Guerrillas In The Midst

Or, Surprise, Boom!.. IS The New Normal

~ ITEM: Mark Steyn: ‘Want an avatar but you’re unsure about the tricolor of whichever European country’s been bombed today?’ The One-Stop Shop for All Your Terror-Sentimentalizing Needs

~ ITEM: AN ISLAMIC APOCALYPSE IN BRUSSELS– Striking terror into the hearts of unbelievers.

~ ITEM: WAR IN EUROPE— After Brussels, it’s time for the governments of Europe to fall. By Robert Spencer

~ ITEM: Brussels attacks: Security scanners‘could be installed at airport entrances’ in wake of bomb terror

~ ITEM: ‘Holy war against infidels integral part of Islam’

~ ITEM: Apocalypse Soon? Tet Offensive, Take Two: Islam’s 2016 European Offensive

~ ITEM: POST-JIHAD GESTURE THEATER: JE SUIS SICK OF IT— #WesternCivRIP

Sadly Ironic– “Call Brussels!”

~ ITEM: Battle of the Teutoburg Forest; Video– Germania: The Battle Against Rome – Documentary; plus YouTube– Battle of the Teutoburg Forest

~ ITEM: Source Watch Backgrounder– The principles of fourth-generation warfare: War against everyone, everywhere. See also: Wiki– Fourth-generation warfare; YouTube: 4th generation warfare

~ ITEM: Book Review– Fourth Generation Warfare, by William S Lind

~ ITEM: Denial– Canada not ‘at war’ with ISIL, say Trudeau and Dion despite increased use of new anti-terror powers.. and the fact we are actually at war

“A war is something that can be won by one side or the other and there is no path for ISIL to actually win against the West,” Trudeau said. “They want to destabilize, they want to strike fear. They need to be stamped out.”

~ Justin Trudeau, 2016 ~

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The Lovely Teutoburg Forest in the Fall

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IT IS AD 9, AND a shaken Caesar Augustus, first Emperor of the Roman Empire, has been roaming the halls of his palace for days, weeping with rage, banging his head on the wall, and shouting “Quintili Vare, legiones redde!“ (‘Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!’)

What military disaster could so shake Rome?

After all, The deadliest military machine in the ancient world was the Roman legion. Armor & shield, gladius sword, bow, spear, giant catapults and crossbows, simple tactics– when it was ready to fight, it was like one great beast, inexorable, sometimes winning against odds of ten to one, or more.

Gladiator: The Roman War Machine At Work

However.. 35 000 Roman legionaries stretched out over a muddy 10 miles in marching order through the towering and crowding-in Germania’s Teutoburg forest? Under damp and misty September weather, and a threatening Fall storm? Not ready.

Legate Publius Quinctilius Varus heads up three veteran legions, XVII, XVIII and XIX– with newer auxilliaries alongside– deep along a forest track into Northern Germany, toward Winter fortifications. The Legate believes his forces so strong, why bother sending scouts out?…

Then, out of the mist, they came.

Countless lightly-armed German tribesmen, led by Arminius (Hermann), a Germanic Roman-educated officer, ambush both sides of the legion column at once, chopping the great army train into sections– and the killing begins. Roman blood and bodies fall everywhere. The Roman strength in prepared battle has been turned to weakness by careful ambush.

One legion somehow fortifies itself through the hellish night. The next morning, a desperate escape attempt– fails. The storm and rain make Legion bows useless, and their shields waterlogged. General Varus suicides on his sword. Archaeological remains tell the final tale– endless Roman remains and armour and all the cast down panoply of war.. mingled with relatively few fallen German tribesmen.

15000-20000 Romans die, the rest go down to slavery. The stream of regular reports to Augustus Caesar cease, there is only.. silence.

Everything Old Is New Again

We are like the Romans: proud, powerful, dangerous. Modern political Islam is like the Germanic warriors: fighting their war in their way, not ours. It’s like boxing with fog, or nailing down Jell-O.

Our politicians, police, and militaries have inadequate responses to this very old and faceless front-less Uh-What-Direction-Do-I-Shoot-Sir? form of paramilitary terror-warfare. For a while, we chased baddies around in the deserts and hills of Afghanistan and Iraq; now, America and her terrorist-allies are asploding Syria to hell and back. Is that it?

This is a new kind of ancient war: olden barbarian/ Medieval hit-and-run, but with our weapons & tactics & communications. Maximum results, minimal efforts. The Scots and Welsh employed a lot of these tactics against the invading English in the 13th and 14th centuries. This is what made William Wallace a great warrior, if not a great general of armies, or national leader. This is how the American Minutemen fought the British regular army. Keep it asymmetrical.

Generationally Speaking

Gen 1.0 Modern Warfare

1st Generation War? That’s your Napoleonic-style line-up men and shoot– defeated by heavy artillery, and machine-guns.

Second gen? Fortifications, an orderly & organized artillery of all the things, then march in– which was wrecked by tanks and airplanes.

3rd Generation warfare? Germany’s WW2 Blitzkrieg: ignore the front lines, maneuver, and cut the enemy off– wrecked by?…

..4th gen warfare. Olden-tyme guerrilla tactics with modern technology and tactics and communications, non-state warfare, no ‘front lines’.

Wake Up!.. Coffee Is Smelly

Super-heroic tough-talker Canucki PM Justin Trudeau? A 2nd/ 3rd Generation war thinker: “A war is something that can be won by one side or the other and there is no path for ISIL to actually win against the West”…. They want to destabilize, they want to strike fear. They need to be stamped out.” [my emPHASis]

Hm. Good luck with that, dude. Really. This from a former part-time drama teacher.

America’s been trying Justin’s way since about 1963– before he was born, and placed in a manger– with little to show for it on five major occasions except corpses, frustration, and increasingly wealthy military-industrial complexes. PM Justin Trudeau, his advisors, and their equivalents in Western governments must unlearn what they think they know, or be doomed to an endless cycle of repeat and fail and weep. 4th Generation War is now here.. and everywhere.

Where We Actually Are

Truth be told, our huge force-against-force olden-style 1800s or 1900s warfare just doesn’t work very well when the other team refuses to show up, and won’t play by the old or accepted rules.. and when they vanish like morning dew if you try to force the matter. We’re still armed and organized to fight WW2, or the long-feared 1980s Soviet attack on Western Europe. That’s why terrorism is so very effective in 2016: our states actually need other states to fight with.. not an alphabet soup of terror-groups.

4GenWar is what confronts us now, and in the near future. It’s Charlie Hebdo, Paris, Brussels, and all the next ones. Turns out that the Brussels airport terror cell had surveillance info on a Belgian nuclear plant, and all the plans to the office of the Belgian Prime Minister.

Target– Prime Minister?

The front is everywhere possible and imaginable: nobody is safe, and all those radicalized mosques, and Muslim ghettos in our major cities are recruiting grounds and potentially hostile occupied territory, war-wise. Mass migration? Another facet of 4th gen warfare! Thus, the Euro-elite “Migrant Problem” is a self-imposed war, with collaborating leaders effectively attacking their own people.

Likewise the Islamofascist terrorism of all kinds, boundless cruelty, supreme confidence versus our cowardice and cringing. See? Atypical warfare, 2016-style– and we imported this: why do we continue to do so?

Leaders For The Fail!

Trust your leaders! They am S-M-R-T!

Our elites? Clueless, pandering, state-worshipping nitwits who cannot see what is right in front of them, and keep trying things that can’t work– or which will enslave their own populations in “peace & security”. The Belgium attacks just don’t fit any of their politically correct categories.

Says Robert Spencer:

“It’s time for the governments of Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and more to fall….. The existing governments are responsible for policies that have turned Europe into a war zone, and that war is just beginning. The political and media elites have failed Europe and the free world, and put Europe on a course toward civil war and bloodshed unseen on the continent since the days of Hitler.”

Consult The Experts

What country in the world has generations of experience with such asymmetric chaotic new-style conflict? That’s right, Israel.

Love them or hate them, their no-nonsense light rapid response, strict airline security, layered internal protection (including that infamous but fairly successful anti-bombing wall) are all defences against 4th generation warfare. It`s not perfect, but there is no perfect defence against guerrilla warfare.

Back Out, Canada

Should Canada keep dropping bombs & fighting in Afghanistan? No. Afghanistan is quickly reverting to what it was– a failed state ripe for terror, with mostly tribal law & order.

Likewise, our “helping” in the U.S. wrecking Syria in the puppet-theatre of American conquest for power and oil– sorry, ‘Arab Spring’– wasn’t stopping, preventing, or stopping DAESH/ ISIL/ ISIS, or local Viet Cong-type attacks. This is Jihad, and the end game our enslavement under Sharia Law: the whole thing, big-time. The Russians get it: the best answer on the terrorist’s own ground is not apologies or hand-wringing or submission, but BOOM.

The End Game: Submission Eurabia

The To-Do List Is Long

This is a religious terror war exploding all around us, and we’re currently caught like General Varus, or like the Americans in bombers and tanks eternally attacking phantoms in the Vietnamese jungles. Or Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria…

We need to Israel-up: walls, strict serious airport & airline security; everybody trained and willing & ready to fight; prison, deportation, de-gehettoization; subvert the subversion; use special ops and counter-infiltration, and especially of mosques and false-front groups. Local vigilance, and reportage; preparation for treachery from our own side. Protect our leaders and government locations– i.e., war everywhere, against everyone.

We need to harden ALL our critical infrastructure, and imagine (within reason) All The Things which are potential targets: internet & hackable infrastructure, the power grid, communications, military site, energy, water & food supplies, industry, transportation, statiums and large gathering places, all of it. In America and elsewhere, Muslim groups have already been nosing around water supplies and crucial power grid components directly, and via cyber-attacks. Halt all Muslim migration until we have a way to sort them out. Be willing to imprison potential terrorists.

We have a great deal to (re)learn, and a lot of blood and misery and mistakes ahead of us. Civilians will have to understand that they are the front-line, along with police and military and trained professionals. This war is not going to end quickly– and it is a war. There will be casualties, no matter how ready or prepared we are– and right now, we’re not very.

The Doom Is Strong

The alternative is not The Same Old Just Like Before, but ending up like Publius Quinctilius Varus and the lost legions of Rome– and like Augustus, wondering how and what had happened. Within 4 centuries, the barbarians were banging on the doors of Rome herself, as the Empire decomposed and fell into ever smaller pieces.

Us? We don’t have anything like that long, because they are already here, and more pouring in every day. The alarm clock is ringing: time to awaken from our pleasant dreams.

2016 Europe under siege is bursting with lessons for Europe, and North America: if we have the eyes and the will to see it. Our freedom, and all we have known and love and lived for and built, stands at risk. ~

So saith

The Binks

Via

This. Bam!

“Men are evil sexist pigs! Equality for women with men!”

And another one. (Language warning)

THESE UTTERLY awesome videos are reasonable, fair, and crushing responses to this recent sexist cry-bully video from Buzzfeed about exactly how much stupid sucky men suck.

There are lots more response videos all over the YouTubes, so go ahead and fill yer boots*. People seem to have had enough, already, of the uni-directional ‘conversation’ with modern semi-fascist/ Marxist feminist bigots.

The point here? Our right to fight back, as men and women who are non-feminists, or anti-feminists, and not Social Justice Dumbots.

An Eye-Roll, Please.

When the special snowflake SJW crazies are yelling in your face about all the ways you are evil and sexist, it’s a good response to say (after rolling your eyes) “Piss off. No I’m not. In fact, you are the sexist bullies, and here’s why…”

Standing fast catches the screamers off guard because they’re used to apologies, apoplexy, flusterment, or agreement, not calm and factual answers. Best of all, the fragile SJWs and  ‘safe-spaces’ campus radicals aren’t really as certain and strong as they like to appear. Paper-thin slogans and the even thinner thinking behind them do not a castle make.

The worst part of all this? Feminism turns most ordinary well-meaning women into nasty parrots, who mindlessly repeat doubtful studies, simplistic statistics, and lying slogans about.. well, everything: slut-shaming, wage gaps, rape culture, patriarchy, ‘Listen & Believe’, and more generally repeating the ridiculous and tired ideas uttered by rich white feminists, sometimes from 50 years ago and more.

Feminist fact-checking? Reason? Fair-mindedness? It is to laugh. Or cry.

I’m gonna let the saucily hilarious ShoeOnHead (an actual woman), wrap this up. Enjoy:

Fight the good fight, my ever-growing army of pre-dead minions!.

So Saith,

The Binks

*NB: “A boot” in this context is not footware, but a reusable leather mug, commonly used on shipboard, and more generally 300+ years ago. The inside was treated with beeswax, or pitch to make it less leaky and leathery-tasting. Because sexism, no doubt.

 

 

Give A Listen, Maybe?

~ ASIDE FROM his British-Lefty atheism, “Sargon Of Akkad” is an awesome English YouTuber (real name, Carl Benjamin).

If you’re lame enough to enjoy this blog, I’d recommend that you hit his subscribe button, and listen to Sargon’s take on nutty feminism, politics, the regressive Left (who just love him) his ‘This Week In Stupid’ feature, political correctness, and various topical and current-interest interviews well worth hearing.

His commentary make me brain more good. Yay!

As I said, aside from his religious views, he has a fine B.S. Meter, a decent historical sense, and a real courage in speaking his views firmly but fairly.

Give him a try, and let me know what you think in the comments! ~

So saith

The Binks

Easter: The Re-Creation

Or, “But But But… That’s Unpossible!”

~ ITEM: NASA captures a huge pulse of energy coming out of a black hole; Mysterious Object That Came Out of a Black Hole Has Just Been Measured

~ ITEM: Black Hole Has Major Flare – Jet Propulsion Laboratory

~ ITEM: Fulfilled Prophecies about Jesus’ Death & Resurrection – See more info here; also,  Google search.. “prophecies of the resurrection in the old testament”; see also Prophecies of the Resurrection

~ ITEM: Silent Saturday: a tomb, a seal, a guard

~ ITEM: What happened on Easter Sunday?

~ ITEM: The Edicule of the Tomb at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre will be restored for the first time in 200 years.

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~ IN 2007, CANADIAN astronomers in Binky’s home town were astonished when something apparently came OUT of a black hole. Yup. Escaped.

According to all the postulated ideas of physics, models of what black holes are and how they are supposed to work– as collapsed super-dense star-cores operating like giant cosmic vacuums sucking up everything nearby (including stars, and even light itself)–  this new observation just makes no sense.

Now, all the rules and assumptions and theories have to be reworked. Once again, reality and what is smashes through our ideas of the universe and what should be.

Kinder, Gentler Black Holes?

Could it be that these monstrous whirlpools of cosmic doom called black holes might also be, somehow, giant engines of creation? That’s a comfort, since there’s also thought to be a ginormous black hole eating away at the star-crowded heart of our own Milky Way Galaxy. Black holes may giveth, as well as the more obvious aspects of black holes taketh-ing away.

Another Mighty Mystery 

An event changing everything, forever– just like the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

Easter is more than a day, it’s a whole church season. It’s more than a past event, it’s an omnipresent engine of recreation, new birth, the operating principle of the spiritual universe, the underlying power: Christ’s bodily resurrection from the dead on Sunday, April 5th, A.D. 33. It’s not just a past-dead-written-in-a-book moment, it’s a present and powerful principle of the transformation of all things.

For Christ is risen from the dead: He lives in and through his church & people, and his new creation a-borning. In Him, all of creation is groaning and awaiting the remaking of all things into a new heaven and a new earth.

Christ arose, transformed and shining with eternal life— and as he is, we shall be. Jesus was first seen by Mary Magdalen, then by 10 apostles; He appeared on the road to the town of Emmaus to two disciples, walking and talking with them. Later he was seen, the Bible said, by above 500 Christians at once. He preached, comforted, and taught, preparing his apostles for their work, following after His promised departure into heaven, and He & the Father sent the Holy Spirit on Pentecost-Day. BOOM.

The Risen Jesus on the Road To Emmaus

The Heavenly Ground Zero

Where is the tomb of Jesus? St. Helena the Mother of the Emperor Constantine toured the Holy Land in A.D. 326, and founded several churches on various holy sites remembered by the local Christians down the years as the original places where events connected with Jesus took place. Some may be uncertain, but one is not– the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

The Tomb of Jesus has survived burial by the pagan Romans; excavation by the Byzantine Christians with the erection of a glorious basilica and rotunda; the AD 614 invasion by the Persians (destruction of the basilica), then waves of Jihad; next  a near-total demolition in AD 1009 ordered by Fatimite Khalif al-Hakim, the Caliph of Egypt (one of the indirect causes of the Crusades); then a rebuilding by the Crusaders, then further earthquakes, fire, and the like. The current building and tomb sure doesn’t look like it originally did– but it’s been through a lot over almost twenty centuries.

Basilica & Rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre, c. AD 335, Romano-Byzantine city of Jerusalem.

The original Tomb was uncovered by the Byzantines, and cut away from the small hill it was cut into. That small building was surrounded by a beautiful rotunda, after which the Dome of the Rock was directly copied from the Rotunda (see ‘Finders, Keepers‘) by a later Muslim ruler over Jerusalem, for fear that the overwhelming beauty of the Christian building would draw Muslims to be converted (or in some cases, to return) to Christianity.

Edicule (centre), Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem

That rotunda was deliberately demolished, and the very tomb itself beaten with hammers and burnt with fire until only part of the funerary-bed and a low wall remained. The crusaders built a small building around what was left, called ‘The Edicule‘. The remaining original stone of the surviving Tomb of Christ is covered and faced with medieval marble, to protect it.

Inside the Tomb Of Jesus.

Some Protestants are piously and deeply enamoured of a more ‘original’-looking site designated in the 1860s by a British army colonel, called ‘Gordon’s Tomb‘, but it is of the wrong date, and location. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, shrines and chambers and icons, just doesn’t feel right. Plus, it’s full of Catholics, and exotic Orthodox Christians.

How do we know that the Church of The Holy Sepulchre really is on the right place where Christ was buried and rose again? It’s simple, really. Some other surrounding tombs: and because these tombs are pointed mostly the wrong way. What-now?

First Century Jewish-Christian Burial Shafts, Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre.

More specifically, there are many small early 1st century Jewish-Christian tombs near the Tomb of Jesus. They are not oriented according to proper Jewish custom, West to East, the heavenly East the direction from which the Messiah is supposed to come. From their various encircling locations, these ancient tombs all point, like compass needles seeking True North, towards the central Tomb. This is where it all happened.

Says one writer:

“These burial shafts (kokhim) date to the time of Christ’s death and thus attest to some kind of burial ground in the area. Bolen writes, ‘Combined with the evidence from tradition, this church is most likely the true location of the Christ’s death and burial.'”

That is– no need to point East, awaiting Him who is to Come: He has come, he has lived, was crucified and died, and risen again from this very place. This is the new centre of the world, where all things began to be made new; the spot where heaven begins, where new life broke forth from the broken tomb, where angels sat atop the great door-stone and declared “Why do you seek the living amongst the dead? He is not here, he is risen, just as he said.”

This, then is truly the very place and supernatural heart of the great explosion of love that is the new creation– the hub of the world, as it used to be depicted on ancient Christian maps. Like creation, the Resurrection is both a moment, and an ongoing life-giving divine energy and re-creative process, of the Father indwelling the Son, and the Son indwelling us, and we indwelling him. God is making all things new: a new creation.

By comparison, the unlimited and eternal energy, living power, and unfolding consequences of that first Easter make even a super-massive black hole look like a pop-gun. ~

Dome Over The Tomb Of Jesus

So saith,

The Binks

How Much Worse?

~ ITEM: Belgium Fears Nuclear Plants Are Vulnerable; plans in the works– Brussels attacks bombers DID plan to attack nuclear power plant; plus, Jihadis filmed 12 hours of footage of power chief’s home amid kidnap plan

~ ITEM: Belgian nuclear plant guard shot dead amid fears Isis wants to build ‘dirty bomb’

BBC Documentary The Dirty Bomb

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~ IT VERY MUCH APPEARS that the Belgian airport bombers wanted radioactive material for a dirty bomb, or even (possibly) to cause a Chernobyl-style meltdown at a Belgian reactor complex only an hour’s drive South-East from Brussels.

Observant officials got suspicious, so the terrorists scattered, and ran with the airport plan, but it also looks like they had inside help at the nuclear plant. Police found the surveillance video of the nuclear plant on a raid of one of the terrorist’s flats.

Just For Example

It wouldn’t take much for terrorists to wreak untold havoc, say, in London – with just basic explosives and some nuclear waste. Such is the gruesome reality of the dirty bomb. It’s a non-nuclear bomb which invisibly spreads deadly radioactive particles over everything nearby, via wind and explosive forces. Says the BBC:

“It would wreak panic in built-up areas, see large areas contaminated and closed off and result in long-term illnesses such as cancer, caused by the dispersed radioactive material attacking living cells.”

Cancer and radiation poisoning are the longer-term (days and months) effects– shorter term, utter panic & chaos, people fleeing the region, refugee problems, looting, opportunistic violence and Jihad, overwhelmed emergency and medical services, local martial law, and contaminated parts of the city cordoned off for months, even years, until remediation and reconstruction could take place.

Multiply By..  1000?

Of course, setting off an entire reactor into a nuclear melt down is a horror and disaster of Biblical proportions. Whole regions, thousands of square miles, could become unlivable, and radioactively quarantined for decades, like Chernobyl, or the exclusion zone around Fukushima. The wind currents of the atmosphere carry the fallout from there, all over the local regions, then around the world.

What A Meltdown Looks Like

Just how many opportunities exist for such demonic mass-slaughter schemes by radicalized terrorists, for either dirty bombs or melt-downs? Wait for it.

“As of February 2016 there are a total of 185 nuclear power plant units with an installed  electric net capacity of 162,507 MWe in operation in Europe.” 

The Jihadi-hated United States?

There are 61 commercially operating nuclear power plants with 99 nuclear reactors in 30 states in the United States. Thirty-five of these plants have two or more reactors.

And many many many more all around the industrial world. Even worse, the internets is still innocently, carelessly, and naïvely full of immense amounts of potentially dangerous and revealing information about many such matters. I won’t link to any of it, but it’s all out there for the evil-minded and malevolent web-surfer.

And no, dear authorities, I’m not a terrorist. I’m trying to be one of the good guys in this war, mmmkay?

Time To Wake Up

In a mostly peaceful, old-fashioned warfare world, you can have nuclear plants for power generation all over the place, because the battlefront is usually far away. This is no longer that world. Welcome to the skin-crawlingly unpredictable world of asymmetrical guerrilla warfare, where no matter how evil or murderous or unthinkable your plan, you’ll do it for ‘the cause’.

Even this. And something nuclear-related almost took place in Belgium just last week, only if the authorities been less vigilant.

Get Busy, Folks

Let’s write to our elected officials, local and regional governments, and make sure that all our reactors around the world– big, small, research/ university, whatever– are all properly manned, supervised, securely protected, and kept safe from inside or exterior ideological threats, given just how horrible the alternative could be.

Also, consider being radiologically prepped (Google or YouTube search it), especially if you live near, or downwind of a nuclear plant. ~

Radioactively mutated daisies, found near nuclear disaster area of Fukushima, 2015.

So warneth,

The Binks

The Orcs Of Sauron & Easter-time

Servants of the Dark Lord.. do love their kabooms.

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~ ITEM: UPDATE— There is no confirmation that Fr. Tom Uzhunnalil was crucified on Good Friday PRAY FOR HIM

AS THE CHRISTIAN West observed Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Pascha, or Easter, the forces of darkness showed themselves, and what they stand for. Evil hates the light; hates joy and goodness and mercy; hates authentic celebration of wonderful things. Hates the followers of Jesus, just as evil hates Him.

Heroic Jihadis attack a nursing home, kill nuns.

Persecution– An Islamic terror-group carried out the Good Friday crucifixion of an Indian priest in Yemen, after he was kidnapped from old people’s home, tortured, and then crucified, according to reports. One nun who miraculously survived the attack on the senior’s home, gave eyewitness testimony of the attack, and the kidnapping of Indian Catholic priest Father Tom Uzhunnalil.

Let us pray that he gave a good account of himself, and that he may receive a martyr’s crown in heaven, for his service on earth, and his Christ-witnessing death. May his murderers repent and come to believe in the Gospel.  Lord have mercy.

PRAY FOR HIM  Martyred for the faith— Father Tom Uzhunnalil.

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Planned Persecution– Churchgoing Christians in England dodged a bullet Sunday past– Brussels Jihad Murderers Plotted Easter Church Massacres In The UK. Many native English may not take their religion seriously these days, but certain Muslims do, and that’s why we are where we are, and where we’re headed: More. Uglier. Worse.

Of course, militant Muslims even cheerfully kill their own– as Mark Steyn notes in his “Happy Easter from the Religion of Peace“. Asad Shah’s horrid and death-worthy crime? Wishing Christians a Happy Easter.

Why do they hate us? It must be something we did to make them sad. Let’s apologize!

---

 

Heartbreaking Word From Pakistan

[ WARNING: some disturbing pictures amongst the links below. I chose the least graphic. ]

Persecution– The long-suffering Christians of Lahore, Pakistan, have suffered yet another suicide-bombing directed against Christians— this time, an evening Easter Party of parents and children in a local park. The pictures show everybody dressed in their Easter finery, stricken whilst making joyful holiday, on the high Christian feast of Resurrection & new life.

Twenty nine children were among 72 killed, 300 injured, many critically. Please pray for them all.

Past Persecution– On March 15 of 2015, two Taliban suicide bombers likewise blew themselves up in Pakistan at the entrance to two Christian churches in Lahore, causing 17 deaths and wounding 80 more. In September 2013, two explosions at the All Saint’s Church in Peshawar killed 127 people and injured more than 250, and an attack on a Peshawar school in December 2014 killed 150 people, mostly students.

Jesus says:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven….” (Matthew 5:43-5)

But he also taught:

“… [W]hoever receives one such child in My name receives Me; but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea..” (Matthew 18:6)

The better option, says Jesus, to those thinking about hurting His kids.

It’s Deadly Serious

This is the new form of war: the front is everywhere, and nowhere; the enemy is highly committed and serious, and hidden; and there are no non-combatants. Candles and chalk drawings and flowers and weepy gatherings will not make it stop. Stop cringing: it only encourages them.

Even worse? Christians are Slaughtered While U.S. Churches Look the Other Way. Jesus says it is he who is persecuted in the suffering and death of his own; and He warns that just as we’ve done unto the least of his flock, we’ve done it– or not done it– unto him.

So, What Now?

Will we stand tall, no matter what? Will we defend and fight for ourselves and our civilization, or not? Do we follow Jesus, and so take up our Cross, and partake in his eternal victory– so giving inward spiritual life to our societies, or not?

As for me, I do not seek martyrdom, but I ask God’s grace that I will not fail him, if it were to come to that. I sacrifice and offer up my time and thought and prayer and love online and in life, where I hope to rebuild the foundations and give strength and courage and insight to my readers.

“Rise heart, thy Lord is risen!” It is hard to mourn whilst celebrating, but God grant us larger hearts so we can do both well at once.

Cheer up. Nut up/ ovary up. Donate, pray, pass the word, and get active.

Things are going to get much, much worse before He returns, be that now, or in ages to come. In any case, we’ll see Him one way or another, for death comes in the blink of an eye for mortal man. ~

O return soon, Lord Jesus! “And they said to the mountains and to the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb’…..” (Rev 6:16)

So saith

The Binks

Easter III: Thus Saith Hilary

~ WISE WORDS worth pondering, about where we are in 2016, spiritually, and what it all means in the light of Holy Week, Good Friday, and Easter. The article is by commentator and freelance writer (and lucky friend of Binks), Miss Hilary White.

Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.

Cheers,

~B~

Hatred, Wisdom and Easter: What’s the Connection?

Easter II: Preach It, Brother

The Paschal homily of St John Chrysostomos (Archbishop of Constantinople)

This sermon is read at the Paschal Divine Liturgy on the Sunday of the Resurrection in Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Churches. It was written c. AD 398. Via.

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The Paschal Sermon

 

IF ANY MAN be devout and love God, let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast. If any man be a wise servant, let him rejoicing enter into the joy of his Lord. If any have labored long in fasting, let him now receive his recompense.

If any have wrought from the first hour, let him today receive his just reward.

If any have come at the third hour, let him with thankfulness keep the feast.

If any have arrived at the sixth hour, let him have no misgivings; because he shall in nowise be deprived thereof.

If any have delayed until the ninth hour, let him draw near, fearing nothing.

If any have tarried even until the eleventh hour, let him, also, be not alarmed at his tardiness; for the Lord, who is jealous of his honor, will accept the last even as the first; he gives rest unto him who comes at the eleventh hour, even as unto him who has wrought from the first hour.

And he shows mercy upon the last, and cares for the first; and to the one he gives, and upon the other he bestows gifts. And he both accepts the deeds, and welcomes the intention, and honors the acts and praises the offering.

Wherefore, enter you all into the joy of your Lord; and receive your reward, both the first, and likewise the second. You rich and poor together, hold high festival. You sober and you heedless, honor the day. Rejoice today, both you who have fasted and you who have disregarded the fast. The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously. The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.

Enjoy ye all the feast of faith: Receive ye all the riches of loving-kindness. let no one bewail his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed. Let no one weep for his iniquities, for pardon has shown forth from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the Savior’s death has set us free.

He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it. By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive.

He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh. And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry: ‘Hell’, said he, ‘was embittered, when it encountered Thee in the lower regions.’

It was embittered, for it was abolished.

It was embittered, for it was mocked.

It was embittered, for it was slain.

It was embittered, for it was overthrown.

It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains.

It took a body, and met God face to face.

It took earth, and encountered Heaven.

It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.

‘O Death, where is your sting? O Hell, where is your victory?’

Christ is risen, and you are overthrown.

Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen.

Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice.

Christ is risen, and life reigns.

Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave.

‘For Christ, being risen from the dead, is become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep’!

To Him be glory and dominion unto ages of ages. Amen! +

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A video version of the sermon.

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About The Preacher:

St. John Chrysostom (“Golden Tongue”) was born at Antioch On The Orontes in about the year AD 347, into a military family. St. John spent his early years studying under the finest philosophers and rhetoricians and was ordained a deacon in the year 381 by the bishop of Antioch Saint Meletios. In AD 386 St. John was later ordained a priest by Bishop Flavian, successor to St. Meletios. Beginning in 390, he preached a famous teaching sermon-series on the New Testament, including ninety sermons on Matthew, eighty-eight on John, and thirty-two on Romans, many of which still exist.

Over time, his fame as a holy preacher and teacher grew, and in AD 397 after the death of Archbishop Nektarios of Constantinople— successor to Sainted Gregory the Theologian— Saint John Chrysostom was called from Antioch to be the new Patriarch & Archbishop of Constantinople. His serious and outspoken reforms to purify the church actually led to conflict with the Empress and others, and thus he was banished.

Exiled in AD 404, he fell into ill health. He was moved to Pitius in Abkhazia. There, St. John, after receiving the Holy Eucharist, said, “Glory to God for everything!” He then fell asleep in the Lord on 14 September AD 407, at the age of fifty. +

He Is Risen Indeed, Alleluia!!

Happy Easter/ Pascha to the whole wide earth!

Death is swallowed up in victory!

YE POEM INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Turn on the following video.

2. Read the poem.

3. Click the link ‘George Herbert’ at the end of the poem for some helpful analysis.

4. For the Vaughan Williams anthem of Herbert’s words, click back there.

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Easter –

ISE HEART: thy Lord is risen! Sing his praise
Without delayes,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
With him mayst rise:
That, as his death calcined thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more just.

Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
With all thy art.
The crosse taught all wood to resound his name,
Who bore the same.
His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.

Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song
Pleasant and long:
Or since all music is but three parts vied
And multiplied;
O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,
And make up our defects with his sweet art.

I got me flowers to straw thy way;
I got me boughs off many a tree:
But thou wast up by break of day,
And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.

The sunne arising in the East,
Though he give light, & th’East perfume;
If they should offer to contest
With thy arising, they presume.

Can there be any day but this,
Though many sunnes to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we misse:
There is but one, and that one ever.

George Herbert, 1633

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Paschal Troparion

(here, in many languages)

Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered; let those who hate Him flee from before His face (Ps. 68:1)
As smoke vanishes, so let them vanish; as wax melts before the fire (Ps. 68:2a)
So the sinners will perish before the face of God; but let the righteous be glad (Ps. 68:2b)
This is the day which the Lord hath made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. (Ps. 118:24)

Christ is risen from the dead,
Trampling down death by death,
And upon those in the tombs
Bestowing life!

Even more.

This is what Christ’s resurrection & Easter Joy feels like in my soul.
Yes, that’s organ and bagpipes. Together.
Muwahahahaha.

This has been an awesomely incredible BinksCorp Multimedia Experience, Copyright 2016, all rights, trademarks, and all other thingies whereunto appertaining are hereby reserved, and mine, mine. MINE, I tell you! Your life has now been changed forever. You are most welcome. Easter Hugz & Joy! +

 

Holy Saturday

“Now when evening had come, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be given to him.

When Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his new tomb which he had hewn out of the rock; and he rolled a large stone against the door of the tomb, and departed. And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting opposite the tomb.

On the next day, which followed the Day of Preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered together to Pilate, saying, “Sir, we remember, while He was still alive, how that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away, and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead.’ So the last deception will be worse than the first.”

Pilate said to them, “You have a guard; go your way, make it as secure as you know how.” So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting the guard.”

(Matthew 27:57-66)

“It is accomplished!”, he cried from the cross. So it’s not over.. it’s just beginning.

For while the disciples weep, and His body sleeps in the cold silence of the sealed and guarded tomb, the Lord Jesus– Lord of both the dead and the living– He is already up and doing, in the spirit. The soul of Christ is amongst the dead, harvesting the first-fruits of his saving victory. Death cannot hold Him: love is stronger than death.

Long have the dead waited for the Light to arise upon them– Adam and Eve are called first, then the great saints and holy kings and prophets and faithful ones of the Old Covenant.. also John the Baptist, and the good thief on the cross. The gates of heaven are opened, and the rescued throngs pour in behind the victorious Lord. Even now, on Holy Saturday, the great Sabbath, He has begun to make all things new.  (Revelation 21:5)

And He’s not done yet….

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An ancient homily for Holy Saturday

Attributed to Bishop Melito of Sardis, c. AD 180

Something strange is happening — there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the Cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: ‘My Lord be with you all.’ Christ answered him: ‘And with thy spirit.’ He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: ‘Awake, o sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give thee light.’

I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in Hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in Me and I in you; together we form one person and cannot be separated.

For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, Whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.

See on My Face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On My back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See My hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.

I slept on the cross and a sword pierced My side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in Hell. The sword that pierced Me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.

Rise. Let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity. +

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More on Holy Saturday meaning & customs.

Poems for Holy Saturday | Lent & Beyond

Holy Saturday – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So saith,

Teh Binksmeister