“Modern philosophy is full of all sorts of absurd theories about the illusory nature of existence and the unreliability of everything we know to be true. But the boots on the ground, living, breathing, day to day philosophy of even the most angst-ridden German nihilist or the most wild-eyed French existentialist has to be common sense realism. Even German and French philosophers must eat, sleep and conduct themselves in civil society.
There’s great consolation in the reliability of the law of gravity and the fact that it means something specific to me or anyone else when you say dog, cat, house, person, good, true and beautiful. But the last three of those words; good, true and beautiful, and maybe even person, do enjoin some philosophical reflection. They are the basis for making sense of right and wrong, obligation, prohibition and so on. Philosophy isn’t just a waste of time.
Catholicism is deeply philosophical and also deeply mystical and of late the mysticism of the Catholic world view has been confronting me with great force, and confronting the minimalist common sense realism I had more or less taken for granted.
Our parish and a number of Catholic churches I’ve been to recently have begun saying the St. Michael prayer after Mass. It is a breathtaking departure from the modern psychological deconstruction through which I have made sense of my own mental states and those of others. Pride, envy, sloth, greed, lust, gluttony and wrath are not merely maladjustments, but rather they are the snares of a spiritual being who seeks the ruin of souls. They are our weaknesses within our wounded souls, but they are also passions from outside of us, which act upon us, against which we must not be passive, or we will be swept away.”
READ MORE via The Return of the Prayer to St. Michael – Crisis Magazine.
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“Its report on enhanced-interrogation techniques amounts to intelligence birtherism.”
By Tom Rogan via Senate Democrats Purge the Record | National Review Online.
“Senator Dianne Feinstein and the Democrats of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence have released their summary report into the Bush-era CIA detention/interrogation program. While senior Democrats have little credibility on this issue — consider Nancy Pelosi, who has consistently misrepresented her CIA briefings — today they proudly claimed the mantle of honest objectivity.
The summary makes four key claims:
The CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” were not effective.
The CIA provided extensive inaccurate information about the operation of the program and its effectiveness to policymakers and the public.
The CIA’s management of the program was inadequate and deeply flawed.
The CIA program was far more brutal than it represented to policymakers and the American public.
The product of selective half-truths and deliberate deception, these claims are ludicrous, because the CIA’s enhanced-interrogation techniques (EITs) were manifestly successful.
Breaking key figures in al-Qaeda’s international network, the EITs afforded America a unique window into al-Qaeda’s network structure, operational methodology, and strategic intent, as any honest examination of the record will show.
While the report claims that the CIA acted far more aggressively than represented by its officials, the simple fact is that the EITs were not designed to be pleasant. Moreover, as former CIA deputy director Jose Rodriguez outlined last Friday, Democrats knew about and supported the EITs.
They were right to do so, for the program was designed to defeat al-Qaeda training manuals. Those manuals inculcated AQ officers with the belief that U.S. interrogators would attempt to trick and manipulate them but would not apply measured physical or psychological force. And by applying the EITs, CIA interrogators were able to wrest control over their subjects and gain crucial intelligence.
The Senate Intelligence Committee report also argues that CIA management failed to supervise the program and brief government officials. But this requires the suspension of reality. First, just last week, former president George W. Bush again insisted that he was kept fully informed by the CIA.
The committee’s claim is also weakened by its assumption that the CIA’s inherently bureaucratic nature was impossibly suspended. After all, were the report to reflect reality, it would mean that successive CIA leaders, mid-level management officials, and operations officers engaged in a collective multi-year conspiracy of lies, for absolutely no reason. Aware that Beltway politics are radioactive, CIA officials are obsessed with limiting their institution’s vulnerability to political blowback. And so, when it came to the EITs, officials would have known that the program’s inherently controversial nature induced major political liabilities. But that they nevertheless decided to continue the program even with those risks speaks to a basic, undeniable truth.
A large number of officials were convinced that the program was necessary and was generating irreplaceable results. And it was. Responding to the committee report, the CIA notes that EITs led to critical intelligence. Cross-referenced with other sources, the following CIA assertions, I am confident, are true. Read more via Senate Democrats Purge the Record | National Review Online.
“He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of David his father: and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. And of his kingdom there shall be no end.”
Luke 1:32-33
It is wonderful to notice in the prophecies of the Old Testament how, from the time of David onward, they settle down more and more upon the House of David. This at least was to be one sure sign; and so much had it become an essential part of the Messiah, that those who in His lifetime wished to proclaim their acceptance of His miracles and teaching called Him at once the “Son of David.” The Angel alluded to it at the first announcement; Zachary proclaimed it at the Benedictus; “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me,” cried the beggar on the roadside; the enthusiastic crowd on Palm Sunday shouted: “Hosanna to the Son of David”; even Our Lord Himself, when facing His enemies, used this belief of theirs for their confusion.
“And the Pharisees being gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying: ‘What think you of Christ? Whose Son is He? They say to Him: ‘David’s.’ He saith to them: How then doth David in spirit call Him ‘Lord’, saying: ‘The Lord said to My Lord, sit on My right hand, until I make Thy enemies Thy footstool?’ If David then calls Him Lord, how is He his Son? And no man was able to answer Him a word: neither durst any man from that day forth ask Him any further questions” (Matthew 22:41-46).
2. The genealogy of Our Lord from David, in that imperfect-perfect manner recognized by the Jews, has been preserved to us. When we look at the line we are struck with many things. David himself was a great saint, but also a great sinner, and Our Lord came from that union which had followed on David’s great sin. Moreover, she that had been the wife of Uriah was not even a Jew. So we can follow down the line of His ancestors and notice that there were others of their kind; that though Our Lord provided for Himself a spotless Mother, He by no means provided spotless forefathers. In this, as in many other ways, “He became like to man”; though in Him sin was not, yet so near did He suffer Himself to be allied to it.
3. Again, though the House of David was not suffered to perish, still it was suffered to be buried for centuries in obscurity; for centuries, too, it was a house divided against itself, and only in its undercurrents did the stream flow on. Kings were born of it, and slew each other, and their families were blotted out; while unknown members carried on the line in hidden places, little suspecting in their obscurity that their lives and the families they reared around them were the most precious, the most significant in all the world. This is to look at life along the plane of God. From the next world how differently will perspectives appear!
“The base things of the world, and the things that are contemptible, hath God chosen, and things that are not, that He may bring to nought things that are : that no flesh should glory in His sight” (1 Corinthians 1:28-29).
Pope Francis denied that he removed Cardinal Burke as the leader of the Vatican’s highest court and appointed him to a ceremonial position because the cardinal raised concerns about the pope’s leadership.
He said Cardinal Burke expressed gratitude when offered to become chaplain of the Knights of Malta, a charity group.
“We needed a smart American who would know how to get around and I thought of him for that position. I suggested this to him long before the synod.… He thanked me in very good terms and accepted my offer. I even think he liked it because he is a man who gets around a lot. He does a lot of travelling and would surely be busy there. It is therefore not true that I removed him because of how he had behaved in the synod,” he told the Argentinian paper.
At another point during the interview, he revealed he is planning to visit three Latin American countries next year, but did not say which. He also clarified he plans to visit his home country in 2016 but not for the Eucharistic Congress in Tucumán to be held in July.
As for his upcoming 78th birthday on Wednesday, Dec. 17, the pope said that since it falls on a day when there is no mass, he will have lunch with all the staff and it “will be just another day.”
In yet another display of his storied humility, Francis said that becoming pope was the last thing on his mind 21 months ago.
“When I came here I had to start all over again, All this was new. From the start I said to myself, ‘Jorge, don’t change, just keep on being yourself, because to change at your age would be to make a fool of yourself,’” he said. “That’s why I’ve always kept on doing what I used to do in Buenos Aires. Perhaps even making my old mistakes.”
READ MORE via Pope Francis: ‘Not true’ that American Cardinal who criticized his leadership was punished | Fox News Latino.
College prof makes students recite anti-American ‘pledge of allegiance’ | Fox News.
If you sign up for Denver college professor Charles Angeletti’s American Civilization class, be forewarned that you’re going to have to recite his invective-filled ‘New Pledge’ — and according to some of his students, also be ready to swallow a big helping of his politics.
Angeletti, who teaches at Metropolitan State University of Denver, has students learn an anti-American spoof of the Pledge of Allegiance that denounces the U.S. as a Republican-controlled bastion of injustice, all while spewing his own far-left brand of politics, according to current and former students.
“I pledge allegiance to and wrap myself in the flag of the United States Against Anything Un-American,” reads Angeletti’s version. “And to the Republicans for which it stands, two nations, under Jesus, rich against poor, with curtailed liberty and justice for all except blacks, homosexuals, women who want abortions, Communists, welfare queens, treehuggers, feminazis, illegal immigrants, children of illegal immigrants, and you, if you don’t watch your step.”
“We’re very racist, we’re very repressive, we’re very Christian oriented, we don’t tolerate other kinds of thinking in this country.”- Charles Angeletti, professor at Metropolitan State University
The anti-U.S. recitation, first reported by higher education blog Campus Reform, was a satirical pledge aimed at getting students to question their nation’s leadership, Angeletti said. The self-proclaimed atheist and socialist told the site that he has been distributing the pledge in his classes for nearly 20 years as part of his lesson plan.read more- College prof makes students recite anti-American ‘pledge of allegiance’ | Fox News.
O Mary, living for Christ,
From the beginning, Immaculata,
As the Father willed,
Bring forth Christ for all mankind.Make me the fruit of your holy labor.
Mary, the means and not the end,
Carry me within your bosom blest.O Mary, living in me,
May I receive your thoughts and inspirations.
Let your heart beat with my own.
May your soul inflame my own.
May the soul of Christ,
One with yours
By His Holy Spirit espoused,
Be seed, substance and fruition in me.May Christ, one with your soul,
Extend His victory in me,
As your protectorate,
That the Conqueror now conquer me.May the angels wonder at my change,
As your light and inspirations
Become my constant delight.
O, you who are all grace by the Word of God,
Supply the grace for good to me,
As your heart received His holy orders
Obedient to Him who held all sway over your being.Be in me, the gracious gift of God,
As is all grace.
All is grace and gratitude
To His glory and your merit.
I am abandoned.
You are adorned.
I am conformed.
Christ is adored.©2013 Joann Nelander
Though the news is full of U,S. illegal aliens dilemma, we are not alone. With the rise of refugees around the world immigration problems abound. Here are some of Malta’s concerns. Keep in mind that the Maltese have shared their turf with many peoples in their long history including Arab conquerors, the Brits, the French etc. and their land mass ( roughly 119 sq. miles ) makes hospitality very difficult in the face of the influx and the problems arising from a non-assimilating immigrant population.
Malta: “Patriots” protest against illegal aliens; fear Muslim takeover of Malta
Posted by Ann Corcoran on November 25, 2014
“Some of the people of Malta have had it with the huge influx of illegal aliens from Africa and the Middle East and have now joined France, the UK, Sweden, and Italy (among others) in forming a political movement in an effort to halt immigration into Europe.From Malta Today:
Malta could become a Muslim state within the next 20 years, according to Alex Pisani, the president of the self-declared Organisation of Maltese Patriots (Ghaqda Patrijotti Maltin).
“The people don’t yet know what integration means, it is like giving people full citizenship rights,” Pisani said. “These people will then also be able to bring their family members over. At this rate, we expect Malta to become an African or Muslim state within the next 20 years. Islam is slowly taking over Europe, but we have one religion- Catholicism, and we are proud of it.”
He was speaking right before the organisation’s second anti-immigration protest on Saturday morning, this time with a specific emphasis on their perceived problems brought about by integration with foreign cultures.
Pisani, 61, of Valletta, and the owner of a confectionery, again denied being a racist.
“I’m not fighting for my skin colour but for my Maltese identity,” he explained.”
Although here I must say, watching Ferguson, MO burn while the US has a black President could make one wonder if the white race is under siege around the world. Race relations in America have probably been set back decades by lack of respect for the rule of law and the violent mobs destroying other peoples’ lives and property in Ferguson.
Urging the fearful to come out and express their opinions publicly, Pisani went on to say this this:
“This is your future we’re fighting for,” Pisani told onlookers. “You should be ashamed of yourselves for not uniting with us in this protest.”
The protest ended outside Castille, with Pisani praising the cheering crowd for being “true patriots” and criticising the people who only share their anti-immigration views on Facebook.
Puppets of the EU!
When asked whether his support for such parties means that he is in favour of Malta leaving the European Union, Pisani said that it will work out well for Malta as “we have become puppets of the EU.”
For our extensive archive on Malta’s illegal alien problem going back seven years, click here. Maltese readers topped our list of the largest number of readers outside the US two weeks ago, here.
New readers should know that we are bringing hundreds of those illegal aliens to the US every year. See our most recent post on that subject.
Our ‘Invasion of Europe’ series is here. You really need to know what is happening in Europe because the American press is not saying a word about the popular anti-immigration uprising on the Continent.
read more via Malta: “Patriots” protest against illegal aliens; fear Muslim takeover of Malta « Refugee Resettlement Watch.
Joann Nelander Studio 