Month: October 2007

October 11, 2007

‘Mission Accomplished’?

“The mission in Iraq may be on the way to being accomplished…” So says Bartle Bull in Prospect magazine (HT). Maybe we should start thinking of the first declaration of “mission accomplished” (May 1, 2003, pictured above) as a sort of D-Day, and the imminent(?) Continue Reading...
October 11, 2007

As if by an Occult Hand…

Freemasonry has been deemed to be worthy of protection under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA). Does this mean that freemasonry is a “religion”? A California court of appeals statement said in part, “We see no principled way to distinguish the earnest pursuit of these (Masonic) principles … from more widely acknowledged modes of religious exercise.” Continue Reading...
October 10, 2007

Islam’s Quiet Revolution

Society is changing as economic freedom and diversification gradually creep into the Middle East. Dr. Samuel Gregg, director of research at the Acton Institute, explores the effects of free trade on nations including Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates and, in turn, the effect those nations are having on their neighbors. Continue Reading...
October 10, 2007

Un-Christian Retributiveness

How’s this for an expression of un-Christian retributiveness? If God wants to make my happiness complete, he will grant me the joy of seeing some six or seven of my enemies hanging from those trees. Continue Reading...
October 10, 2007

Saving Secular Society

I used to have more regular and extensive interaction with people whose worldviews were starkly different from my own. That’s not so much the case anymore, so it’s good to be reminded occasionally that some people live in different worlds that are sometimes hard to comprehend. Continue Reading...
October 08, 2007

Global Warming Consensus Alert: Points for Honesty

Normally, I’m not a huge fan of Congressman John Dingell. But on this issue, I have to at least give him points for honesty: Democrats took over Congress vowing to make global warming a top priority, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi planned to notch a quick victory with a bill that was long on political symbolism and cost, if short on actual emissions reductions. Continue Reading...