“Canadians are going into the Easter weekend tomorrow with a few truths to consider. First and foremost, Stephen Harper will be the next prime minister. Second, if Michael Ignatieff cannot be counted on to stop Stephen Harper from forming a majority, left-leaning Canadians will look to the much more likeable and ideological Jack Layton to oppose Mr. Harper in the 41st parliament. Third, Canadians will consider a coalition government to be explicitly on the table as Layton may be in an increased position of strength to negotiate its outcome.”
OH all ye, who passe by, whose eyes and minde
To worldly things are sharp, but to me blinde;
To me, who took eyes that I might you finde:
Was ever grief like mine?
The Princes of my people make a head
Against their Maker: they do wish me dead,
Who cannot wish, except I give them bread;
Was ever grief like mine?
Without me each one, who doth now me brave,
Had to this day been an Egyptian slave.
They use that power against me, which I gave:
Was ever grief like mine?
Mine own Apostle, who the bag did beare,
Though he had all I had, did not forbeare
To sell me also, and to put me there:
Was ever grief like mine?
For thirtie pence he did my death devise,
Who at three hundred did the ointment prize,
Not half so sweet as my sweet sacrifice:
Was ever grief like mine?
Therefore my soul melts, and my hearts deare treasure
Drops bloud (the onely beads) my words to measure:
O let this cup passe, if it be thy pleasure:
Was ever grief like mine?
These drops being temper’d with sinners tears
A Balsome are for both the Hemispheres:1
Curing all wounds, but mine; all, but my fears:
Was ever grief like mine?
Yet my Disciples sleep; I cannot gain
One houre of watching; but their drowsie brain
Comforts not me, and doth my doctrine stain:
Was ever grief like mine?
Arise, arise, they come. Look how they runne!
Alas! what haste they make to be undone!
How with their lanterns do they seek the sunne!
Was ever grief like mine?
With clubs and staves they seek me, as a thief,
Who am the Way and Truth, the true relief;
Most true to those, who are my greatest grief:
Was ever grief like mine?
Judas, dost thou betray me with a kisse?
Canst thou finde hell about my lips? and misse
Of life, just at the gates of life and blisse?
Was ever grief like mine?
See, they lay hold on me, not with the hands
Of faith, but furie: yet at their commands
I suffer binding, who have loos’d their bands
Was ever grief like mine?
All my Disciples flie; fear puts a barre
Betwixt my friends and me. They leave the starre,
That brought the wise men of the East from farre.
Was ever grief like mine?
Then from one ruler to another bound
They leade me; urging, that it was not sound
What I taught: Comments would the test confound.
Was ever grief like mine?
The Priest and rulers all false witnesse seek
’Gainst him, who seeks not life, but is the meek
And readie Paschal Lambe of this great week:
Was ever grief like mine?
Then they accuse me of great blasphemie,
That I did thrust into the Deitie,
Who never thought that any robberie:
Was ever grief like mine?
Some said, that I the Temple to the floore
In three dayes raz’d, and raised as before.
Why, he that built the world can do much more:
Was ever grief like mine?
Then they condemne me all with that same breath,
Which I do give them daily, unto death.
Thus Adam my first breathing rendereth:
Was ever grief like mine?
They binde, and leade me unto Herod: he
Sends me to Pilate. This makes them agree;
But yet their friendship is my enmitie:
Was ever grief like mine?
Herod and all his bands do set me light,
Who teach all hands to warre, fingers to fight,
And onely am the Lord of Hosts and might:
Was ever grief like mine?
Herod in judgement sits, while I do stand;
Examines me with a censorious hand:
I him obey, who all things else command:
Was ever grief like mine?
The Jews accuse me with dispitefulnesse;
And vying malice with my gentlenesse,
Pick quarrels with their onely happinesse:
Was ever grief like mine?
I answer nothing, but with patience prove
If stonie hearts will melt with gentle love.
But who does hawk at eagles with a dove?
Was ever grief like mine?
My silence rather doth augment their crie;
My dove doth back into my bosome flie,
Because the raging waters still are high:
Was ever grief like mine?
Heark how they crie aloud still, Crucifie:
It is not fit he live a day, they crie,
Who cannot live lesse then eternally:
Was ever grief like mine?
Pilate, a stranger, holdeth off; but they,
Mine owne deare people, cry, Away, away,
With noises confused frighting the day:
Was ever grief like mine?
Yet still they shout, and crie, and stop their eares,
Putting my life among their sinnes and fears,
And therefore wish my bloud on them and theirs:
Was ever grief like mine?
See how spite cankers things. These words aright
Used, and wished, are the whole worlds light:
But honey is their gall, brightnesse their night:
Was ever grief like mine?
They choose a murderer, and all agree
In him to do themselves a courtesie:
For it was their own case who killed me:
Was ever grief like mine?
And a seditious murderer he was:
But I the Prince of peace; peace that doth passe
All understanding, more then heav’n doth glasse:3
Was ever grief like mine?
Why, Caesar is their onely King, not I:
He clave the stonie rock, when they were drie;
But surely not their hearts, as I well trie:
Was ever grief like mine?
Ah! how they scourge me! yet my tendernesse
Doubles each lash: and yet their bitternesse
Windes up my grief to a mysteriousnesse:
Was ever grief like mine?
They buffet him, and box him as they list,
Who grasps the earth and heaven with his fist,
And never yet, whom he would punish, miss’d:
Was ever grief like mine?
Behold, they spit on me in scornfull wise,
Who by my spittle gave the blinde man eies,
Leaving his blindnesse to my enemies:
Was ever grief like mine?
My face they cover, though it be divine.
As Moses face was vailed, so is mine,
Lest on their double-dark souls either shine:
Was ever grief like mine?
Servants and abjects flout me; they are wittie:
Now prophesie who strikes thee, is their dittie.
So they in me denie themselves all pitie:
Was ever grief like mine?
And now I am deliver’d unto death,
Which each one calls for so with utmost breath,
That he before me well nigh suffereth:
Was ever grief like mine?
Weep not, deare friends, since I for both have wept
When all my tears were bloud, the while you slept:
Your tears for your own fortunes should be kept:
Was ever grief like mine?
The souldiers lead me to the common hall;
There they deride me, they abuse me all:
Yet for twelve heav’nly legions I could call:
Was ever grief like mine?
Then with a scarlet robe they me aray;
Which shews my bloud to be the onely way
And cordiall left to repair mans decay:
Was ever grief like mine?
Then on my head a crown of thorns I wear:
For these are all the grapes Sion doth bear,
Though I my vine planted and watred there:
Was ever grief like mine?
So sits the earths great curse in Adams fall
Upon my head: so I remove it all
From th’ earth unto my brows, and bear the thrall:
Was ever grief like mine?
Then with the reed they gave to me before,
They strike my head, the rock from thence all store
Of heav’nly blessings issue evermore:
Was ever grief like mine?
They bow their knees to me, and cry, Hail king:
What ever scoffes & scornfulnesse can bring,
I am the floore, the sink, where they it fling:
Was ever grief like mine?
Yet since mans scepters are as frail as reeds,
And thorny all their crowns, bloudie their weeds;
I, who am Truth, turn into truth their deeds:
Was ever grief like mine?
The souldiers also spit upon that face,
Which Angels did desire to have the grace,
And Prophets, once to see, but found no place:
Was ever grief like mine?
Thus trimmed, forth they bring me to the rout,
Who Crucifie him, crie with one strong shout.
God holds his peace at man, and man cries out:
Was ever grief like mine?
They leade me in once more, and putting then
Mine own clothes on, they leade me out agen.
Whom devils flie, thus is he toss’d of men:
Was ever grief like mine?
And now wearie of sport, glad to ingrosse
All spite in one, counting my life their losse,
They carrie me to my most bitter crosse:
Was ever grief like mine?
O all ye who passe by, behold and see;
Man stole the fruit, but I must climbe the tree;
The tree of life to all, but onely me:
Was ever grief like mine?
Lo, here I hang, charg’d with a world of sinne,
The greater world o’ th’ two; for that came in
By words, but this by sorrow I must win:
Was ever grief like mine?
Such sorrow as, if sinfull man could feel,
Or feel his part, he would not cease to kneel.
Till all were melted, though he were all steel:
Was ever grief like mine?
But, O my God, my God! why leav’st thou me,
The sonne, in whom thou dost delight to be?
My God, my God ——
Never was grief like mine.
Shame tears my soul, my bodie many a wound;
Sharp nails pierce this, but sharper that confound;
Reproches, which are free, while I am bound.
Was ever grief like mine?
Now heal thy self, Physician; now come down.
Alas! I did so, when I left my crown
And fathers smile for you, to feel his frown:
Was ever grief like mine?
In healing not my self, there doth consist
All that salvation, which ye now resist;
Your safetie in my sicknesse doth subsist:
Was ever grief like mine?
Betwixt two theeves I spend my utmost breath,
As he that for some robberie suffereth.
Alas! what have I stollen from you? Death.
Was ever grief like mine?
A king my title is, prefixt on high;
Yet by my subjects am condemn’d to die
A servile death in servile companie:
Was ever grief like mine?
They give me vinegar mingled with gall,
But more with malice: yet, when they did call,
With Manna, Angels food, I fed them all:
Was ever grief like mine?
They part my garments, and by lot dispose
My coat, the type of love, which once cur’d those
Who sought for help, never malicious foes:
Was ever grief like mine?
Nay, after death their spite shall further go;
For they will pierce my side, I full well know;
That as sinne came, so Sacraments might flow:
Was ever grief like mine?
But now I die; now all is finished.
My woe, mans weal: and now I bow my head.
Onely let others say, when I am dead, Never was grief like mine.
~ HERE IN Binkiland, we’re lucky to have two or three very good used bookstores, and a reasonably well-read populace.
One recent grab was Paul Theroux’s The Pillars Of Hercules, a travelogue of the Mediterranean, from Gilbraltar all the way round to the other pillar. I didn’t know that I knew Theroux, but the film adaptation of his Mosquito Coast (with Harrison Ford) had spookily spoken to my circumstances then: a family member out of control; life turned into a tornado; everything shaped by the broken life of a loved one.
~ YOU MAY NOTICE there’s not a lot of commentary this time.. it’s been insanely busy in the meatspace for Binky. Basement repair & insurance claim; kids & school; the usual health; and the part-way blog-move to this new secure site.
Commentary takes at least four brain-cells rubbing together; it takes time to think, cogitate, and brew. For those of you who hate my rants & cogitations, you’re in luck this time!
Yes, I’m working with the web-monkeys to fix the formatting and other issues over on the new blog-home FreeMarkSteyn.com~
~ ANY RATIONAL PERSON KNOWS there’s a double-standard when it comes to the savage barbarism of Islam, versus everybody else. Well.. blinders might be a better term– so we don’t get distracted from the Real Problem.. of how terribly, terribly bad we are.
The massacre of the Fogels.. there’s just no words.
As I’ve said before, just reverse the terms: Presbyterians massacre, stab, slaughter Hindus. Rejoicing breaks out in the streets of Glasgow, candy handed out. Then you’re in the land of teh crazy.
What’s worse is that we’re getting used to this. That makes us guilty bystanders.
March 22, 2011 Library and Archives Canada 7:00 PM (bonus video 6:30pm)
Admission: $20 (includes HST), $10.00 for students/ seniors Compact Music, 785 1/2 Bank Street Compact Music, 190 Bank Street Ottawa Festivals, 47 William Street Tickets will also be available at the door.
~ DO REMEMBER the Binky Amazon Wish-List if you are thankful for this blog: Give Now Give Often!
Getting loot keeps me happy, and if it’s good for braining, it will also inspire & inform this blog, to the betterment of minions everywhere. As always, keep up the prayers, good wishes, and encouraging notes (or hate-messages.. they’re always inspiring), and be assured of my love, thanks, and humble regard for all of you, for taking the time to read Free Canuckistan, link to it, and spread the word.
If you give swag to teh Binks, then you too can share the body-wrenching waves of ecstasy and life-fulfillment no doubt being experienced by Prof. Mark Mercer, who recently sent along some Monty Python DVDs. Wooo!
~ SOME MILITANT MUSLIMS ARE BIG on crimes against history, religion, holy sites and other people’s stuff. The Jewish Temple of Jerusalem– from Solomon’s time until the first sack of Jerusalem by the Romans, stood for something like 1000 years in various versions.
Sorry.. All That Went Before is evil in Islamic teaching, and especially if it’s [spit, retch] Jewish.
So the Temple Mount over the last 65+ years has undergone a deliberate and world-class archaeological rape, with stones and artifacts ground up, bulldozed, and hauled to the dump by the Islamic Temple Mount authority which oversees the two mosques planted there.
This makes my blood boil. As a Christian, a friend of Israel and the Jews, a historian, an amateur fan of archaeology, and a student of civilization, there are not enough bad words for just how utterly evil and destructive this sort of deliberate wreckification truly is, and for so many reasons.
Current Fun With Evil
Now, it turns out that “Muslim Officials Burn Ancient Timbers on Temple Mount“. And the world looks on, as civilization’s psychotic little brother continues the rampage, at one of humanity’s holiest sites. Unspeakable. What were they? 3000 years old, you say? Cedars of Lebanon as recorded from the Bible, or some other wood? What stories arise from the smallest things when properly excavated can rewrite history.. but not for the defacing orcs and their dreams of Mordor uber alles.
Thankfully, some rescue-archaeology has been underway for years, retrieving the dump-truck loads of ancient and historic temple-remains and artifacts from the dump where the ‘Muslim Officials’ have been trying to erase all history and traces of ancient Jewish presence on the Temple Mount, for two generations and more. You know, ‘cuz it all belongs to Allah & Muhammed, even though Islam wasn’t even cooked up until 530 years after the Temple was destroyed by the Romans. That’s how the supremacist mind works; excuses, ruination, erasing, retelling with fresh lies, all for the Big Lie.
Wreckifying Bastages
Now, I’m not into the whole Third Temple thing, nor the terrorism and reverse ethic-cleansing sometimes advocated alongside it, but Somebody needs to protect ancient holy sites and archaeological treasures, even against the people currently desecrating and wrecking them in the name of their deity. History, archaeology, science, faith & scholarship should take a stand, and the courts of Israel and elsewhere should charge the authorities involved, try and imprison them. If you can’t look after something properly, you lose your authority over it, feckwits.. oh, but it’s everybody’s favourite punching-bags, the Jews, and everybody’s worst nightmare rabid wild dogs, irate Muslims and their politics of self-defeat. I forgot. Silly me.
Of course, the deliberate erasing of churches, graveyards, ancient sites, libraries, anything deemed offensive has gone on for years all over lands where the bloody crescent flag flies. The Bhuddas of Bamyan, the Tomb of Joseph, the countless lost glories of Byzantium, even the levelling, burning, and smashing with hammers of the original Church of The Holy Sepulchre on October 18, 1009, under Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah– it’s all part of a pattern.
As I understand it, some versions of Islamic teaching has considered pre-Islamic history and civilization (plus the reminders thereof) as forbidden and evil, as reminders of false religion and beliefs. Combine that with resurgent Jihad, and you’ve a perfect recipe and excuse for barbarism on a grand scale, that would shame the original Vandals. So (if I recall correctly) there was even talk recently in Iran about levelling some ancient Persian sites. Just because. There was also rumour in France of an intended firebombing of a medieval library, where original documents of French history were located.. why? France is under Jihad from militant Muslim immigrants, and that’s all about The Big Forgetting, and erasure of the past.
To destroy a civilization, it is necessary to grind history and memory and physical reminders to dust. So the ancient pre-Roman Etruscans were all but wiped off the map by the triumphant Latins, so the people would forget their high culture and successful past, and be obedient to Rome. Modern tyrants also use this tactic– so in Moscow a massive cathedral was levelled to be replaced with a palace of communism. The palace was never completed– and has since been replaced with a new cathedral. The little old ladies remembered.
Jihad– wiping out civilization, just because. Heck of a religion you got there, folks. ~
~ REALITY & REAL THINGS ARE BEST— The other day, a few of us were e-mailing back and forth, noting that despite 60+ years of the Marxist academy seeking to murder art, music, literature, and literature, that it still keeps coming back, unzombie-like.
Hence, the new video-game Dante’s Inferno, which actually pays some attention to the original poem. Then, there’s the movie of the game. Then.. as I looked around, there’s even an iApp of the test of the Inferno. What’s going on here? Why is a 13th century medieval Christian poem so alive online, and even in corners of the circus that is pop culture?
Well, even if misunderstood, not handed on, or sidelined, good and true and beautiful things abide. They are life-giving, soul-changing, they feed and reward attention paid. I’d say the same thing about the new video ’70 Million’ by the band Hold Your Horses! They pose and reconstruct famous paintings as part of their video, and it’s very effective.
Aristotle said that all true knowledge was a kind of remembering: indeed, the glory and nostalgia of rediscovering good and true and beautiful things is a powerful thing. Of course, we can become consumers of such ‘experiences’ like noisy tourists clattering away in a cathedral as if it was a museum, but that’s not what I’m talking about.
Dumbing Ourselves Down
Academia and high culture has become narcissistic and faddish and Orwellian.. and yet, through old books, some decent schools and profs, the internet, and seekers in every generation, the good stuff abides. Relativism doesn’t truly nourish the soul or action; the endless ‘isms’ of academe are a shadow-play of sound and fury, signifying nothing; the flashing violence and sex of pop-culture only impoverishes. And we pay for our own enslavement to the flashing hollow city of the unreal.
Inherited virtues, right & wrong, abiding truth, the soul on pilgrimage, the true, the good, the beautiful, the divine– we need good teachers, writers, parents, mentors, leaders, people who humble themselves before the truth, and serve others in love, to rebuild the best things of Western civilization.
Fighting and railing away on what’s wrong, or the enemy, is not the same as to live and be civilized and good and honourable. Our civilization is imploding for many reasons, and that’s where the tyrants and traitors and barbarians exploit and attack us. Rebuild, as you fight; learn the best of your heritage and Western Civ, and pass it on in a good life, thought, and fighting back.
These are the foundations and pillars.. all the rest is interior decoration. ~
~ BACK IN THE LATE 80’s, Toronto’s YorkU was known as a hotbed of feminist bad ideas, pro-gay ideology, and the intellectual pesticide and wankerdom sometimes called political correctness. Now, keeping up with the trendy head-rot, it’s apparently a hotbed for Islamis, anti-Semitism, and hatred of Israel.. along with the usual laundry-list of Leftist hates.
Something is very rotten in the state of YorkU, the academy which launched Khurrum the Hairless Sockpuppet and his minions onto the national stage, breathing lawsuits and time-wasting and muddled stealth-Jihad. Is the faculty & administration happy about their reputation & public image? Are they paying attention to their Muslim students for extremism, or does that violate some academic sensitivity code? Mommas, don’t let your babies grow up to go YorkU.
Two Pictures
This is Canada, now: Mark Steyn has offered up months of his life, lots of his own and other people’s hard-earned money to fight over some words that a very few militant Muslims found ‘offensive’. Not objectively racist, violent, or rabble-rousing. Mark did what he does: pointed and funny words to raise a sharp point that is worth out attention, whether we agree with him or not.
This is also Canada now: a Muslim student at York University, calls for genocide on website called “Filthy Jewish Terrorists”. The site is currently either (a) swamped by traffic or (2) gone into hiding, because it never existed, you Jew-loving scum. So far, the Human Rights Einsatzgruppen, the media, the perpetually offended, and Muslim groups have not risen to the occasion to condemn this open call to a little holocaust-fun in Toronto and the world. Plus, it’s against the law, right? Authorities Anyone? Anyone? What’s that? You’re still looking into the Steyn case? Oh.. you ARE looking into it. Good.
Footprints in the Ether
The idiots who like to post their stupidity for all the world to witness apparently don’t know about Google cache memory, the Wayback machine website retriever, screen & code grabs, WHOIS, and the panoply of good stuff out there to find lost, deleted, or whitewashed web-stuff. Durh, guys. And if you’ve not the courage of your convictions, how tough is your religion anyway?
WHOIS information for filthyjewishterrorists.com :
Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.
Anyhow, the blogosphere is all over this. We’ll have to see if the Canuckistan’s official paid Jews can spare a few moments from trolling for Nazis over on Rabble.ca to notice another Canadian ‘M-word’ publicly spewing massacre & hate and using the H-word against Jews.
Oh, and Mr. Jew-hating guy? Just in case you lost your website data, I’ve made copies of it all from the intertoobs, and maybe sharing it around so you can be sure it never gets misplaced again. Always glad to be helpful, is this Elf.
The colonizers are busy at work on stage 2 of the plan, by stealth-Jihad, sharia separatism, infiltration of institutions, quiet cooperation and incremental steps, to the next stage, when the invaders and Islamo-Supremacists begin to treat the rest of us like interlopers and strangers in our own home and native land.
~ IN THE MOVIE “300”— and this is history– strong cities and whole regions cringed before the ginormous army of Xerxes as it marched on Athens. The “gifts of earth & water” was the surrender message to avoid trouble.
Even the Spartans had their cringers– like their deposed and exiled King Demaratus, who served as an advisor to Xerxes himself on how best to beat the Greeks and the Spartans. Lucky for us, the Persians counted on the cringe more than strategy or that exiled king, or it could have been all over before Thermopylae ever happened.
Acting Like Free Men
The cringe is ever with us. After all, all Ezra had to do was cough up a few bucks and sign a paper and apologize, and he’d have saved himself 900 days and a lot of cash. All Mark and Macleans had to do was apologize, let the Sock-Puppets of Elmasry take over the mag for an issue, plus a little shakedown money, and things would be over quickly. All Geert Wilders had to to was recognize realities, keep his opinions to himself, do the obligatory grovels, and the controversy would die away. That’s all: earth and water, 21st century style.
Except– that’s not what free men do, when confronted by evil, and commands to cringe, to offer up a little grovelling, and be received as prudent and sensible folk who don’t raise a stink.
Slaves and dogs and unfree men cringe. So a cheerful King Leonidas and his Spartans and allies stood tall at the Hot Gates, knowing that if he and Athens bent the knee to superpower Persia, the game was over: Greece would die, democracy and philosophy and drama and freedom would be wiped out. So those 10 000 men stood for 3 days against an army of upwards of 2 million, and showed that principle and courage mean that even though you be slain, you can remain undefeated– and even win a victory.
That coveted freedom had a content, too: it’s much more than selfishness or rampant individualism, or the political equivalents in our current times.
Reversing The Tide
Soon after, even as the Persians wrecked and burnt Athens, the crack Greek navy put the Persian fleet to flight at the Battle of Salamis, and so seriously threatened the supply lines– and mighty Xerxes himself– that he headed home, leaving his senior commander to wrap up the land war with a massive force of 250 000 men.
Then, at Thermopylae II, otherwise known as the Battle of Plataea, the massed Spartan and Greek army of 38 000 put the Persians to the sword, and sent the survivors scrambling homewards. It was August 479 BC, exactly 1 year after Leonidas showed the Greeks and his own people how to live and die.
So much for cringing, for worldly calculations, and the easy road of surrender.
As the motto of another stubborn hero, William Wallace, has it: Dico tibi verum, libertas optimum rerum, nunquam servili. “I tell you the truth, the best of all things is freedom: never, my son, live under the bonds of slavery.” Or this, from the 1320 Scottish Declaration of Arbroath: “It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom — for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself. “
Just sayin’, is all. ~
Jihad 3.0: More Christian Heads Roll
“People were attacked with axes, daggers and cutlasses — many of them children, the aged and pregnant women.”
~ ABOUT 40% OF NIGERIA IS MUSLIM, and militantly so. The pressure has been on to implement nation-wide sharia law, and to riot and kill their way into a majority position and complete rule of the nation. It’s how ye old-fashioned Islam rolls.
Of course, like other regional jihad-wars, the international community likes to call it “religious unrest”. You know, like when endless church-burnings, anti-Christian violence, and even wholesale mass-murder against one side by the other happens. Used to be called ethnic cleansing or Jihad or war, but nor it’s just ‘unrest’.
As this elf has pointed out before, it’s a theological problem: the teachings of Nasty Mo allow for no other religion or law than Islam & Sharia. There is no secular within the sphere of the sacred, as articulated by medieval Christian teachers. That means religion is the law, and clergy rule directly: Europe is all about church & state, and the allowance of a body of precedent-based laws to rule and duly appointed legislators to represent a kingdom and her people. It’s all under God, be it church-y or not.
Heads or Tails
This itself is based on the teachings of Jesus, who was invited to depict himself as a tax-rebel and law-breaker by his enemies, to get him in trouble with the Romans. So we have the question: “Is it lawful to pay tax to Caesar, or not?” Jesus asks for a silver denarii, with a picture of the Emperor Tiberius on the face. “Whose image and superscription is this?” Jesus asks of his interrogators. “Caesar’s'”, they reply. Jesus nails them: “Then render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s.”
This saying is often misrepresented as teaching ‘the separation of church & state’. Not so much. What is Caesar’s? Law, tax, orderly rule. What is God’s? All things and his creatures, including his providential rule through earthly means, even via sometimes unjust rulers and their laws. How do we know this? Because Jesus never once advocated earthly revolution, law-breaking, or anarchy.
When addressing the humiliating Roman requirement of forcing subject individuals to haul a given load from one milestone to the next, Jesus told his followers to walk a second mile. Demonstrate love, forgiveness, patience under affliction, and show a higher obedience and a better Kingdom. His blood alone would truly set them free; his resurrection alone would seal their salvation, their hope of heaven, and their call to live and serve their neighbour here below.
On The Other Hand
Muhammed chose the path of blood; treachery and conquest; enslavement and subjection. Nigeria is just the latest land to be soaked with the blood of Christian martyrs in the name of the gory desert cult of Arabia. Until the end of time, or the final defeat of Islam, it will always be so– because Muhammed hated Jesus, the Son of God, and God’s people, the Jews and Christians. That’s why he re-wrote the Nativity, and bits of the new Testament to suit himself. He knew– as do all would-be tyrants– that the ultimate choice is between Jesus and some other ultimate. The militant Jihadists are following in Mo’s bloody footprints.
I stand with the suffering Christian of Nigeria. And Sudan. And Egypt. And Turkey. And Iraq. And Saudi Arabia. And Iran.
~ BITS & PIECES I COME ACROSS seem to hit at a coming re-crash of the U.S. Market, since the American POTUS Empty Suit has actually done nothing to improve and everything to worsen U.S. economic fundamentals. The stock marketeers are in the business of boosting their own markets.. but the serious questions remain.
The crippling national deficit, stagnant high unemployment, the banks, the corporations are all still in bad shape, with the Marxist loonies trying to beat them down and boost them up at the same time from DC.
Invest safely, says this elf, be ready to pick up bargains, and watch out for bankruptcies & defaults. Listen to the guys who are seriously watching what’s going on, and not playing cheerleader. ~
~ THE NEXT TIME I FLY, there will not be a Rape-Scanner involved. Not because I’m a-feared of my rippling man-flesh being on general digital display, but because I’m not an effing Jihadist, and am not willing to be digitally ogled to prove such to the drones operating our bizarre puppet-show of airport ‘security’.
The camera/ ID-Card/ scanner body-search thing of the past 10 years and more are not mainly about security, but infantilizing social control, and norming our ever-increasing submission to supervision by all-seeing authorities. That such snooping and minding of business might easily lead to ever-firmer elements of soft-tyranny and the abuse of freedom.
Watcher Watching
After all, when the Roman satirist Juvenal asked “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” or, Who Watches The Watchers, he was only talking about the age-old forms of minding other people’s business and enforcing morality for allegedly public purposes. The potential power of the technological state in this regard is unprecedented, and only awaits a Glorious Leader willing to implement total control for his or her total society. We have warnings and foretastes via all the HRC and regulatory snoops and recycling police and all the other would-be dictators and do-gooders of the socialist states of the West.
Half Way Along
Most of us have already bought into giving away our privacy to banks, businesses, credit-card companies, governments, and the interwebs. Those air-miles cards keep track of everything you buy, like credit-cards, for years and years. That now our governments expect us to be digitally Godiva-ed for the privilege of flying on planes which are not thereby safer from determined or moderately clever terrorists?
Once we agree– knowingly or otherwise– with the unspoken principle that public and private life can and should be supervised by watchers, we’ve already let the horse bolt from the barn.
It’s a game, except the stakes will soon be the dregs of our freedom.
Oh, and head-bagged Muslimas? Too bad. You have no ‘right’ to fly. ~
Bang Bang, You’re Alive
~ THE OTHER DAY I was walking Wee Wallace The Poodle Of Doom, he on one of those retractable leash thingies, and I noticed my hand was in the trigger-guard position. Ah, sweet memories of a hot Kimber .45 plonking away bullseyes came back from the Summer.
Does firing guns (rather well, I thought) make you a man? No. But a manly man needs to know how to do so, IMHO.
Being comfortable and safe and soft and mostly harmless as modern society would make us is not a good thing. Guns?, we think– They’re for rednecks, soldiers, police, thugs, mass-murderers, and action-heroes. Right. And if even one of the guys in the Ecole Polytechnique had known about guns, and rushed the damnable human toothache “Marc Lepine”, a whole lot of women would be alive today with jobs and families and all the rest.
Heart In Your Hands
It’s like CPR. According to a recent survey by the Canadian Heart & Stroke Foundation, it turns out that only 15% of Canadians have bothered to properly learn emergency CPR. That’s even though such measures save countless lives, and ambulances don’t magically appear in 5 seconds, and the brain can die in 4-7 minutes without air. Somebody Else Will Do It? You want your life or that of your loved ones to hang such a slender 15% possibility?
Nonsense– You: Be That Somebody Else. Learn your CPR and emergency first-aid, gun-handling, basic survival skills, and other once-common sense real-world stuff. Somebody’s life will depend on it, sooner or later. You’re either a sheepdog, or a sheep— helper, or helpless.
So Who Made You The Expert, Binks?
How do I know so much? A few months after I took an Autumn basic emergency med course in grade 10, I saved my own Grandmother from possibly choking to death, by using the Heimlich manoeuvre. It wasn’t luck, or Somebody Else: it was because I chose to take a 10-week course, just in case. Her ‘in case’ came that Summer.
~ THE NATPOST story on Warman v. Levant nuisance suit …. (ezralevant)
~ DOSANJH makes more baseless accusations against our troops …. (ezralevant)
FreeSpeechers
“When I think of the suppression of free thought in areas like global warming or children who are suspended for their political beliefs, I wonder how future generations will ever learn how to figure out truth from fiction, or learn critical thought and reason….”
~ HEAR, HEAR! It’s really very simple: People who have no desire to integrate should be refused entry to Canada …. (mooseandsquirrel.ca)
~ BC CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION comes out against ‘Human Rights’ Commission censorship …. (fivefeetoffury)
~ HIS NAME IS EARLE— Do you remember Guy Earle? You know, the comedian that heckled some lesbian hecklers right back …. (blazingcatfur.blog)
~ DAVID WARREN— “Does freedom matter? The short answer to that question, when I have asked various acquaintances of what I would call a “mildly liberal,” or middle-of-the-road disposition, is: “Yes, but …”; plus “The pampered, privileged public service” …. (ottawacitizen)
~ DUTCH POLITICIAN Geert Wilders’ Speech to the House of Lords …. (atlasshrugs2000)
~ THE INFIDEL PROF— Fight racism without betraying justice, By Mark Mercer …. (blazingcatfur.blog)
~ MICHAEL COREN: “It’s that time of year again. The kids are excited, there’s a sense of magical anticipation in the air and I know I’m sentimental but I just love it. Yes, it’s Israeli Apartheid Week!” …. (torontosun.com)
~ THE BRAIN-DEATH OF ENGLAND: PLANS by two leading universities to dismiss renowned academics to implement Lord Mandelson’s spending cuts have sparked worldwide protests by thousands of scholars …. (timesonline)
~ RUINING THE KIDS— “Many children today are greatly to be pitied because too much is done for them and dictated to them and they are deprived of the learning processes. We seem to have dropped into an age of entertaining, a breathless going from one sensation to another, whether it be mechanical toys for the five-year-old or moving-picture plays for the sixteen-year-old” …. (volokh.com)
~ EUTOPIAN NEWS— The Gnomes of Athens and the Atlas of the Ruhr …. (shotgun)
~ MADMEN @ PLAY— Genetic Modification: What defines you as ‘human’? …. (xanthippa)
~ JAY CURRIE— Do you think Blazing Catfur wrote the Jackal email about his domestic arrangements to ensure any further information is foursquare inside Grant?; In Which Dawg and I agree; Lucy on the Attack; CHRC=Lucy=CHRC; Skippy is not Happy… and neither am I …. (jaycurrie)
~ UTOPICOMMIE WORLD-GOV SCHEMING— Gender equality is crucial to the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and this key was once again emphasized on the eve of the International Women’s Day …. (xinhuanet.com)
~ KRAZY KULT WATCH: Breaking with Scientology? The NY Times actually does a brave thing. Scientology doesn’t like to be examined. They have ways to make those who do pay …. (lucianne)
~ DEATHWATCH: ENGLAND— The fine (and rapidly disappearing) line between “clarification” and coercion. Damian Thompson of The Telegraph reports on an amendment to the so-called “Equity Bill” that threatens to further the seemingly inexorable steamrolling of religious freedom in the UK …. (insightscoop)
~ MELANIE PHILLIPS has a radical plan to stop the breakdown of marriages …. (winteryknight)
~ BRAVE NEW UK: New Rights Legislation Would Make Mocking Tofu-Sucking Sissies Vegans a Hate Crime …. (bluewavecanada.blog)
~ YOUR JOURNALISTIC BETTERS— The New York Times admits to acting as a “fence” for a word thief …. (theothermccain)
~ OK, SO THE “Palestine House offers FREE SELF DEFENSE Training to “Immigrant Youth” Courtesy Citizenship & Immigration..and your tax dollars. My son goes to youth counselling… And you will just LOVE what I found on the “information board” of the waiting room there” …. (lassooftruth.com)
~ SUPER-TOUGH BISHOP— BBC News: Hardtalk – Bishop Nazir-Ali: ‘Multiculturalism was a mistake’. A friend sends us this link to a video clip of Bishop Nazir-Ali. Short and sweet. However, while appearing to talk tough on “Hardtalk” his may be a charitable interpretation of the mistake of British multiculturalism now that we know it has been a conscious policy of the Labour party to destroy traditional British culture …. (covenantzone)
~ YELLOW ALERT— “Israel is Western civilization’s canary in the coal mine. If Israel, with its pluralistic democracy and rule of law, cannot be preserved, it is doubtful whether Western industrialized democracy can last anywhere.” …. (lumpygrumpyandfrumpy.blog)
~ REAL WOMEN of Canada will be hosting its 2010 national conference on Saturday, April 17 in North Bay, Ont. …. (realwomenca)
~ KURT WESTERGAARD speaks on appeasement and self censorship …. (vladtepes)
~ HARD-CORE TYRANTS GET THE JOKE— OIC, World’s Leading Human Rights Violators, To Set Up Own Human Rights Commission. Looks like Jenny has a new venue for jet-setting off for visits with evil people who hate freedom, Western Civ, and the little people …. (atlasshrugs2000)
~ THE DEMOGRAPHIC Problem Does Not Require Government Intervention …. (bluewavecanada.blog)
~ TERRY GLAVIN— “Our government has made solemn promises to Canadians, to our Afghan friends and allies, and especially to the families of our soldiers, 140 of whom have given their lives to this cause. We weren’t going to just run away. We were in Afghanistan to help the people build a democracy that they’d be capable of defending by themselves. We’d stand with them until they could stand on their own. Remember that?” …. (transmontanus.blog)
~ ACTION DINO NAILS IT— You know the NDP wouldn’t do this for Saint Georges Day …. (MADINO)
~ DR. HELEN— “These women are not so much welfare queens as matriarchal dynasties” …. (drhelen.blog)
~ CITY OF OTTAWA to English employees: “No Saturdays For You!” …. (xanthippa)
~ MORAL BUSY-BODY UN blames “inactive women” for gender imbalance in the workforce.. you know, home-making and child-rearing and all that retrograde nonsense …. (bluewavecanada.blog)
~ THE EGO AT THE OSCARS: James Cameron congratulates himself for rooting against humanity & civilization …. (insightscoop)
~ PROF MANSUR defends the speech of this he finds repugnant. Good for him …. (torydrroy.blog)
~ A UNION representing Dutch nurses will launch a national campaign Friday against demands for sexual services by idiotic & immature horndogs patients who claim it should be part of their “standard care” …. (SDA)
~ SPEECH-WARS, USSA— UC San Diego Freezes Funds for 33 Media Groups, Dissolves Student TV, Threatens to Punish Students for Protected Speech …. (thefire.org)
~ CRYPTO-THUGS: The Love and Non-Violence of the Left …. (bluewavecanada.blog)
~ RUMPY, BUMPY— Nigel Farage on the need for ‘Rompuy – dumpy’ and more …. (xanthippa)
~ CIRCLING THE DRAIN— UK School Heads will be forced to list children as young as five on school ‘hate registers’ over everyday playground insults …. (mcj)
~ TEH FUNNY & SMART: Now available: “Loser Letters A Comic Tale of Life, Death and Atheism” …. (insightscoop)
~ AND THE WINNER is… Geert Wilders: “We are going to conquer the entire country” …. (atlasshrugs2000)
~ OPPOSING the Homosexual Agenda: Religious Bigotry or Science and Justice? …. (orthodoxytoday)
~ UK TORIES GO OBAMA— Elections, Islamist Infiltration, and the Politicians’ Blind Eye …. (vladtepesblog)
~ TWENTY YEARS AFTER the fall of the Berlin Wall, the battle for political freedom goes on …. (city-journal)
~ GENDERCIDE— “It is no exaggeration to call this gendercide. Women are missing in their millions—aborted, killed, neglected to death. In 1990 an Indian economist, Amartya Sen, put the number at 100m; the toll is higher now” …. (merecomments)
~ LOTSA FUN WITH Narcissus– Why is the gay lobby so powerful that the basic needs of children can be overshadowed by the selfish needs of an aberrant parent? …. (girlontheright.com)
~ SOCIAL ENGINEERING WATCH: Sex-Ed Ambiguities– The latest research raises more questions than it answers …. (city-journal.org)
~ LOOKS LIKE A TORY FAIL— Canada already has a Conservative government under a Conservative prime minister, and the very head of the “human rights” commission investigating me was herself the Conservative appointee of a Conservative minister of justice …. (sda)
~ PROVING THAT no place in Canada is safe, the atheist bus campaign is finishing off its tour in Saskatoon …. (nationalpost)
~ UNWELCOME GUESTS, SAM & ELLA— Salmonella: It’s what’s for dinner in America – almost constantly …. (uppitywoman08)
~ I APPRECIATE “how Canadians line Highway 401when a deceased military service person’s body is repatriated to Canada. It is a great sign of respect for one who has died for our country” …. (freethroughtruth.blog)
~ GOOD NEWS, SAD COMMENTARY— State legislatures aim to pass bills to guarantee academic freedom …. (winteryknight)
~ VICTOR DAVIS HANSON on Tomorrow’s Wars– Enormous, massively destructive engagements may again be on the horizon …. (city-journal.org)
~ YOU BET YOUR LIFE! Government run medicine in Britain strikes again! A man of 22 died in agony of dehydration after three days in a leading teaching hospital …. (classicalvalues)
~ NOBODY TO BLAME! How psychology medicalizes character flaws to remove personal responsibility …. (winteryknight)
~ FEMINA SAPIENS in the Nursery– The conflict between parenting and career is hardwired in the female brain …. (city-journal.org)
~ ARE YOU A RACIST? “Well, if the truth were told, who isn’t? But say either “No,” or “Who you calling a racist?” or “Get out of my face you dumb chunk of human garbage!” …. (americandigest)
~ NGO LEFTISM = VAMPIRISM: Money supposed to save foreign lives, instead used to fund left wing advocacy groups …. (ACTIONDINO)
Climate Cultistry
FAIL: “Are you saying that the scientific community, through the IPCC, is asking the world to restructure its entire mode of producing and consuming energy and yet hasn’t done a scientific uncertainty analysis?”
~ THE ERA OF PNS: Post Normal Science …. (buythetruth)
~ SO CHECK OUT the totalitarian response to an inconvenient question …. (classicalvalues)
~ UM.. SO: CAN WE GET OUR BILLIONS BACK, PLEASE? A “Silly mistake replicated over past century invalidates temperature records used to ‘prove’ global warming but IPCC says `Let’s not dwell on the past`” …. (pundita.blog)
~ LO, A NEW PROPHECY! Gore Blames Heavy Rains on Global Warming …. (theblogmocracy.com)
~ CLIMATE CONTROL Made Stupid: More Pyramids Now! …. (americandigest)
~ TVO’S ‘AGENDA’: A four-part series on climate change …. (mooseandsquirrel.ca)
~ XANTHIPPA— Seeking volunteers for Crowdreview of IPCC’s references! …. (blog.xanthippas)
~ THE SPECTATOR— Green morality? It’s a steal …. (melaniephillips)
~ GO GREEN? “Go green. Lower quality, higher prices. Get less for your money. Cleaners that don’t clean. Paint that doesn’t stick to anything. Harsh, retina grating light bulbs full of toxic chemicals. Electric vehicles that ultimately use more energy than they save. Wind powered turbines that destroy acres of land for a minuscule few kilowatts of unreliable power. Equally unreliable solar grids more poisonous than a cyanide farm. And don’t forget the endangered species” …. (americandigest.org)
~ MOLDBERG on why the Institute of Physics Submission to the UK Parliment starts to nail down the lid on the GlobalWarming/Climatology coffin …. (americandigest)
~ OBAMOCRACY: Like democracy, only not so much– “British journalist Edward Luce reported for the Financial Times that President Barack Obama’s inner circle of just four people had eclipsed the function of the Cabinet”.. Politburo? He’s naming names– “Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff; David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett, senior advisers; and Robert Gibbs, communications chief — as “The Politburo.”” …. (pundita.blog)
~ FREE ADVICE FROM FRIENDS— Hamas advises Obama: Get your act together. ‘He is unable to do anything before he restores the trust of his own people’ …. (therealbarackobama)
~ DC RACKETEERS— “How cocky the Democrats are — full of contempt for the hard-working American. Rangel offers up a band-aid for a political culture riddled with cancerous corruption. Rangel says he’ll temporarily step down. He should spend some temporary time in the can. Say, 15 years” …. (atlasshrugs2000)
~ US-GOV ‘MONITERING JEWS?! Obama admin monitoring Jews on Temple Mount. ‘They are concerned about our connection to site and what is being done to deepen it’ …. (realbarackobama)
~ PROGRESSIVES admit Eugenics is the goal of Obamacare …. (theblogmocracy.com)
~ WHILE OBAMA IGNORED… This year, for the first time since the 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security, the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes — nearly $29 billion more …. (themcj.com)
~ HMMMM— Michelle Obama’s Mirror’s Blog: Is This an Easter Miracle? …. (michellesmirror)
~ ODDLY ENOUGH, Leftists Were ‘Birthers’ When McCain Eligibility Was Subject …. (sentinel.blog)
~ THE CALL TO ARMS! Dan Riehl has loaded his musket, said a quick goodbye to his wife and left for Lexington: “That this inexperienced travesty of a chief executive, Obama, more a byproduct of timing and media collaboration, than his own worth, or accomplishment, is personally advocating for the so-called nuclear option is the final straw” …. (themcj.com)
~ ACTING LIKE ELECTIONS HAVE BEEN CANCELLED… Arrogance is an occupational hazard in politics, one that is often fatal, and the Democrats show every sign of having succumbed …. (orthodoxytoday.org)
~ THE RACIST ACORN CENSUS— “[W]e should answer Question 9 by checking the last option — “Some other race” — and writing in “American.” …. (ace.mu.nu)
~ OBAMACARE Now! Because What We’ve Got Isn’t Bad Enough …. (americandigest.org)
~ COMMIE SKUNKS: Security Risk? Obama “Science Czar” John Holdren and the Federation of American Scientists …. (RBO)
~ VICTOR DAVIS HANSON— Where Did Our Real Wealth Go? …. (orthodoxytoday.org)
~ CHICAGO MISRULES— “Prominent” Chicago Pol Offers Theory on Obama’s Fecklessness: He Doesn’t Get That “Chicago Way” Of Absolute One-Party Rule Doesn’t Work in DC …. (ace.mu.nu)
~ ‘BAMA BUDDIES— It looks like Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes is on track to win another endorsement from ACORN! …. (cjunk.blog)
~ POTUS: “He’s talking a private language, to himself, like crazy people do…” …. (therealbarackobama)
~ MORE IFFY FOLKS? Obama’s TSA pick has conflict of interest? Corporation seeks business with companies in growing areas of federal budget …. (therealbarackobama)
~ THE DECLINE of America: A picture is worth a thousand words? You betcha! …. (thesilentmajority)
~ KEEPING UP THE MOCK— Top 100 Films of Obama Era.. classics like 1) To Be Revealed at the End (and no, that’s not a movie title, we mean that literally) 2) The Manchurian Candidate 3) Trillion Dollar Baby 4) Terms of Impeachment …. (lucianne.com)
~ HE’S JUST THAT AMAZING! “The International Olympic Committee announced Monday that it has taken back the gold medal previously awarded to American skier Lindsey Vonn and given it to U.S. President Barack Obama” …. (uppitywoman08)
~ MUST-READ IOWAHAWK— Once More Into the Breach (with apologies to the Bard) …. (iowahawk)
~ IOWAHAWK— “Don’t let Tojo turn you into a unwitting freeway kamikaze for the “Divine Emperor”! At the U.S. Department of General Motors, our G-Men are working ’round the clock to stop Jap sneak attacks on America’s publicly owned automotive industrial arsenal” …. (americandigest.org)
~ BEIJING said to have covert ties with Taliban …. (ibloga.blog)
~ MORAL INSANITY— Eric Holder: Osama Bin Laden Deserves the Same Rights as Charles Manson …. (weaselzippers)
~ MIDEAST WAR in ‘very’ near future? Dramatic escalation in cooperation between Israel’s foes …. (therealbarackobama)
~ FOUNDER OF MUSLIM TV Station Who Beheaded Wife Blames… Islamophobia …. (anorak.co.uk)
~ A SECULAR Muslim woman councillor has been forced to dress more conservatively after receiving death threats and sexually harassing phone calls from members of her own community …. (vladtepesblog)
~ EGYPT CANCELS Much Heralded Synagogue Ceremony After Jews Provoke “Feelings of Millions of Muslims” by Drinking and Dancing …. (wZ)
~ TERRY GLAVIN: “I’ve known the Taliban since before I was born. My mother knew them, and my grandmother knew them. I’ve had Taliban encounters in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Canada, as well as other countries. I have known the Taliban a long time. Only now they have a name. And only now, the rest of the world also knows their name. The Taliban are a state of mind” …. (transmontanus.blog)
~ DIGITAL STRIPPING: Two Muslim women defy the (appropriately named) Rapiscan, while the other cowards in the British police state continue their cowardly ways …. (timesonline)
~ CHARMING PAKISTAN: Islamists Attack Christian Aid Group With Grenades and Machine Gun Fire, 5 Killed …. (Wz)
~ DUBIOUS DUBAI— “As an offshore banking center and top trading partner for Iran, Dubai is a crossroads for all sorts of interesting characters” …. (claudiarosett)
~ CONVICTION Overturned of British Muslim Woman Convicted of Penning Poems about Beheadings …. (atlasshrugs2000)
~ DR. PAUL MARSHALL: Ambassador to Islam? The United States shouldn’t legitimize the OIC …. (theird.org)
~ A VIOLENT RELIGION— “The toll in the twin suicide attacks in Lahore on Friday has risen to 57, even as seven low-intensity blasts late at night kept police on their toes for over eight hours” …. (transmontanus.blog)
~ CHARMING PAKISTAN: Captured Taliban School Shows Kids Being Taught How to Write in Blood, Murals Depicting Green Pastures, Flowing Rivers With Virgins Swimming in Them Used to “Encourage Martyrdom” …. (Wz)
~ THE MIGHTY BRENDA Elliot, formerly anonymous blogger at The Real Barack Obama, is one talented chick. Her site overflows with commentary, links, and serious non-ranty questions and analysis of Obama, the Jihad, current news, and much more.
Unlike this flitting news-elf, she has real focus, depth, and determination– and like many excellent conservative bloggers, she truly deserves a byline, and to replace some of the journalistic parrots and deadwood in the Leftstream Media.
So I’d suggest adding RBO to your blogroll & daily online diet, for quality writing and journalism that really help you brain more gooder.
Please Cough Up Swag
Herods Temple Part 1
.. from sluttified teen pop-tarts?
A Swift Sunrise 