La advertencia de Chile para EEUU
por Mary Anastasia O'Grady
Los comunistas no se están tomando Chile. Pero cuesta saberlo a juzgar por el frenesí mediático en Santiago en torno a la líder estudiantil de 23 años, y comunista declarada, Camila Vallejo. Desde el año pasado, este bebé de pañal rojo, cuyos padres eran partidarios de Salvador Allende, ha liderado multitudes de manifestantes que exigen una educación universitaria gratuita, la nacionalización de la industria cuprífera y el fin del modelo económico liberal. Lo que no deja de asombrar es que haya conseguido poner a la defensiva al gobierno de centro derecha encabezado por Sebastián Piñera. Qué algo así suceda en Chile, uno de los ejemplos favoritos de reforma económica liberal, es en un inicio todo un misterio. La respuesta, la cual sirve de advertencia a los estadounidenses, podría encontrarse en el ambiente político e intelectual de Chile, el cual está desesperadamente carente de voces que defiendan la moralidad del mercado y la santidad de los derechos individuales.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303916904577374652810659984.html?mod=WSJS_opinion_LeadStory
lunes, 30 de abril de 2012
"...the very people who said that mankind was one church from Plato to Emerson were the very people who said that morality had changed altogether, and that what was right in one age was wrong in another."
Certain Inconsistencies That Chesterton Would have Loved
by Mark Shea
My atheist friend, back for more, writes:
Atheists don't crib from "Judeo-Christian morality" but try to follow the Golden Rule, something that existed in human thought and morality long, long before Jesus or even the Hebrews and is taught by all religions and philosophies in one form or another.
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/mark-shea/certain-inconsistencies-that-chesterton-would-have-loved?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NCRegisterDailyBlog+National+Catholic+Register#When:2012-04-20
"Is there anything else I can do?"
How to Find God (in Six Not-So-Easy Steps)
1. Seek humility first
2. Go on a cynicism fast
3. Read the great Christian authors
4. Do the experiment
5. Pray frequently
6. Be willing to lose it all
Video: A return to our founding principles of economic and political freedom is necessary to make this country successful again
"First Principles: Five Keys to Restoring America's Prosperity"
by John Taylor
John Taylor, former Treasury Under Secretary of International Affairs, argues that a return to our founding principles of economic and political freedom is necessary to make this country successful again. Hosted by the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC. John Taylor is the Raymond Professor of Economics at Stanford University and a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. He served as Treasury Under Secretary of International Affairs from 2001 to 2005.
The transition of Turkey into a great power means keeping its balance while the world around it is in chaos.
The emergence of Turkey
by George Friedman
Turkey is re-emerging as a significant regional power. In some sense, it is in the process of returning to its position prior to World War I when it was the seat of the Ottoman Empire. But while the Ottoman parallel has superficial value in understanding the situation, it fails to take into account changes in how the global system and the region work. Therefore, to understand Turkish strategy, we need to understand the circumstances it finds itself in today.
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/the_emergence_of_turkey
This is a good summary of the problem with IVF and its potential impact on the society at large.
Change of heart
In 2010 an eminent Chicago IVF doctor left his practice of creating babies in Petri dishes. This is his story.
Dr Anthony J. Caruso is a Chicago doctor who worked in the field of in vitro fertilisation for 15 years before he quit in 2010. We interviewed him by email about the reasons for his change of heart.
MercatorNet: You ran a successful IVF practice in Chicago for ten years. Why did you leave?
Anthony Caruso: I was a member of several infertility practices since joining the field in 1995. In 2008 I was increasingly concerned about the kind of procedures we were doing. Initially it was the demands of same-sex couples. Then it was the way in which everybody looked at the embryos that had undergone pre-implantation genetic diagnosis.
Finally, it was the realization that the embryos that we were producing were just as important as the embryos that were transferred. I could not change my practice to accommodate the way I was looking at the process. I wish I could say that I had an “Aha!” moment, but I left my last position largely due to financial realities. They needed to pare salaries and I was next to go.
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/charge_of_heart
domingo, 29 de abril de 2012
Muslim Brotherhood infiltrating American government ?
MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD'S REACH EXTENDS TO WHITE HOUSE
On Wednesday evening, GBTV unveiled a powerful documentary, “Rumors of War III,” exposing how radical Islamists, including the Muslim Brotherhood, are infiltrating American government at its highest levels. ...State Department Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Rashad Hussain: The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report uncovered that Hussain spoke at a conference sponsored by the Muslim Brotherhood affiliate, the Association of Muslim Social Scientists. An internal Brotherhood document dubbed the Social Scientists as one of “our organizations and the organizations of our friends.” ...
http://times247.com/articles/muslim-brotherhood-closer-to-administration-than-you-think
Be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never forsake you or abandon you.”
Trusting the Lord in Difficult Circumstances
How easy it is to have great trust in the Lord when things are going well, our health is good, and his plan for our lives seems to be on target. Yet, how easy it is for our trust in him to weaken, and our fears to increase, when we are going through difficult circumstances. This is true not only for you and me as Catholic men, but it was just as true for Jesus’ disciples.
Amazing stories from Purgatory and the afterlife
“I know when you pray for me, and it is the same with all of the other souls here in Purgatory. Very few of us here get any prayers; the majority of us are totally abandoned, with no thought or prayers offered for us from those on earth” (Message from a soul in Purgatory)
Over the years of studying the lives of the mystics of the Church I have amassed a large number of eye witness accounts from various books and manuscripts of the appearances of the souls in Purgatory to a number of persons-- a good number of these accounts are not widely known, so I thought it would make a very interesting study to compile a number of shorter accounts from a variety of sources for those interested in this subject.
http://www.mysticsofthechurch.com/2012/04/amazing-stories-from-purgatory-and.html
China will get old before it gets rich
China set to fall behind in the economic race
http://www.mercatornet.com/demography/view/10614
Many are predicting that China’s economy is set to take over the world. According to the IMF China will overtake America as the world’s largest economy in 2017. However, before we start looking to China as the next world superpower, the country’s dire demographic outlook needs to be taken account of. It will almost certainly hold the country back. Yet, despite this, unnatural government restrictions on childbirth persist.
This month The Economist published on its website a very interesting discussion between its China and Globalisation editors, who warn that “China will get old before it gets rich”.
http://www.mercatornet.com/demography/view/10614
Russia may be economically dysfunctional, but that will not keep it from flexing its muscles.
Russia’s plan to recover its lost dominance
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/russias_plan_to_recover_its_lost_dominance
by George Friedman
For Russia, the recreation of a union is a strategic necessity. As Putin put it, the fall of the Soviet Union was a geopolitical catastrophe. Russia needs the economic integration, particularly given the new economic strategy of post-Soviet Russia, which is the export of raw materials, particularly energy. Aligning with states such as Kazakhstan in energy and Ukraine in grain provides Moscow with leverage in the rest of the world, particularly in Europe. As important, it provides strategic depth. The rest of the world knows that an invasion of Russia is inconceivable. The Russians can conceive of it. They remember that Germany in 1932 was crippled. By 1938 it was overwhelmingly powerful. Six years is not very long, and while such an evolution is unlikely now, from the Russian point of view, it must be taken seriously in the long run -- planning for the worst and hoping for the best.
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/russias_plan_to_recover_its_lost_dominance
Pour Philippe Tesson, le candidat socialiste ouvre à tort un procès moral contre Sarkozy
Philippe Tesson
... le candidat socialiste ouvre à tort un procès moral contre Sarkozy
Certes, la sécurité et l'immigration sont des sujets importants, mais Sarkozy, affaibli par le nouveau rapport des forces politiques, risque à tout instant, lorsqu'il les évoquera, de tomber dans un double piège : celui que lui tend Marine Le Pen en l'accusant de la suivre et celui que lui tend Hollande en l'accusant de vendre son âme.
http://www.lepoint.fr/chroniqueurs-du-point/philippe-tesson/tesson-la-tactique-perverse-de-hollande-27-04-2012-1455842_543.php?xtor=EPR-6-[Newsletter-Quotidienne]-20120427
Ad hominem arguments can be logical, but only after we have addressed the issue at hand.
Playing the man, not the ball
When we engage in these ad hominem heuristics it means we have – rightly or wrongly – ceased to address or investigate the truth of the issue itself. We’ve moved on from the actual argument to secondary questions such as how much of a pillock you must be to hold opinions contrary to our own.
El tiempo de la crisis es un tiempo para la caridad
El tiempo de lo imprevisible
Es una muestra de irresponsabilidad, de política partidista de la peor especie. Los socialistas españoles se han sumado a las protestas organizadas por los sindicatos contra las medidas de ajuste en Sanidad y en Educación del Gobierno de Mariano Rajoy. Esas medidas son necesarias porque un gobierno socialista no supo hacer la política conveniente a tiempo. Lo peor no es el cortoplacismo de la izquierda española, lo más nocivo es que instrumentaliza el descontento y la desorientación de la gente hablándoles de un paraíso socialdemócrata que en España ha desaparecido. El mundo, el país, la vida no volverán a ser iguales. Y utilizar el deseo del pueblo, en este caso el deseo de bienestar, para afianzar cualquier poder, en este caso el poder de la oposición, es una peligrosa contribución a la polarización ideológica
Comment comprendre le concile Vatican II ? Quel rôle a-t-il joué dans l’Église et que représente-t-il aujourd’hui ?
Italie : un livre pour relire le concile « à la lumière de la tradition »
Étudier Vatican II, 50 ans après son ouverture, est une question qui divise. Comme le remarque le père Lanzetta :
Cela peut sembler étrange mais il est de plus en plus difficile de débattre et de dialoguer sereinement entre catholiques.
La raison à cette difficulté réside selon lui en grande partie dans l’approche moderne, si ce n’est post-moderne, de la question conciliaire. Du coup, l’approche du sujet dans son livre ne se veut pas historique mais bien théologique, pour aborder le concile Vatican II comme « l’un des différents conciles de l’Église, ni le seul ni le dernier ».
Avec l’écroulement des modèles culturels qui ont porté le concile, l’effacement de l’identité catholique – victime « du monde, de la modernité, de la politique, de l’anthropocentrisme » -, certains s’interrogent, à juste titre, sur ce qui n’a pas fonctionné. Et la réponse avancée par le père Lanzetta est claire :
Ce n’est pas la praxis qui ne fonctionne pas, mais les idées. Sans doute parce qu’elles manquent. Il manque un regard métaphysique sur Dieu et sur l’homme et cela nous empêche de nous attaquer au vrai problème.
La vida es un instante que pasa y no vuelve.
El atardecer de la vida
La vida es un instante que pasa y no vuelve. Comienza con un fresco amanecer; y como un atardecer sereno se nos va. De nosotros depende que el sol de nuestra vida, cuando se despida del cielo llamado “historia”, coloree con hermosos colores su despedida. Colores que sean los recuerdos bonitos que guarden de nosotros las personas que vivieron a nuestro lado.
http://www.es.catholic.net/aprendeaorar/32/250/articulo.php?id=263
La vida es un instante que pasa y no vuelve. Comienza con un fresco amanecer; y como un atardecer sereno se nos va. De nosotros depende que el sol de nuestra vida, cuando se despida del cielo llamado “historia”, coloree con hermosos colores su despedida. Colores que sean los recuerdos bonitos que guarden de nosotros las personas que vivieron a nuestro lado.
http://www.es.catholic.net/aprendeaorar/32/250/articulo.php?id=263
Pour prendre du recul 2
Pie XII aux prêtres de Rome pour les élections de 1948
"Le Pape aborde alors un point d'une brûlante actualité. Le 18 avril 1948, avaient lieu en Italie des élections générales dont l'enjeu était gros de conséquences pour l'avenir du pays et de l'Eglise. Elles pouvaient marquer soit un succès, soit un échec définitif pour le communisme :
Vous connaissez, chers fils, les devoirs qui vous pressent et vous étreignent en cette heure si grave, et Nous-même Nous les avons exposés en tant d'occasions que Nous estimerions superflu de revenir encore une fois sur ce thème 1. Cependant, afin de ne pas paraître Nous enfermer dans le silence en un moment de si grandes conséquences, Nous répéterons avec les apôtres : Non possumus non loqui. Nous ne pouvons pas ne pas parler (cf. Act. Ac 4,20), et Nous rappellerons brièvement quelques principes fondamentaux.
C'est votre droit et votre devoir d'attirer l'attention des fidèles sur l'extraordinaire importance des prochaines élections et sur la responsabilité morale qui en découle pour tous ceux qui ont le droit de vote. ...
http://lesalonbeige.blogs.com/my_weblog/2012/04/pour-prendre-du-recul-pie-xii-aux-pr%C3%AAtres-de-rome-pour-les-%C3%A9lections-de-1948.html
Pour prendre du recul 1
Pie XII 1948
Ce texte donné dans des circonstances paticulières (législatives italiennes de 1948 avec risque d'élections de députés communistes), rappelle des principes fondamentaux et peut aider entre ces deux tours au discernement de chacun tout en gardant présent à l'esprit que ce discours est adressé au clergé romain. Ceci explique les fortes mises en garde contre le cléricalisme que l'on y trouvera, appelant en corollaire les laïcs à leur travail.
http://www.clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/es/cch.htm
Ce texte donné dans des circonstances paticulières (législatives italiennes de 1948 avec risque d'élections de députés communistes), rappelle des principes fondamentaux et peut aider entre ces deux tours au discernement de chacun tout en gardant présent à l'esprit que ce discours est adressé au clergé romain. Ceci explique les fortes mises en garde contre le cléricalisme que l'on y trouvera, appelant en corollaire les laïcs à leur travail.
http://www.clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/es/cch.htm
Lobbying gay dans les écoles : tous les parents savent-ils ce qu'il en est?
Avec une classe de CM1-CM2, le détour par la fiction pour combattre l'homophobie?
Une vingtaine d'élèves s'engouffrent dans la salle de cinéma parisienne dans le désordre et les cris. Ils sont en CM1-CM2, à l'école Anatole-France de Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis). L'association SOS Homophobie les a conviés à visionnerLe Baiser de la Lune, de Sébastien Watel, un film d'animation d'une vingtaine de minutes. Les enfants, âgés de 8 à 10 ans, sont agités, mais petit à petit le calme se fait. La classe découvre l'histoire de Félix, petit poisson que sa grand-mère adoptive, la chatte Agathe, veut à toute force marier avec une promise de son choix, Clara.
http://lesalonbeige.blogs.com/my_weblog/2012/04/lobbying-gay-dans-les-%C3%A9coles-tous-les-parents-savent-ils-ce-quil-en-est.html
“Father, forgive me, for I have sinned. It has been over thirty years since my last confession. I’m not sure I can remember all of my sins.”
| Then I Confessed, I Can Do No Other |  |  |
| By Francis J. Beckwith |
I was, at the time, President of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), an academic association of Protestant biblical scholars, theologians, philosophers, historians, and ministers that in 2007 had a membership approaching 4500.
When I was elected ETS president in November 2006, I could not have imagined that I would return to the Church fewer than six months later. To be sure, I had moved closer to Catholicism over the prior decade, but there still remained a few issues that were impediments, and I was confident that they would remain so. I was mistaken. Within months, obstacles dissipated at an alarming speed. The scales fell from my eyes.
Then I confessed, I could do no other.
sábado, 28 de abril de 2012
Obama’s beliefs substitute the founders’ values with his own leftist brand
The audacity of cynicism
Barack Obama’s 2006 best-seller, “The Audacity of Hope,” gave us a number of clues as to how he would govern based on his worldview. We can’t say we weren’t warned. Amid the graceful prose, we see underlying hostility toward the idea of revealed truth (apart from his own). We also see an understanding of the Constitution as a sort of referee between interests instead of a binding fetter on government power.
In the book, President Obama describes his view as “one that sees our democracy not as a house to be built, but as a conversation to be had. … What the framework of the Constitution can do is organize the way by which we argue about our future. All of its elaborate machinery - its separation of powers and checks and balances and federalist principles and Bill of Rights - are designed to force us into a conversation.”
viernes, 27 de abril de 2012
Environmental worry is universal; the sickness of the end of the world is purely Western.
Apocalyptic Daze
Secular elites prophesy a doomsday without redemption
PASCAL BRUCKNER
Over the last half-century, leftist intellectuals have identified two great scapegoats for the world’s woes. First, Marxism designated capitalism as responsible for human misery. Second, “Third World” ideology, disappointed by the bourgeois indulgences of the working class, targeted the West, supposedly the inventor of slavery, colonialism, and imperialism.
The guilty party that environmentalism now accuses—mankind itself, in its will to dominate the planet—is essentially a composite of the previous two, a capitalism invented by a West that oppresses peoples and destroys the earth. Indeed, environmentalism sees itself as the fulfillment of all earlier critiques. “There are only two solutions,” Bolivian president Evo Morales declared in 2009. “Either capitalism dies, or Mother Earth dies.”
Books: A philosophy that the Right must not abandon
HERBERT LONDON
Jeffrey Bell argues that social conservatism is uniquely and idiosyncratically American, emerging from basic principles of our national politics, and that it would be ill-advised for those on the libertarian right to try to make it go away. Social conservatives remain a key constituency in the Republican Party; socially conservative principles continue to come to the fore in public debate; and social issues have helped Republicans more than hurt them at the polls.
The Case for Polarized Politics: Why America Need Social Conservatism, by Jeffrey Bell (Encounter, 322 pp., $25.95)
Il y a trois raisons à l'échec de Jean-Luc Mélenchon
Les trois échecs de Mélenchon
Il y a trois raisons à l'échec de Jean-Luc Mélenchon: l'absence du vote prolétaire pour lui, le raté de son évolution vers la revendication constructive et le fait de taper sur les médias.
Serguey Vladimirovich Krivovichev: diácono, padre de seis hijos y cristalógrafo de renombre
 |
| Científico ateo e hijo de científicos ateos: se convirtió por una clase de literatura rusa |
|
| Ha colaborado en el descubrimiento de 25 minerales nuevos en yacimientos rusos e incluso tiene un mineral bautizado con su nombre: ¡la krivovichevita! Vive con lo justo, de beca en beca. Y detrás de todo ve la mente de Dios, la única que reúne toda la información oculta. |
http://www.religionenlibertad.com/articulo.asp?idarticulo=22218
jueves, 26 de abril de 2012
Cuando los que podían y debían intervenir no lo han hecho o lo han hecho poco o en sentido contrario, que no se quejen luego de las consecuencias
Próxima batalla: la historia. La mentira une a izquierda y abertzales
por Pascual Tamburri
Los abertzales imponen su relato como historia. La izquierda lo da por bueno, con el PSOE a la cabeza. Y el centroderecha paga sus culpas de años de cómoda pasividad.Víctimas, los jóvenes.
Los recortes no llegan a todas partes (ni tienen por qué llegar). El consejero de Educación del Gobierno de Navarra, José Iribas, ha explicado que su Gobierno distribuirá a los centros y a los alumnos “medios y recursos que les faciliten conocer la historia“, refiriéndose a la guerra de 1512. Porque todo el mundillo abertzale se ha movilizado para convertir en instrumentos de propaganda las campañas militares y los acontecimientos políticos de 1212 y de 1512. Y aunque se han gastado mucho tiempo, dinero y energías, teóricamente, en responderles, la verdad es que por diferentes razones ante la opinión pública la operación les va bien. Muchos lugares comunes, manipulaciones y simples falsedades han calado en la sociedad. De lo cual hasta ahora al menos unos son culpables por acción, otros por torpeza, no pocos por cobardía y complejos y, quizá, algunos lo seamos por omisión. También llamada hastío.
http://www.fundacionburke.org/2012/04/26/proxima-batalla-la-historia-la-mentira-une-a-izquierda-y-abertzales/
La Junta Militar y los influyentes Hermanos Musulmanes buscan el poder económico
Egipto: Militares e islamistas se disputan el poder económico
Las rencillas que mantienen la Junta Militar y los influyentes Hermanos Musulmanes no son exclusivas de la arena política en Egipto: ambos buscan el poder económico en una lucha de la que poco se conoce.
El general Mahmud Nasr, consejero financiero de la Junta Militar -actualmente en el poder-, ponía recientemente sobre la mesa una de las líneas rojas que defenderán con uñas y dientes para la futura Constitución.
Las rencillas que mantienen la Junta Militar y los influyentes Hermanos Musulmanes no son exclusivas de la arena política en Egipto: ambos buscan el poder económico en una lucha de la que poco se conoce.
El general Mahmud Nasr, consejero financiero de la Junta Militar -actualmente en el poder-, ponía recientemente sobre la mesa una de las líneas rojas que defenderán con uñas y dientes para la futura Constitución.
France: la crise n’a pas pour origine le capitalisme, mais l’étatisme
L'Erreur fatale
Je n’attendrai pas lundi matin pour rédiger mon éditorial. Je ne crois pas qu’il y ait une surprise de nature à barrer la route du second tour aux deux candidats majeurs.
Je voudrais plutôt, tant qu’il en est temps, tirer les enseignements de la campagne à ce jour, et expliquer pourquoi elle a été si médiocre et a plongé tant d’électeurs dans l’incertitude voire la perplexité.
Il y a une première raison, que j’ai souvent évoquée : le flou doctrinal, la surenchère de mesures davantage destinées à piper des voix « ailleurs » qu’à améliorer la situation de la France. C’est le travers de la démocratie française, et le vice d’une classe politique incompétente et surréaliste. Les candidats, mis à part les dinosaures marxistes, ont été pour l’essentiel illisibles pour l’électeur de base.
La deuxième raison est encore plus inquiétante : c’est l’erreur fatale qui a consisté à présenter la crise actuelle comme celle du système économique capitaliste alors qu’elle est celle de l’étatisme.
http://www.libres.org/francais/editorial/042312_erreur_fatale.htm
miércoles, 25 de abril de 2012
The principal cause of the riots in England that astonished the world last year was revealed recently
Leniency and Its Costs
THEODORE DALRYMPLE
In Britain, the bill comes due.
The principal cause of the riots in England that astonished the world (but not me) last year was revealed recently, when a man named Gordon Thompson was sentenced to 11 and a half years’ imprisonment at the Old Bailey for arson. That cause is the laxity of the British criminal-justice system.
It was Thompson who, last August, set fire to a family-owned furniture store in Croydon that had stood as a landmark for 140 years. The blaze spread quickly and people, some lucky to survive, had to be evacuated from nearby houses. The photo of a woman leaping from her window to escape the flames became for a time as emblematic of London as the Houses of Parliament.
Après un score historique de 17,90 % des voix, dimanche, l'ex-candidate FN déroule une stratégie qui repose sur trois axes. Décryptage
Faire imploser l'UMP et briser le "cordon sanitaire" qui la sépare du FN : tel est le coeur de cible de Marine Le Pen. Son objectif ? Incarner "la seule et véritable opposition à la gauche ultralibérale, laxiste et libertaire" pour conquérir ensuite le pouvoir, selon ses propres mots. Après un score historique de 17,90 % des voix dimanche, l'ex-candidate FN déroule une stratégie qui repose sur trois axes.
Décryptage:
- Installer le doute à l'UMP
- Entrer au Palais-Bourbon
- Siphonner l'UMP par la base
http://www.lepoint.fr/politique/election-presidentielle-2012/comment-marine-le-pen-veut-faire-imploser-l-ump-24-04-2012-1454801_324.php?xtor=EPR-6-[Newsletter-Quotidienne]-20120425