I am starting to see soldiers around town wearing a new uniform, a pixelated grey urban warfare pattern.

In the past, the military wore the "brushstroke" dark green pattern, for jungle warfare (against the local NPA).

more on Filipino uniforms HERE and Here

and if you see the old BDU pattern, it's probably civilians since used clothing is sold all over the place here, and usually better quality than the new shoddy stuff from China.

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Madonna's concert is making even hip Pinoys feel uncomfortable, and here's why.

and she couldn't even start the concert on time.

Nothing like ridiculing her audience to make her popular (/s)

in contrast, LadyGaga put out an album with Tony Bennett...

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AnneAlthouse reports the oh so politically biased BMJ now published an article that criticizes western countries that ban female circumcision.

what is being ignored: the mild "nick" which is sometimes done in Indonesia and Malaysia, is not what is being discussed.

THIS is what they are talking about.Diagram here.

This form is more common in the Middle East and North Africa.and is indeed a form of mutilation to stop women from enjoying sex, not to mention making childbirth more dangerous.

From a medical point of view, it should be abolished. And the UN's WHO has been trying to do this.

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Before there were Trumpettes, there was the KnowNothing party. from First Things.

or is it a revolt of the working class, who see their families decimated by their jobs sent overseas in trade deals and cultural leaders whose anti-traditional family policies are destroying the social fabric?

Rod Dreher expanded on Domenech’s comments, noting that after the SCOTUS Obergefell decision, Christians understand that “the deck is stacked against them.”  Many of them believe that the only thing standing between them and “liberal authoritarianism” may be “a combative SOB who doesn’t care what Enlightened Opinion thinks of him.”

headsupVia TeaAtTrianon

on the other hand, that part in the article

...As the country is transformed by immigration, including by non-Christians, a significant number of them hostile to our faith....

Reality check: Most immigrants are Christian, (Mexico is a "catholic" majority country) nor is being a "non Christian" necessarily mean they are hostile to "American" values (Buddhist Koreans and secular Chinese have a lot in common with the Republican party,  many Arabs in the US are Christian, and many of the "Muslim" immigrants who are not refugees are secular and educated) .

Since, as the proverb says, "only Nixon can go to China", it is probable that Trump will allow working illegal immigrants a way to stay, while deporting the others, screening "refugees" a bit closer, and making sure the borders are strengthened. And others think so too....

If his policies allow more job creation, there will be enough jobs for all.

Maybe Hillary should take her husband's advice: It's the economy, stupid.

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How would Trump manage the Presidency?

Lots of smoke and mirrors and mudthrowing out there, but the UK Mail has an insider look on how Trump the businessman might manage the presidency.
'The guy is fairer than hell,' says Gary J. Giulietti, a Trump friend who handles a portion of his insurance as president of Lockton Cos., the largest privately held insurance brokerage company in the world. 'He wants the best for his properties, he wants a competitive price. But he treats everyone with respect. Whenever he has to honor anything, he does. Even if he disagrees, he will compromise. 'He'll fight you like a dog when he's negotiating, but when you make a deal, he'll find a way to make you his friend to work with you.'Giulietti, who belongs to both Mar-a-Lago and the Trump International Golf Course in nearby West Palm Beach, has found that Trump surrounds himself with the best people.'He gets their advice and comes to the best conclusion that he thinks is the right decision,' Giulietti says. 'He hires and promotes every ethnic group in the world. If you look at his clubs, Hispanics are the ones largely running them, and they love Donald Trump.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3464605/If-want-know-Donald-Trump-run-White-House-look-operates-Mar-Lago.html#ixzz41d7SJflr Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

my comment? Reminds me of the NYC version of that good old boy LBJ, a crooked politician who liked the ladies, and who the press hated, but managed to get the civil rights bill through congress...

The big kerfuffle about the "christian evangelicals" backing a divorced man etc. ignores that for years, their choices have either lost, or the ones they were told supported their issues after election ignored them.

Trump probably will not be pushing their agenda, but hey, at least he knows they exist.

and fyi: His book (or one of them) is on Youtube.



 No, I haven't listened to it. I am a democrat and know most of the time these political books are talking points to be jettisoned after the November election.

but the title is "crippled America"...

Headlines below the fold

Felix Bissextilis!

Father Z notes that this is the old Latin name for the date inserted to correct the calender by Julius Caesar.

In 46 BC, on the advice of the Alexandrian astronomer Sosigenes, G. Iulius Caesar created a calendar system that added one day every four years to make up for the fact that the Earth’s year is slightly more than 365 days. The Earth circle the Sun in slightly more time than it takes for the Earth to rotate 365 times (365.24219). Calendar years with 365 drift from the actual year by about 1 day every 4 years.  After a while the month named after Caesar, July occur during the winter (in the Northern hemisphere).
Caesar’s Julian Calendar was maintained until 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII determined that in his Gregorian Calendar leap days would not occur in years ending in 00, unless the year is divisible by 400.

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Get rid of 100 dollar bills?
I always used a credit card, but my husband used to carry these around and pay for our groceries at Walmart with them, to the surprise of the checkout ladies. When he visited the Philippines, he would carry several thousand dollars in cash with him to give out as gifts to relatives, friends, and the farmers who used to work for his family before land reform. Today, he could be arrested for carrying that much cash.

But GReynolds at USA today notes:

 The United States stopped distributing $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills in 1969. There are now so many ways to pay for things, and eliminating big bills should create few problems.”

Reading this got me to thinking: What is a $100 bill worth now, compared to 1969? According to the U.S. Inflation Calculator online, a $100 bill today has the equivalent purchasing power of $15.49 in 1969 dollars. 

but the real reason to eliminate them is to let the gov't know what we are buying. Because you would have to use a credit card. And those things are easily stolen or counterfeited, so the next step is a "personal identification" number or microchip.

Uh OH:There is a lot of paranoia about embedding microchips as "the mark of the beast" by conservative Christians, but for myself, I would object to it on privacy grounds, since they could be a way to track you.

or as Reynolds notes:

Cash has a lot of virtues. One of them is that it allows people to engage in voluntary transactions without the knowledge or permission of anyone else. Governments call this suspicious, but the rest of us call it something else: Freedom.

Get rid of cash, and we will go back to the old barter system...

or maybe substitute buying gold and jewelry instead of putting money in the bank. True, you can't use a Krugerrand in Walmart, but there will quickly spring up a black market for you to do business, in the same way folks buy drugs or non taxed cigarettes openly in some areas.

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Remember when Bush was ridiculed when he named North Korea as the third member of the Axis of Evil? Well, while you were listening to the political rants, things are going on in Asia:

StrategyPage notes that China is clamping down economically on that country. And the article includes this:

China is also cracking down on North Korean use of Chinese banks. China has long tolerated North Korea using Chinese banks to avoid a growing list of international sanctions. In northeast China, where a lot of this illegal banking takes place, North Korean bank accounts are being emptied. Some of the cash is being switched to accounts owned by locals who have no obvious connection to North Korea. But a lot of the cash is staying cash and despite the risk of theft or getting caught by the Chinese police, North Korea is preparing to use cash transactions despite China now enforcing banking sanctions.

the article also mentions South Korea's new hardline president and that the US is delaying letting them get anti missile system to defend the country about NoKo's missiles: why? to please China.


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Pacman say  says the Bradley fight will be his last one; the board of elections is checking if he is doing it for the free publicity (as his opponant claims) to help him win the next election, but I think he is doing it for money. Like Erap, the public will vote for him no matter what Boy Abunda says.

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Nuns on the Pill? Uh, wait a second

I have been watching the present Pope spread confusion around the world, but the kerfuffle about Paul VI letting nuns "in the Congo" to use contraception is not true.

During the Katanga wars after independence in the early 1960's, quite a few nuns and lay missionaries were raped and I heard once that six actually got pregnant (there was a European film about this, but I don't know it's name).

But the Pope at the time was John XXIII...Paul VI was only the Pope after 1964.

Timeline, anyone?

But what is not being said is that the pill can be used for all sorts of things. So when the pill came out, a lot of Catholic women with heavy or painful or irregular periods were put on it.

This included nuns. It's called the principal of double effect. Your aim is a licit reason to use the pill, and the side effect of not getting pregnant is just that, a side effect.

So when the wars got dangerous in one African country where I worked in the 1970'a, the younger nuns were allowed by the bishop to use the pill if they wished. Some, who could justify their consciences because they had medical problems helped by the pill, did just that. Others did not.

What the bishop should have done is send the nuns home (as I was) because of the danger. And indeed, when the area became dangerous, the hospital was shut down: albeit not before several missions were attacked and people of several faiths and nationalities killed.

So when the Pope uses these few cases of double effect to justify contraception because of a 1 percent risk of microcephaly, and does it in passing, on an airplane, he is causing confusion.

Because it will be used and spun by those with a different agenda.

That is why, although I agree with the Pope, I shudder at his statements that will be spun to promote the modern ethos of free sex, abortion, and (especially in Latin America) population control

Why not just get rid of mosquitoes? (Uh, DDT etc are forbidden by animal rights folks, and the greens hate other pesticides.) In other words, it's  a twofer victory for the culture of death: Save the animals, keep the poor from having babies.

I remember in Michener's book The Source, where the rabbis were asked if the Jewish women forced into prostitution by the Nazis should be divorced. The goyim said it was stupid to even pose the question . But the older Jewish colleague pointed out that the Rabbinical court would discuss the dilemma in detail, cite historical cases, cite the law, and after a nuanced discussion come to the same conclusion. But because the discussion was nuanced it would persuade everyone, whereas a fiat would not.

And that is the problem with Pope Francis: His "fiat by airplane talks" are not nuanced, and then they are spun by the press, often compressed into talking points that go along with the agenda of the elite opinion-meisters.

So although I usually back the Pope, the fact that he sows confusion tis a bad sign.

As for "the nuns" given permission to use the pill "by Paul VI" in "the Congo"?

Reality check: Yes and no.

I wasn't in the Congo back then, but when our area erupted in a nasty civil war, indeed, quite a few nuns and women missionaries (from other churches) were raped but afterward, they were killed.

The real question is: Why did the church allow the nuns to stay at undefended missions in the middle of a war zone? (to save people's lives, of course).

What should have been the answer? Well, a lot of the Protestant pastors sent the women and children home, and they themselves went around with a shot gun or an Uzi. Attending a medical conference on rural health back then was like living in Dodge City, with the guns checked at the door...

Would a Christian kill? Uh, self defense, anyone?

Indeed, as Father Z points out, we can follow the example of St Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother, the patron saint of gun enthusiasts, who scared off some insurgents who were raping and pillaging his town by grabbing one of their guns,  shooting a passing lizard to prove he knew how to use it and telling the bad guys to leave.

That might have worked for us, if we could have gotten hold of a shot gun or two.

Our hospital had only had only two people who could shoot: My mother, who grew up with brothers and won a sharpshooting medal in her high school rifle club, and old Sister Ambuya, who as a farm girl in World War I learned to use a shot gun to keep off vermin and thieves at a time when no men were around.

we figured we were toast, but as I said, we lay women were sent home, and when things got really dangerous, the hospital was shut down except for a small number of local nurses who ran a small outpatient clinic and who could flee and blend in with the locals  in case of attack.

So my answer is: Praise God and pass the ammunition, as that old song goes.

Psst Iran is having an election...pass it on...

here is the AFP article via one of our local papers.

If voters support the pro-Rouhani list, a coalition of moderate and reformist candidates, the president could swing the balance of power in parliament, creating an opening for social and political reforms on which he has so far been blocked by lawmakers.
 But a one-week official campaign for the parliamentary election has been largely overshadowed by controversies over who was allowed to run for office.

Yes they are a democracy...but you can only get on the ballot if the Mullahs approve, and that eliminates half of those who tried to get on the list.