Would NATO Really Hang France Out To Dry If Russia Pulverized Its Forces In Ukraine? Tyler Durden Sun, 04/07/2024 - 09:20

Container Ship Reportedly "Lost Power" In NYC Harbor, Right Before Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge Tyler Durden Sun, 04/07/2024 - 08:45

Facing Nuclear War

Paul Craig Roberts

The invention of nuclear weapons was an act of total insanity. If the massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons are not dismantled and destroyed, sooner or later they will destroy planet Earth.

We have survived so far because the Cuban Missile Crisis awoke President Kennedy and Soviet leader Khrushchev to the danger of distrust between nuclear powers. For the remainder of the 20th century Washington and Moscow worked to defuse tensions and to build transparency and trust. Sufficient success was achieved to avoid false indications from warning systems showing incoming ICBMs from resulting in the launch of nuclear war.

Today there is no trust. In the 21st century all of the arms agreements hammered out over the decades of the Cold War have been abandoned, first by Washington and then in response by the Kremlin. The Soviet collapse in 1991 gave rise to the neoconservative doctrine of US hegemony, an assertion of American unilateralism, a claim of American supremacy. Such an absurd and unrealistic claim is totally inconsistent with the existence of nuclear weapons.

All trust has been erased. In the US Russia has been demonized to an unprecedented extent. It is so extreme that anyone who gives an objective analysis is branded a “Putin agent/dupe.” This makes realistic assessments impossible.

In Russia trust of Washington has been completely destroyed by broken promises, such as NATO will not move one inch to the East, broken arms agreements, deceit over the Minsk Agreement, and by Washington’s endless rejections of Russian requests for a mutual security agreement.

Today all it takes for the world to end is one false warning of incoming missiles.

It was Washington, not Russia, that created this situation, and nothing is being done about it. The world is content with the Sword of Damocles hanging by a thread over the planet.

Whenever I raise this most serious of all issues, a gaggle of idiots pronounce that nuclear weapons will never be used because there can be no winners. All the while Putin is warning that Washington and its NATO puppets are pushing Russia into nuclear war. There is no end of people too stupid to see the dire threat.

If Biden, the defense secretary, anyone in Washington had any sense, they would call Putin and declare that we need more than a mutual security agreement. We need to dismantle and destroy all nuclear weapons–the US, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel, France and the UK. To demonstrate our newly acquired good intentions, Washington should announce that it is closing its worldwide network of illegal bioweapon research laboratories and abandoning its effort to substitute Washington’s self-serving “rule-based order” for established international law.

The notion that the US needs to defend against a Russian or Chinese invasion is an absurdity when the US is being overrun daily by immigrant-invaders. According to official numbers, immigrant-invaders recruited from 160 countries by NGOs financed with federal tax dollars are entering unopposed our country monthly in numbers equivalent to the population of Pittsburgh.

300,000 a month is 3.6 million a year. No one knows how many immigrant-invaders have entered our country, but the evidence is clear that the US is being colonized. The best guess is that 30 million illegals have taken up residence in the US. And this at a time when US manufacturing has been offshored and robotics is eliminating many remaining jobs. The influx is so great that even schools, airports and bus stations, and hotels are being turned into housing for immigrant invaders. There are reports that private businesses are being paid by state, local, and federal governments to provide housing for the immigrant-invaders. In other words, an invasion is being turned into a profit center for private businesses based on government tax dollars.

American property owners are finding themselves dispossessed by immigrant-invaders. A family can return from vacation to find immigrant-invaders, who cannot be evicted, occupying their home. Breaking and entering has been turned into an “owner-tenant dispute.” Rental property owners find rental units vacant between leases occupied by illegals who cannot be evicted. I have reported examples on this website.

American citizens are exploited in additional ways. They have to pay for schooling, health care, and prepaid credit cards given to illegals. The character of neighborhoods is erased. Crime multiplies. Liberals demand that illegals be given voting rights. California hires them as police officers. Members of Congress want to put the immigrant-invaders in the US military and use them to defend the country whose borders they have violated. As Washington refuses to oppose this invasion, why is Washington so concerned about a mythical Chinese or Russian invasion? The absurdity boggles the mind. America has been turned into a tower of babel.

We know for certain that Russia and China combined do not have armies approaching in size the immigrant-invaders overrunning our country. So, why are we only concerned about being invaded by Russians and Chinese or the UN, but not by the invaders we are actually experiencing, about which nothing is done?

Instead we are pursuing an aggressive foreign policy toward, Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran that is fomenting nuclear war. Washington’s aggression is a dire threat to the existence of life.

To comprehend the collapse in US-Russian relations, compare the warm reception given to the American pianist, Van Cliburn, in Moscow in 1958 when he won the international Tchaikovsky piano competition with the refusal today of Western orchestras to perform the music of Russian composers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9aKbfnMSrY

This Sunday morning brings news that Washington think tanks are now saying it is time for NATO troops to be sent to Ukraine or the West will suffer a catastrophic defeat. So, after all the denials, it is the West’s war against Russia. Perhaps Putin will take note.

Following the Vietnam pattern, the NATO troops will be used for logistics and support personnel, thereby freeing more Ukrainian soldiers for the front, but not themselves used in combat. It was through this door that the US ended up with 500,000 soldiers in Vietnam and still lost the war.

The US already has soldiers in Moldova where they are engaged in exercises with Moldovan soldiers. There is talk of Moldova joining the US in occupying Odessa, Ukraine’s last remaining position on the Black Sea. Once again it seems Putin’s lackadaisical way of fighting war has worked against him.

In Romania law changes are underway that allow Romanian soldiers to engage in offensive operations against countries that have not attacked Romania, and the Polish foreign minister is sending a mission to coordinate with Ukraine.

As it has since day one of Putin’s “limited military operation,” the war continues to widen. And dangerously. Perhaps for budget reasons, perhaps for civilian labor force needs, Putin has not raised an army sufficiently large to defend with conventional weapons the enormous length of Russia’s border with NATO. As attacks can come from the Arctic to the Black Sea and even from Georgia in central Asia, Russia is relying on nuclear weapons.

Putin was forced to intervene in Donbas, but it should have been done in a way that quickly ended the conflict and chilled any appetite for war with Russia.

Donald W. Miller, Jr., calls to our attention a new book by Annie Jacobsen titled Nuclear War: A Scenario: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/04/donald-w-miller-jr-md/facing-nuclear-war/
Read the article and the book and demand that Washington sober up before it gets everyone killed.

Not All Evangelicals Worship Israel

https://chuckbaldwinlive.com/Articles/tabid/109/ID/4515/Biden-And-Bibi-Demon-Possessed-Mass-Murderers.aspx

Too many people today are without good, strong preaching, to the detriment of all. Share the good stuff. Was there a GOOD point made in the sermon you heard at your Mass of obligation for Low Sunday, 2nd of Easter? Tell … Read More →

Swiss To Hold Referendum That Will Restrict Population To 10 Million Until 2050 Tyler Durden Sun, 04/07/2024 - 08:10

Some who bring up the offerings hide their faces:

Others have no shame:

Okay, I’ve been ranting about things added to the “noble simplicity” of the Modern Mass that don’t need to be added, either because it is alien to the Roman Mass or makes no sense to anyone or the symbolism intended is lost.

Some of these added things, make the Mass seem as though it is lasting for an eternity. 

The one thing that adds time and makes no sense to modern minds, like mine, is the offertory procession. 

Let’s talk about the normal one, the presentation of the offerings.

Why do the laity need to drag the bread and wine, and only a portion to be used, to the altar from the entrance of the church and usually behind a server with the Processional Cross. And because of fears of embezzlement or theft, the financial offering is no longer brought forward as it is sealed in a tamper proof bag and placed in a safe in the usher’s locked closet. 

Why not just have a server or two, who, by the way, are laity, drag the offerings from the credence table to the altar? Wouldn’t that save time? Does anyone really get a high from the supposed symbolism of the offerings being brought by procession to the altar and if a long aisle it takes forever to get to the altar? Are the laity thinking to themselves, with chills going down their spine, “wow, these came from my blood, sweat and tears, how kool!”

And what about the times the usher failed to find someone so the ushers do it????

And what about the Chrism Mass. Do the various oils to be blessed need to be processed down the long, long aisle of cathedrals and presented to the bishop? What the “H” is that all about? And the time it takes to do so! It seems like an eternity!

Why can’t the oils be dragged by the servers without ceremony, who, by the way, are laity,  to the place where the bishop blesses these? Do we have to make a ritual out of everything especially when it makes the Mass seem like an eternity to complete? 

Can’t we have some liturgical Common sense and noble simplicity in the modern Mass?

A Lack Of Solidarity Within NATO? Tyler Durden Sun, 04/07/2024 - 07:35

I know, I know, we all do it, gossip, but when the pope does it constantly and as constantly as he condemns it, it makes me wonder. Not only does Pope Francis “cattily” lash out against Archbishop Ganswein, he also throws under the bus Cardinal Sarah. Technically, they are both Pope Francis’ former employees. In the USA if a boss talked nastily in a public forum about one of his former employees, he could be sued. Confidentiality about employee/employer relationships is the norm.

Pope Francis has also publicly used examples of his past to deride the person who did not live up to his standards. Think of the couple who were having children like rabbits. Can you imagine how they felt when the pope publicly humiliated them? Or what about the poor elderly woman who took her pet dog to a Vatican audience in a baby carriage. The pope used her as a negative example. There are other examples he used that publicly humiliated the person being used as an example.

But in a longer Crux article, this is what others have said about the Pope’s interview book. I’m glad I am not alone in thinking the very same thing!

 As Italian journalist Massimo Gramellini put it, reading the (Pope interview) book is a bit like watching reality TV – think “Real Housewives of Vatican City.” Among other things, the pope openly dishes on the inner details of two conclaves, and he cattily lashes out at Benedict’s top aide, German Archbishop Georg Gänswein, claiming he lacks “nobility and humanity” for the way in which Gänswein allegedly tried to put the two popes at odds.

Lucetta Scaraffia, a renowned Italian journalist and the former editor of an insert to the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano dedicated to women’s issues, has noted the irony that Pope Francis has often warned against the dangers of slander and gossip. Yet, as she put it, to judge from the new book, “One suspects Bergoglio thinks a pope can do without obeying these healthy rules.”

Dearest brethren: whatsoever is born of God, overcometh the world: and this is the victory which overcometh the world, our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he that came by water and blood, Jesus Christ: not by water only, but by water and blood; and it is the Spirit which testifieth, that Christ is the truth. And there are Gregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0

 Catholic Conclavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06227218883606585321noreply@blogger.com0

More Cold War Era Treaties Collapse As Turkey Suspends EU Arms Limitation Deal Tyler Durden Sun, 04/07/2024 - 07:00

Well, Easter ... the paschalia festa ... are now peracta; the ancient collect of today, Low Sunday, makes that explicitly clear. But, for our strange Novus Ordo brethren, this same ancient collect is now attached instead ... believe it or not ... to the Saturday of the Seventh Week of Easter ... so, presumably, they regard that Saturday as end of their Easter Octave. Seems a funny business to me,Fr John Hunwickehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17766211573399409633noreply@blogger.com0

From India, the testimony of a woman who recently received Baptism together with her husband and son: "Jesus came into my life on a dark night in Africa. Then for years, He led me, guided me, taught me and brought me back to His fold every time I strayed. His way is the best way".

The massacre of 33,000 Palestinian civilians by Benjamin Netanyahu's war cabinet, followed by his refusal to take the steps ordered by the International Court of Justice, and finally his refusal to comply with the demands of Security Council Resolution 2728, are reminiscent of the Masada syndrome. This fanatical extremism is more the stuff of psychiatry than politics.

With the ongoing destruction of America and Western Civilization, this year is the most important of our lives! Most Americans sense it, but readers of this publication know and understand it. But what do we do now that the most important battle of our lives is at hand? We must unite behind well-coordinated plans, and...

All four Gospels tell of Jesus cleansing the temple. The Gospel of John, however, provides the most detail about what took place, which bears witness that the Evangelist was present at this event. (John 2:13-22)  Jesus went to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, the feast that commemorated both the Israelites’ passing out of slavery in Egypt and the covenant that God made with the Jewish people in the wilderness.

“In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers at their business.”  The scene that Jesus beheld was that of exploiting the temple and its sacrifices for monetary gain.  Upon observing such roguish activity, Jesus made a whip of cords and drove them all out, even violently scattering the coins and turning over the tables.  He told those selling pigeons: “Take these things away; you shall not make my Father’s house a house of trade.”

By referring to the temple as “my Father’s house,” Jesus reveals that he is the Father’s Son.  Being the Father’s incarnate Son, Jesus, then, is the custodian of his Father’s house – the temple where his Father dwells.  His very singular distinctiveness as the Father’s incarnate Son gives him unparalleled authority over his Father’s house, and so the right to cleanse the temple from all that is ungodly.  The disciples later remembered the scripture passage: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” (Psalm 69:9).  Jesus has fulfilled that oracle.

In response to Jesus’ actions, the stunned and irate Jews, nonetheless, demand a sign that would authenticate his authority for performing such an unprecedented action, to which Jesus responds: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  The Jews immediately note that the temple has taken forty-six years to build, and “will you raise it up in three days?”

The word “this” is theologically significant.  On the one hand, “this” is the stone temple that is directly in front of them.  On the other hand, as the Evangelist later grasps, Jesus was referring to himself.  “But he spoke of the temple of his body.  When, therefore, he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.”

As the Son of God incarnate, Jesus is the new and living temple, “for in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” (Colossians 2:9)  To come into God’s presence, one no longer needs to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and enter the temple.  Rather, Jesus is the Word made flesh, and, therefore, God now tabernacles among humankind.

Jesus is “the Father’s house” in which his Son now abides.  To be in communion with the Father, one must abide in his incarnate Son.  The temple is now superfluous. It was a prophetic anticipation of the Incarnation, and now, with the coming of Jesus, it has lost the purpose for which it was built.

Christ Cleansing the Temple by El Greco, probably before 1570 [National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.]

Moreover, if Jesus, as the incarnate Son of God, is the new and living temple, he must now offer the perfect Passover sacrifice wherein he will establish a new and everlasting covenant.  Likewise, through this new covenant, Jesus must cleanse the world of sin and cast out death, for only by being cleansed of sin with its curse of death can humankind pass over to a new life of holiness.  This Jesus accomplishes in his sacrificial death and glorious resurrection.

The Jews do destroy Jesus, who is “this temple,” by crucifying him.  But as the living temple, Jesus, through his crucifixion, becomes the perfect high priest who offers the perfect Passover sacrifice of the new covenant.  That the Passover sacrifice of himself was efficacious is found in Jesus raising himself gloriously from the dead on the third day.  In so doing, Jesus, as risen-incarnate-Son of the Father, now becomes the glorious heavenly temple, the Father’s new house, wherein all have access to his heavenly Father.

St. Peter beautifully states the relationship between Jesus as the risen temple and those who abide in him:  “Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God’s sight chosen and precious; and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2:4-5)

The risen Jesus is the living stone that was discarded by men but selected by God as the cornerstone of the living and life-giving temple.  Those who abide in the risen Jesus also become living stones in the Father’s new spiritual house, for they have become holy priests offering spiritual sacrifices in, through, and with the risen Christ Jesus.

As part of the destruction of Jerusalem, “this temple,” too, was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D., which was foretold by Jesus.  His disciples pointed out to him the beauty of the temple.  In response, he said: “You see all of these, do you not?  Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down.” (Matthew 24:1-2) And that happened.

It may have appeared to most that its destruction was a simple historical event that should be noted.  It could no longer stand, however, for if it remained, it would be an opposing sign to “this temple” that is the risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Presently, its very absence remains a sign of the presence of the indestructible living temple.

John the Evangelist, in the Book of Revelation, has a vision of the heavenly Jerusalem.  “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.” (Revelation 21:22)  In the heavenly Jerusalem, there is no need of a temple, for in Heaven one abides fully, in communion with the ever-living Lamb, in the Father’s house – a house that will never be destroyed.

The post This Temple, Rebuilt appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

Boris Johnson is one to talk about being insane. The guy looks like a Juggalo (a follower of the Insane Clown Posse). You don’t have to try very hard to picture him in the makeup. He’s got the perfect face for it. This having been said, I think if you went to an Insane Clown...

The Baltimore bridge that collapsed on March 26th was named for Francis Scott Key, who wrote the lyrics to the American national anthem “The Star-Spangled Banner” in 1814. His inspiration was the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in the critical port of Baltimore during the War of 1812. The British had just burned the U.S....

The invention of nuclear weapons was an act of total insanity. If the massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons are not dismantled and destroyed, sooner or later they will destroy planet Earth. We have survived so far because the Cuban Missile Crisis awoke President Kennedy and Soviet leader Khrushchev to the danger of distrust between nuclear...