July 29, 2014
A 16th-century depiction of Norse gods by Olaus Magnus; from left to right, Frigg, Thor, and Odin
NEO-PAGANISM is super cool among some traditionalist intellectual types who believe Christianity is effeminate and Norse warriors are real men. Here’s a 2010 discussion at VFR on the phenomenon.
In that entry, the commenter Daniel S. writes: “The past that neo-paganism longs to return to is a[s] mythical and non-existent as the gods of German mythology.”
July 29, 2014
IF MAN is saved by “faith alone,” then a Satanist should go to heaven.
The Satanist believes. He does not deny God’s existence.
July 29, 2014
Landscape with Cows, Anthonie van Borssom; 1649
A MICHIGAN dairy co-op was forced to throw out 248 gallons of milk, 100 dozen eggs, and “an undisclosed amount of fresh cream, butter and cheese.” The co-op was selling food without a license, according to the Michigan Department of Agriculture, which ordered the farm to dispose of the food. The Organic Prepper has the story.
July 29, 2014
THE Argentine bomber is at it again.
Friends, this man is not Catholic. It’s as simple as that. How can a person be the Pope when he is not even Catholic? Imagine if Christ had followed Rule No. 1 (“Live and let live”) or No. 9’s “the worst that can happen is religious proselytism, which paralyzes.”
July 29, 2014
ANTI-GLOBALIST EXPATRIATE writes:
There’s a quite tasty, upscale restaurant in a major shopping mall in Bangkok, Thailand which presents Westerners with a Thai-language bill, and Thais with an English-language bill, on the theory that the Westerners likely can’t read Thai at all and the Thais likely can’t read English, or do so quite poorly. Of course, there are extra items that the restaurant patrons didn’t actually order or receive added to the bill.
I know this is true because I observed it happening firsthand. When the bill came – in Thai – I handed it to my Thai dining companion, who proceeded to ream out the waiter because of the extra items added to the bill, causing him to lose face and amusing several Thais sitting at nearby tables.
Here’s an article about a similar practice at a Chinese restaurant. In several Asian countries, foreigners pay a significantly higher fee than locals when they visit tourist parks and historic sites which charge for access, attend sporting events, etc. Usually, these dual-pricing schemes are out on the open; there’s no attempt to conceal them.
July 28, 2014
SEE the latest at Galliawatch, which also has posts on demonstrations on behalf of Iraqi Christians.
July 28, 2014
THESE cloistered nuns from Argentina specialize in dance routines.
July 28, 2014
ELAINE writes:
Has anyone heard of a ‘reveal’ party? I heard about this about a year and a half ago. A pregnant woman gets together with friends and family and the sex of the child is revealed. There’s usually a cake, door prizes, etc. Of course, this phenomenon may not last long because of gender confusion.
July 28, 2014
A piece in The New York Times about the surrogate motherhood industry focuses on an agency that was “unregulated.” In truth, no regulations or level of accountability can correct the abuses of gestational trafficking and the very existence of this business, which would be illegal in many countries, is a crime. Notice the sense of entitlement by those who pay for surrogacy:
Jonathan C. Dailey, a lawyer in Washington, wired Planet Hospital $37,000 in December 2013, the first installment on a contract for a single mother in Mexico to carry his child. He and his fiancée flew to Cancún to leave a sperm deposit at the clinic that would create the embryo and to visit the downtown house where their surrogate would live while pregnant. They picked a “premium” egg donor from the agency Planet Hospital sent them to. But nothing happened.
“It was just outright fraud,” said Mr. Dailey. “It’s like we paid money to buy a condo, they took the money, and there was no condo. But it’s worse, because it’s about having a baby.”
The emerging Planet Hospital story, which Mr. Rupak characterized as one of mismanagement rather than fraud, stands as a cautionary tale about the proliferation of unregulated surrogacy agencies, their lack of accountability and their ability to prey on vulnerable clients who want a baby so badly that they do not notice all the red flags.
July 27, 2014
FROM Fox News:
A federal judge in the District of Columbia on Saturday overturned the city’s total ban on residents being allowing to carry firearms outside their home in a landmark decision for gun-rights activists.
Judge Frederick Scullin Jr. wrote in his ruling in Palmer v. District of Columbia that the right to bear arms extends outside the home, therefore gun-control laws in the nation’s capital are “unconstitutional.”
July 26, 2014
ANTI-GLOBALIST EXPATRIATE writes:
I wouldn’t be surprised if the hospital where he worked tries to dismiss this heroic doctor, who quite literally saved lives by using his firearm.
My guess is that the doctor knew that the hospital staff were in danger from mentally unstable patients (including this specific patient with a history of violence against hospital personnel), knew that the hospital security staff were not likely to be able to provide adequate protection for the psychiatric staff, and made a conscious decision to defy the hospital’s stupid and dangerous policy in order to ensure that he and others would have a fighting chance when, not if, one of their disturbed patients went on a homicidal rampage.
July 26, 2014
ONCE again, we encounter the sheer insanity of putting men and women together on naval vessels, as if it is possible to remake human nature and prevent them from interacting, as well as the farce of a woman commanding a warship. From The Daily Mail:
The first female commander of a Royal Navy warship has been sent home after allegedly having an affair with another officer.
Commander Sarah West, 42, took charge of the frigate HMS Portland in May 2012, but has been sent home from duty after claims she was having a relationship with a male officer on the same ship.
This would breach the Armed Forces’ Code of Social Conduct, which prohibits personnel from having relationships with subordinates if they compromise ‘operational effectiveness’.
July 25, 2014
THE two men charged in connection with the apparent murder of Feng Liu, a University of North Carolina professor in Chapel Hill, both had extensive crime records. One of them was released from probation a few weeks ago. They are charged with hitting Liu with a rock so hard that he was found on the ground, unable to speak and with blood coming from his ears.
July 25, 2014
THIS image of Melinda Gates in a village in India comes from the Gates Foundation’s 2014 Annual Letter. It shows one of the richest philanthropists the world has ever known in face-to-face contact with the people she intends to help. The scene seems entirely benign. It appears filled with good will until one reflects on the hard, cold fact that Melinda Gates wishes there were fewer children in the Third World, like the child at left. She believes children — and human beings in general — are a hindrance to development. Gates is the world’s foremost promoter of anti-maternalism and Malthusian economics.
According to Human Life international:
At the UN’s 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Western elites’ language of population control was officially changed to the language of “equality,” “sustainability” and “reproductive health.” The population control tactics, however, did not change.
From the Rockefeller Foundation to the Gates Foundation, Western billionaires have been pushing population control on foreign nations for many years now. One must sincerely question how much of this program is not philanthropy so much as cultural warfare. It is not easy to bring the developing world into conformity with modern economics, and its control by central banks and usury, with the traditional family structure of these countries. Gates’ partners, Marie Stopes International and International Planned Parenthood Foundation, were leaders in the early eugenics and population control movements.
Gates’s preferred contraceptive is the injectable drug Depo Provera. The long-term health effects are still under study, given that it has not been in use for very long, but there is no known chemical contraceptive that does not have significant negative health effects.
More important are the economic fallacies of this program. Prosperity is created by people and moral order, not by contraception, sexual freedom and the resulting family breakdown. A farmer flourishes by his submission to the natural order: the weather, the life of plants, the changes of the seasons. Human societies flourish by their submission to the natural order of the family. Much of the instability in the West today is the result of demographic decline. In Thailand, a country where the birthrate was once robust, widespread dissemination of contraception has caused demographic collapse and the inability to support an aging population. “Family planning” is inherently destabilizing.
A 2012 letter by the Nigerian woman Obianuju Ekeocha is a sober counterpoint to the Gates Foundation’s publicity material. Ekeocha talks affectionately of the importance of children, but also describes how contraception undermines marriage and family life:
