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Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Bishop Richard Williamson - Will no one rid us of this turbulent priest?
This is a guest post by Mr Christopher Gillibrand, presently residing in Brussels, whom His Grace commissioned (de gratia) to share his insights and thoughts on the troublesome SSPX bishop who seems to be as careless with his lawyers as Lady Bracknell finds Jack Worthing to be with his parents:
It was with no little surprise that I received the entreaty of Your Grace to communicate on the vexatious episcopate of Richard Nelson Williamson, formerly of his jurisdiction but now fallen in a strange and unhappy manner under that of the Bishop of Rome, where he has no rivals, yeah, not even Your Grace in his attacks on the office of ye Pope. To which he doth add, attacks most grievously personal.
Much information on the sad history of the decline and fall of Bishop Williamson can be found on my website Catholic Church Conservation, so what I say now is in the form of commentary on the latest developments.
Williamson is forgetful what it really means to be a Bishop as he has busily, indeed very busily constructed his own reality at the margins of the Catholic Church. And like anyone who wishes to do this, he has not been wanting for those who he wishes to suck into his world. While as a Catholic, I would be slightly more extensive on the meaning of episcopacy, a good reference point serves as the service for the consecration of Bishops in the Church of England.
What is the point of holding episcopal office if you elevate private and indeed eccentric opinions on the Holocaust to a neo-dogma and a touchstone for religious life? If your whole dialogue as a bishop does not directly concern the Gospel of Our Lord and Saviour, such a life in a profound sense is a waste of time and effort.
I heard the Bishop once preach in the glorious Church of St Joseph in Brussels. Ironic indeed, that he dwelt on the Last Judgement and implied that the faithful who have given so much for this church could have been wasting their time, if that dread day was coming as soon as the Bishop thought it was. All too often indeed, those that despair of the Papal office in the Catholic Church become obsessed with prophecies of the end of the world. Williamson’s only rival as a prophet of doom is Al Gore, he who has had the whole world wasting time worrying about global warming.
He scares the faithful with talk of the Last Judgement and is not himself able to accept the judgement of a secular court which has convicted him of inciting racial hatred. He is so keen to appeal not just against the level of the fine but also the judgement itself that he has gone to the extreme of retaining a neo-Nazi lawyer. This lawyer comes from a whole family of neo-Nazis- father and grandfather before him. He is the “in-house” lawyer of the extreme right in Germany and rushes to the legal defence of every odious character who ever perpetrates some vile crime on behalf of this movement. Williamson’s first lawyer was a member of the Green Party, the most anti-church party in Germany. According to his religious order, Williamson is in the process of selecting a third lawyer and will inform the Regensburg court of his decision "as soon as possible." The damage has, however, already been done. Williamson’s change of lawyer has probably saved him, at least pro-temp, from being degraded as a bishop and ultimately stripped of the right to practice as a priest.
Indeed, he took with him when he converted to the Catholic Church, anti-Catholic Church beliefs. His respect for the person and office of the Pope if anything diminished. The Pope was accurate when he said that Williamson never had the experience of living in the wider church and was not a Catholic in the proper sense. A truly Catholic theology lives in the Golden Mean, not at the extremes of heresy or politics.
It was very good to hear the Pope saying that the excommunication ban on Williamson should never have been lifted. It is a pity that this was not clear at the time but the management of the crisis probably demanded it.
One of the problems for the Curia however was that three of the Society of Saint Pius X’s bishops are in good faith. Indeed, it is possible that Williamson’s speculations on the Holocaust were a deliberate attempt to destroy the growing rapprochement between the main traditionalist body and the Papacy. Jewish organisations especially tended to make no differentiation between Williamson and other traditionalists. There are undoubtedly anti-semites in the traditionalist movement - they generally are laity, who do not understand the nuances of theology, and who should be avoided like the plague because they pollute everything that they touch, not least of course, the preaching of the Gospel.
Williamson would do well to listen to the teaching of St Ignatius of Antioch on the silence of bishops.
For Ignatius, God is the true bishop of all (Letter to the Magnesians 3.1). Ignatius pays homage to the Bishop of Philadelphia who “accomplished more through silence than others do by talking” (Letter to the Philippians 1.1). Ignatius insisted “the more anyone observes that the bishop is silent, the more one should fear him. For everyone whom the Master of the house sends to manage his own house we must welcome as we would the one who sent him” (Letter to the Ephesians 6.1).
The dissonant noises, ultimately signifying nothing, of Williamson on matters political has brought mockery on him and worse to the whole Christian Church.
Williamson is part of a wider political problem.
The Holocaust, if not in extent, then in evil intent was the greatest crime committed in world history. Those who deny it are unworthy of a place at any dining table. They have separated themselves off from civilised society. Hitler nearly destroyed a whole civilisation from which, in God’s good providence, Christianity took its roots. And without Christianity, the world will have no chance of civilisation. Hitler unstopped would have destroyed Christianity.
Further, worrying the world and the church with anti-semitism is a complete distraction from the real religious issue of our day, which is the large and growing Muslim populations in the great cities of Europe.
The anti-semitic right is one of the greatest barriers to political progress in Europe. Desperate conservatives danced with this devil in Germany in inter-war years. In our times, conservatives at home and abroad are fighting against the formation of a European super-state with dictatorial powers, not least in economics, as the Irish are finding out. We shall not win this or any battle by partnering with those whom we most fear and whose solutions would include our own political ruin.
An imperative for the conservative right in Europe is a Declaration of Civilisation which any politician of good will and humanity can sign and which would specifically condemn anti-semitism and holocaust denial. This would separate the sheep from the goats among the potential European allies for UKIP and the British Conservatives. This would make for a true ecumenism in matters political.
If these true friends cannot be found, we will find ourselves alone fighting for the freedom and prosperity of our great country. And this fight, my Lord Archbishop of all people, knows is well worth having.
It was with no little surprise that I received the entreaty of Your Grace to communicate on the vexatious episcopate of Richard Nelson Williamson, formerly of his jurisdiction but now fallen in a strange and unhappy manner under that of the Bishop of Rome, where he has no rivals, yeah, not even Your Grace in his attacks on the office of ye Pope. To which he doth add, attacks most grievously personal.Much information on the sad history of the decline and fall of Bishop Williamson can be found on my website Catholic Church Conservation, so what I say now is in the form of commentary on the latest developments.
Williamson is forgetful what it really means to be a Bishop as he has busily, indeed very busily constructed his own reality at the margins of the Catholic Church. And like anyone who wishes to do this, he has not been wanting for those who he wishes to suck into his world. While as a Catholic, I would be slightly more extensive on the meaning of episcopacy, a good reference point serves as the service for the consecration of Bishops in the Church of England.
What is the point of holding episcopal office if you elevate private and indeed eccentric opinions on the Holocaust to a neo-dogma and a touchstone for religious life? If your whole dialogue as a bishop does not directly concern the Gospel of Our Lord and Saviour, such a life in a profound sense is a waste of time and effort.
I heard the Bishop once preach in the glorious Church of St Joseph in Brussels. Ironic indeed, that he dwelt on the Last Judgement and implied that the faithful who have given so much for this church could have been wasting their time, if that dread day was coming as soon as the Bishop thought it was. All too often indeed, those that despair of the Papal office in the Catholic Church become obsessed with prophecies of the end of the world. Williamson’s only rival as a prophet of doom is Al Gore, he who has had the whole world wasting time worrying about global warming.
He scares the faithful with talk of the Last Judgement and is not himself able to accept the judgement of a secular court which has convicted him of inciting racial hatred. He is so keen to appeal not just against the level of the fine but also the judgement itself that he has gone to the extreme of retaining a neo-Nazi lawyer. This lawyer comes from a whole family of neo-Nazis- father and grandfather before him. He is the “in-house” lawyer of the extreme right in Germany and rushes to the legal defence of every odious character who ever perpetrates some vile crime on behalf of this movement. Williamson’s first lawyer was a member of the Green Party, the most anti-church party in Germany. According to his religious order, Williamson is in the process of selecting a third lawyer and will inform the Regensburg court of his decision "as soon as possible." The damage has, however, already been done. Williamson’s change of lawyer has probably saved him, at least pro-temp, from being degraded as a bishop and ultimately stripped of the right to practice as a priest.
Indeed, he took with him when he converted to the Catholic Church, anti-Catholic Church beliefs. His respect for the person and office of the Pope if anything diminished. The Pope was accurate when he said that Williamson never had the experience of living in the wider church and was not a Catholic in the proper sense. A truly Catholic theology lives in the Golden Mean, not at the extremes of heresy or politics.
It was very good to hear the Pope saying that the excommunication ban on Williamson should never have been lifted. It is a pity that this was not clear at the time but the management of the crisis probably demanded it.
One of the problems for the Curia however was that three of the Society of Saint Pius X’s bishops are in good faith. Indeed, it is possible that Williamson’s speculations on the Holocaust were a deliberate attempt to destroy the growing rapprochement between the main traditionalist body and the Papacy. Jewish organisations especially tended to make no differentiation between Williamson and other traditionalists. There are undoubtedly anti-semites in the traditionalist movement - they generally are laity, who do not understand the nuances of theology, and who should be avoided like the plague because they pollute everything that they touch, not least of course, the preaching of the Gospel.
Williamson would do well to listen to the teaching of St Ignatius of Antioch on the silence of bishops.
For Ignatius, God is the true bishop of all (Letter to the Magnesians 3.1). Ignatius pays homage to the Bishop of Philadelphia who “accomplished more through silence than others do by talking” (Letter to the Philippians 1.1). Ignatius insisted “the more anyone observes that the bishop is silent, the more one should fear him. For everyone whom the Master of the house sends to manage his own house we must welcome as we would the one who sent him” (Letter to the Ephesians 6.1).
The dissonant noises, ultimately signifying nothing, of Williamson on matters political has brought mockery on him and worse to the whole Christian Church.
Williamson is part of a wider political problem.
The Holocaust, if not in extent, then in evil intent was the greatest crime committed in world history. Those who deny it are unworthy of a place at any dining table. They have separated themselves off from civilised society. Hitler nearly destroyed a whole civilisation from which, in God’s good providence, Christianity took its roots. And without Christianity, the world will have no chance of civilisation. Hitler unstopped would have destroyed Christianity.
Further, worrying the world and the church with anti-semitism is a complete distraction from the real religious issue of our day, which is the large and growing Muslim populations in the great cities of Europe.
The anti-semitic right is one of the greatest barriers to political progress in Europe. Desperate conservatives danced with this devil in Germany in inter-war years. In our times, conservatives at home and abroad are fighting against the formation of a European super-state with dictatorial powers, not least in economics, as the Irish are finding out. We shall not win this or any battle by partnering with those whom we most fear and whose solutions would include our own political ruin.
An imperative for the conservative right in Europe is a Declaration of Civilisation which any politician of good will and humanity can sign and which would specifically condemn anti-semitism and holocaust denial. This would separate the sheep from the goats among the potential European allies for UKIP and the British Conservatives. This would make for a true ecumenism in matters political.
If these true friends cannot be found, we will find ourselves alone fighting for the freedom and prosperity of our great country. And this fight, my Lord Archbishop of all people, knows is well worth having.
Headlines - Tuesday November 30
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Right after you prosecute the Bushies for war crimes, asshats
Senators: prosecute Wikileakers - Rep. King Urges WikiLeaks Listing as "Foreign Terrorist Organization"
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"Maybe we could just heat them up a little bit to let them see the errors of their ways." Sen Jim DeMint, saying gays should be put into ovens, but not murdered, just turn the heat up to teach them a lesson Link
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"There has been no attempt to reach out to people they don't see as their people," said the wife of a senior administration official who doesn't have Chicago ties. "They don't reach out even to people in the administration who aren't from their inner circle."
Is this why Obama has made more than his share of mistakes? He's getting advice from one small group and nobody else can get thru?
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Hateful Days - William Rivers Pitt
There is a great deal of hate in my heart today. Not the healthiest condition to find myself in, but these things sometimes cannot be helped. The hate is a free-flowing thing, expanding in all directions because, simply put, there is something to revile and despise in virtually every direction I turn. Sarah Palin's ridiculous reality show was a ratings blockbuster. Hateful. George H. W. Bush is getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom, because Mr. Obama just can't help sucking up to the very Republicans who are about to make a project out of throttling his administration. Hateful. There will be no punishment for those who destroyed CIA evidence of rampant torture during the Bush administration. Wildly hateful.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-rivers-pitt/32671/hateful-days
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Who ever would have guessed? So once again, Obama has proposed a Republican idea but suddenly, the GOP wants him to push more to the right. Meanwhile, liberals again are angry with yet another failed sell out. What a brilliant 2012 strategy.
Republicans were pleased, but they didn't want to sound too happy with something their arch-rival proposed. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said the freeze "is both necessary and, quite frankly, long over-due."
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the ranking Republican on the committee's federal workforce panel, called it "a step in the right direction. However, the proposal does not appear to curb step increases. If that is the case, this announcement is nothing more than a hollow press release. At the end of the day, this policy will serve only to frustrate current employees while doing nothing to curb our debts."
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Kevin Richardson, star of the new documentary "The Lion Whisperer", and his white lions.
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"Six NATO Soldiers Killed by Man in Afghan Border Police Uniform:" so the headline reads. Have you noticed how American soldiers killed in Afghanistan are now being described as 'NATO Soldiers'? Softens the blow, doesn't it? That's how propaganda works.
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Change we can believe in!
Blatant Polluters Welcome
In the name of job creation, the Obama administration has doled out billions in stimulus funds - and granted exemptions from even basic environmental oversight - to some of the country's biggest polluters, including Westar, DuPont and BP. From a Center for Public Integrity investigation.
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This makes me effing furious.
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Mario: Republicans on Republicans
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If the Obama Administration thinks John Boehner is a guy they can work with, one wonders how long it's going to take for them to throw reproductive self-determination under the bus along with everything else that's already there...
Palling around with terrorists
Staffers for the forthcoming Speaker of the House John Boehner met with confirmed and current domestic terrorists immediately following the midterm election.
Digby has the photographic evidence of the meeting with Randall Terry and his cabal of evildoers.
And, yes, Terry is a terrorist.
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'Plagiarized' GOP-Commissioned Climate Change Report Laid Groundwork For Climate-Gate
By the time a report purporting to debunk the science of climate change was discredited, it had already made the rounds and accomplished its main purpose: giving climate change deniers a peg to hang their hats on.
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Teabaggers are winning the war on Xmas.
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Not near as funny as "You might be a redneck if...", but then nothing about Repugs is funny except their sex lives. Those are funny and pathetic You might be a Republican if…
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Joe Scarborough is about to be excommunicated from the GOP:
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The warning bell of Democratic stupidity.
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Early next year, Julian Assange says, a major American bank will suddenly find itself turned inside out. Tens of thousands of its internal documents will be exposed on Wikileaks.org with no polite requests for executives' response or other forewarnings. The data dump will lay bare the finance firm's secrets on the Web for every customer, every competitor, every regulator to examine and pass judgment on.
Upon hearing that Sarah Palin had proposed that he be hunted like Osama bin Laden, Julian Assange said, "That's good to hear. Otherwise, they might find me."
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A message to all of those Arab nations who want Iran "dealt with"
We've sold you guys plenty of weapons, as have the French, the British, the Russians and the Chinese.
So gather your armies, form a coalition, and do the job yourselves.
Leave us the frak out of it.
Very truly yours,
The U.S.A.
So gather your armies, form a coalition, and do the job yourselves.
Leave us the frak out of it.
Very truly yours,
The U.S.A.
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REPUBLICAN Joe Barton, who famously apologized to BP for the creation of a fund to help the survivors of the Gulf oil spill, says he'd shoot at Obama.
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Government is not your family
As we approach the next battle in the 75-year-long War to Save Social Security, we must beware of plausible-sounding analogies that undermine liberal positions.
Digby punctures one of the dumbest:
Gene Lyons made a good observation the other day about the "government is family" metaphor that describes the absurdity of it in a useful way:
"The American people are ahead of their government and their politicians on this," King said. "Because, Ali, you know this, over the past two or three years every family in America has had to make incredibly difficult choices and do things they didn't want to do. And so they look at Washington and they say why won't you do things that you don't want to do, why don't you ... do something about this and be grown-ups?"Yes, it's perfectly obvious. The thing to do is cut government spending, reduce demand, put more people out of work. Prosperity will come roaring back.
Look, Obama asked for this. "Families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions," he said, announcing the Bowles-Simpson commission during his 2010 State of the Union. "The federal government should do the same."
Because the U.S. government is just like your family. And your family can't run deficits, can it? Apart from mortgages, auto and education loans, credit cards, stuff like that. Not to mention that it's the government that actually creates and maintains the money supply. Otherwise, yeah, your family's exactly the same as the Social Security Administration, the Pentagon, the National Institutes of Health, all those. So get out and build some highways: pay as you go.
My head explodes every time I hear any of them use this stupid family metaphor. And it isn't just Obama using it. As everyone here is aware, there's a whole school of thought on the left about the dueling metaphors of government as family, with the Right allegedly preferring the "strict father" model and the Left preferring the "nurturing parent" (actually "indulgent Mommy", although the proponents of this metaphor will never admit that's what it is.)It's dumb. America isn't a family and managing a national economy isn't like managing a family budget. It isn't like a business either (the second most common stupid metaphor.) The government has a completely different set of responsibilities than other human organizing entities, and democratic government is designed to completely upend the authoritarian model of family, church and business and put the "kids" in charge. Forgetting that is what gets us into trouble.
It would be very helpful to people's understanding of how their world works if they understood the differences between our various organizational models instead of conflating them. It's confusing rather than enlightening.
The lines in this conflict could not be more clear:
Rich people, Wall Street, conservatives/republicans/teabaggers, and corporations are determined to steal the last nickels from the working people the rich have been exploiting for decades.
Working people, Main Street, liberals/Democrats and unions are fighting to make the obscenely wealthy pay their share of the taxes that make this nation strong.
Everything else is lies and distraction.
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Friend of children Mark Foley looking to run for offie again
Why we should welcome David Cameron’s ‘Happiness Index’
His Grace is fully aware that this headline risks irking his readers and disappointing his communicants: there has been universal derision of the idea of measuring people's psychological and environmental wellbeing since it was announced, but only by those who obtusely misunderstand or purposely misrepresent it.Yesterday, ConservativeHome published an article which suggested that it is all part of a ‘European plot’, which was strange coming immediately after a blanket condemnation of ‘conspiracy nutters’.
It’s clearly a touchy subject, with the Mail’s ‘Black Dog’ reporting:
The Prime Minister’s spin doctor Andy Coulson has banned No 10 staff from referring to Dave’s laughable ‘Happiness Index’.Yet it is widely known that economic measures like wages, inflation and GDP are a wholly inadequate way of measuring much at all about a nation: according to US senator Robert Kennedy, GDP measures everything ‘except that which makes life worthwhile’.
Essex boy Coulson thinks the initiative, dreamed up by Cameron’s ‘branding’ guru Steve Hilton, is ‘airy fairy b*******’. He insists it keeps its dreary official ‘general wellbeing’ tag – in the hope that it is forgotten as quickly as most of Tory hippy Hilton’s other gimmicks.
And he has a point, for a rise in GDP is not necessarily a good thing. If thousands of people die from bird flu in one year, that gives a boost to undertakers and crematoria, and so increases GDP. Terrorism increases policing and security costs, and if we happen to go to war, the production of armaments and ammunition contributes to greater economic activity with a consequent boost to the nation’s GDP.
But these are hardly positive or beneficial contributions to the summum bonum.
There needs to be a more holistic method of measuring the ‘national mood’, and charging the Office of National Statistics with gauging ‘general wellbeing’ is a start.
And His Grace will tell you why.
And it has nothing to do with French gaîté, an EU plot or even the King of Bhutan.
He pointed out last week that the Tories began as a church party, concerned with the Church and State, in that order, before our concerns extended to the economy, free markets and many other fields which politics now touches.
The Church is concerned with the whole (or ought to be): a person’s economic situation is inseparable from their spiritual well-being. Man does not live by bread alone, but he’s a darn sight more receptive to salvation after a bit of bread and fish.
One has to go back to Locke and the inspiration for the American Declaration of Independence to understand where David Cameron is coming from:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.This ‘pursuit of happiness’ has nothing to do with job satisfaction, marital bliss, Ant & Dec or the feel-good induced by discerning the nation's favourite Abba song.
Locke’s notion of happiness is acutely linked to liberty.It is not the task of government – least of all a Conservative government – to make people happy: it is the task of government to ensure that people are free to attain their objectives and fulfil their hopes and aspirations to make their own happiness.
As the Prime Minister has observed: "You cannot capture happiness on a spreadsheet any more than you can bottle it - and if anyone was trying to reduce the whole spectrum of human happiness into one snapshot statistic I would be the first to roll my eyes."
So let us give the man some credit for returning the Tory Party to its spiritual church roots and for seeking to measure progress not only by how the economy is growing, but by how the quality of life is improving; and that is fused with people’s sense of contentment, harmony and inner peace.
And it is not unlikely that this chimes with an EU objective, for the European Commission are acutely concerned with issues beyond the economic and always have been. What the UK was told was purely about trade was, for our continental neighbours, also about quality-of-life issues such as welfare, health, sustainability and social inclusion, which emanate from the Union’s foundation upon Roman Catholic Social Teaching.
And here’s the nexus of the matter.
The Christian religion has given Europe a scheme of values in which economic, social and penal policy have their place, but the understanding of these is inseparable from our historical roots. For through the Old Testament our spiritual roots go back to the early days of civilisation and man's search for God.
For England and for the United Kingdom, it has historically been the Protestant Reformed Religion which has provided us with our sense of ‘well-being’, for it has become inseparable from our sense of liberty. And that notion of liberty has a quite distinct theological lineage, not only from sin and the power of evil, but also in the Calvinist understanding of church governance – ‘liberty from Romish hierarchies’. According to Burke: 'To preserve that liberty inviolate, is the peculiar duty and proper trust of a member of the House of Commons.'
The ‘Happiness Index’ is ultimately a measurement of liberty. David Cameron, in his long-gone PPE days at Oxford, will have studied Locke and Mill and the philosophy of what we bequeathed to our American cousins in ‘the pursuit of happiness’. And he will know that happiness and autonomy are indivisible. Mill said: “The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way.” To be autonomous is to be able to reflect on and evaluate one’s desires, beliefs and values: we don’t just act; we choose how to act; we choose which goals to adopt, and we reflect on the reasons for our beliefs. By this, we can shape ourselves and our own lives; and if we shape ourselves according to our own values, we express our individuality.
Mill argued that ‘the free development of individuality is one of the leading essentials of well-being’. Leading our lives in our own way, making our own choices expresses and develops our thoughts, feelings and imagination. So, to be happy, we must be autonomous.
But that autonomy must be guided or ‘assisted’ towards good choices, moral choices, and Mill assumes that people will learn from their own and others’ mistakes. Autonomy which leads to bad or immoral choices will not produce happiness, so it is autonomy itself which is intrinsic to happiness.
The fons et origo of our ‘Gross National Happiness’ is a via media between Locke and Mill; between Liberalism and Toryism, and this is no bad thing for a Tory-Liberal Coalition to pursue.
But one comment in the ConservativeHome thread is worth observing:
As long as Cameron keeps paying my taxes to the EU and refuses an EU Referendum, I shall certainly be miserable.For a nation which is itself bound by alien rules and stifling regulations cannot pretend that its people are autonomous. And as long as they are not autonomous, they are not free. And as long as they are not free, they will not be happy.
Here, Mr Cameron, lies the potential zenith of your ‘Happiness Index’ and the glory of your premiership.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Adding Adsense to Blogger Flatform: Below Title Post, Below Main Post
For adding Adsense to your blog post you have to first convert the Adsense code and then it is possible to add the code to your blog template without any error. Visit the Adsense Ad Code Converter to convert the code.
Now that you have converted the Adsense code by visiting the above link, its time to paste the code in the Blogger template.
Just follow the steps given below:
Just follow the steps given below:
1 Step:
Now search the following code in the template [Press Ctrl+F and Paste the code below]
<data:post.body/>
2 Step:
If you want to display the ads at the start of the post, then paste the code above <data:post.body/> and if you want to display the ads at the end of the post, then paste the code below it. However you will have to add the Adsense code between two lines of code before adding it to the template.
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
Paste the Adsense Code here
</b:if>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
Paste the Adsense Code here
</b:if>
The main reason for pasting the Adsense code between the 2 lines is that it wont display the ads on the Home Page. The ads will be visible only when you visit the blog post. This is important as Google allows only 3 ad units per page. Most of the blogs display 5 posts per page, because of which 5 ad units will be visible on the Home Page which is against the rules. But if you want to display the ads on the Home Page and have only 3 or less posts per page, then you don't need to add the above code to your Adsense code.
Now save the template and check your blog posts. The adsense code will be visible in the posts.
Wikileaks: US advises Belgium on how 'to attain prominence in Europe'
This really is priceless.The leaked cables appear to reveal discussions between various countries on whether they would take prisoners released from the Guantánamo Bay detention facility:
When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of “Let’s Make a Deal.” Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in Chinese Muslim detainees, cables from diplomats recounted. The Americans, meanwhile, suggested that accepting more prisoners would be “a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe. ...”If nothing else, this is quite an enlightening insight into how the US views EU politics and relations between member states: take a low-threat Guantánamo
It will take rather more than that for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe.
But this was the 'low-cost' option.
Alternatively, they could incur huge debt, say 11 times the size of GDP; bankrupt their national treasury; make pledges to creditors which amount to 220 per cent of the country’s annual economic output; call in the IMF and the ECB; arrange a bail-out; and then default on their agreements.
Belgium will then be as prominent as Greece and Ireland.
But that is the 'high-cost' option.
As the US State Department points out, taking a Guantánamo inmate is a lot cheaper.
Unless, of course, he starts blowing you up.
Headlines - Monday November 29
What is the capital of Israel? http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1733265814174
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The Guardian: US embassy cables: The job of the media is not to protect the powerful from embarrassment
It is for governments – not journalists – to guard public secrets, and there is no national jeopardy in WikiLeaks' revelations
Anything said or done in the name of a democracy is, prima facie, of public interest. When that democracy purports to be "world policeman" – an assumption that runs ghostlike through these cables – that interest is global. Nonetheless, the Guardian had to consider two things in abetting disclosure, irrespective of what is anyway published by WikiLeaks. It could not be party to putting the lives of individuals or sources at risk, nor reveal material that might compromise ongoing military operations or the location of special forces.
Keep reading: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cables-wikileaks
Meanwhile, the NYT received its dump of diplomatic documents from the Guardian, not Wikileaks. This isn't surprising given that the Times' editor went out of his way to call Wikileaks irresponsible, ran an unflattering profile of Julian Assange alongside the last Wikileaks story, and wouldn't even link from their Iraq Wikileaks story to the Wikileaks site.
I can't think of another instance of a newspaper bashing a source while at the same time publishing a major story based on that source's revelations. The opposite is usually true, since most media outlets grant anonymity to sources in return for even the most trivial revelations, so it's impossible for their readers to even begin to judge the source's motives.
I'm sure the Times will chalk this one up to Julian Assange's eccentricity, but I have to believe that they've damaged themselves in the eyes of other potential sources. Having to rely on the charity of a British newspaper to get one of the most important stories of the year is a pretty low place for a paper that fancies itself the leading American newspaper.
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Greenwald: The FBI Successfully Thwarts Its Own Terrorist Plot
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The Rich Get Rich and the Poor Get Poorer - Hunger and Homelessness in America
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Sabotage
GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has stated that his principal goal is to cause Obama to lose in 2012. Tangible improvements in the economy are key to Obama's reelection. If, as the GOP claims, Obama's policies are bad for the economy, then the GOP should give him everything he proposes and reap the political benefits in the 2012 election. If, on the other hand, the GOP fears that Obama's policies will revitalize the economy, then those policies must be obstructed in any way possible.
The April raising of the debt ceiling will show if the GOP priority is the economy or their own political ambitions. Continue reading 'SABOTAGE!'
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New Jersey: Atheism Billboard Goes Up At Lincoln Tunnel
The American Atheists have erected the above billboard at the New Jersey entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel as part of a campaign to encourage people to "come out of the closet" about their atheism and "stop going through the motions" of taking part in Christmas shopping and celebrations. Some Christians are upset.
"I don't think it's any good for the kids. I've got a 7-year-old daughter — she believes in Christmas," one woman told 1010 WINS' Terry Sheridan. "I don't think that's right. We don't go around telling them what we think about [atheists], so why should they put up something like that," another man said. The billboard went up the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and is expected to be up through Christmas Day. [American Atheists president David] Silverman said atheists were unfairly targeted in the "war on Christmas," a phrase often related to the public display of Christmas imagery on government funded property. "We get blamed for a war on Christmas every year. This time we're actually going to pay attention to that. We're actually going to earn a little bit of that," Silverman said. "We have been blamed repeatedly for being unpatriotic, we have been told that there are not atheists in fox holes, we have been told that we are immoral. Nobody has ever cared if we would be offended." While acknowledging "everybody has the right to believe as they see fit," Silverman said his group believed there were "a lot more people" who were atheists, but feared publicly admitting it. "A lot of people in church, a lot of people in the mosque, a lot of people in the synagogue know they're praying to air," Silverman said.
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Playing games with foreign policy
Yes: anyone who insists that a ridiculous myth deserves protection from insult but fellow human beings don't deserve protection from murder is a barbarian.
The Republicans just can't stop themselves from playing political games over this nation's standing in the world. Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona is attempting to deflect blame away from himself and onto Harry Reid for his own gross obstructionism.
Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona denied there was any partisanship behind his calls for a delay. He said the Senate has more urgent business to attend to in the weeks before it breaks for Christmas, including dealing with potential tax increases and funding the government through the rest of the budget year.
There you have it, prolonging tax-cuts for the rich and possibly de-funding the government are more "urgent" matters than potentially damaging our relationship with Russia and handing Iran or even North Korea a propaganda talking-point. Do we really want to do that given recent events?
So what does Senator Kyl want? More pork spending of course!
Weeks prior to his appearance on "Meet the Press," he demanded that the administration include additional funds for nuclear weapons modernization as part of the overall package.
Amidst the crescendo of deficit fearmongering, and while saying the budget is more "urgent" than ratifying START, Kyl is calling for more funding of new nuclear weapons. Who wants to bet some of those funds would find their way into the hands of defense contractors in the Arizona desert?
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Fox News pundits such as Sean Hannity, Bill Kristol and Michael Scheuer have been salivating for the U.S. to attack North Korea but behind the scenes the parent company of News Corp is not only doing business with the regime but the kind of business that could bolster North Korea's cyberwarfare capabilities.
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The bible is not a medical text
Although citing the Bible seems to be a way to fast-track bad science papers to publication. In yet another example of a journal letting bad Bible interpretations pass for science, a paper titled "Newer insights to the neurological diseases among biblical characters of old testament has been published in the Annals of the Indian Academy of Neurology. It isn't new or newer, it doesn't offer any insights, and the title isn't even grammatical. Among its inventions is the idea that Sampson was autistic because he was violent and had odd dietary habits, that Isaac was diabetic, and that Ezekiel had a stroke.
Could someone explain to me how dubious diagnoses based on vague descriptions of serially translated myths can actually advance our understanding of disease, other than by promoting the publication careers of scientists happy to pander to superstition? I suppose one use for these things is enhancing the jocularity of interactions between neuroscientists at the lab bench, since laughing at religious idiots could be a productive bonding experience between the grad students and post-docs.
(via Neuroskeptic and Autism Blog)
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Skippy's environmental news stories Sunday
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Great place to start cutting ....
WASHINGTON — Job-based health care benefits could wind up on the chopping block if President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans get serious about cutting the deficit.
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Copenhagen plans super highways ... for bikes.
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John Cole's thoughts on the Wikileaks dump summarized as:
1.) We really are doing everything they accuse us of doing. For me, the biggest surprise is they would openly ask diplomats to spy.
2.) Apparently, near everyone in he world wants the United States to attack Iran. They also want to make sure that it is the United States who is blamed for attacking Iran, and want no credit/blame/perception of involvement.
3.) Iraq is still an absolute mess.
I generally sense that people, overall, will be more hostile towards wikileaks after this dump. The previous dumps seemed to corroborate competing stories. This dump will just be viewed by many as an attempt to hurt the United States. I have a hard time getting worked up about it- a government that views none of my personal correspondence as confidential really can't bitch when this sort of thing happens.
*** Update ***
One final irony. All this data was available because we changed policies in response to 9/11.
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"If my presidency doesn't work out, Hillary, we could always do a remake of 'I Spy'."
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"Surely you can't be serious!"
"I am serious, and don't call me 'Shirley.'
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Least surprising news of the day
Shocking cable: US says Saudi donors are chief financiers of al Qaeda.
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Barbarians in the halls of power
Here in the U.S. we're about to find out what happens when violent nihilists bent on destroying the government are given seats in Congress.
At the United Nations, they've already turned the place over to the murderers.
So, various factions at the United Nations have been pushing for anti-blasphemy motions - after all, we can't go around picking on weak ideas. But do you know who the UN thinks are fair game? Non-heterosexual people.
Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people were once again subject to the whims of homophobia and religious and cultural extremism this week, thanks to a United Nations vote that removed "sexual orientation" from a resolution that protects people from arbitrary executions. In other words, the UN General Assembly this week voted to allow LGBT people to be executed without cause.
Jesus and Mohammed get a little cranky at the idea of someone being rude to their books of magic spells, but setting a gay man on fire? That's just an excuse to party.The United Nations is a wonderful idea in principle, except for the little problem of giving barbarians a vote.
Yes: anyone who insists that a ridiculous myth deserves protection from insult but fellow human beings don't deserve protection from murder is a barbarian.
Wikileaks demolishes the US-Israel-Zionist conspiracy
You can shake a hand in public, yet plan subterfuge and assassination in private.
Shakespeare had Hamlet write this revelation down immediately upon his tablets: “That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”
At least we’re sure it may be so in the Middle East.
It has to be the ultimate in open government, transparency and freedom of information.
All democracies preach it, yet still they seek to control precisely what should be made available to the people.
This is understandable.
Official secrets in the wrong hands imperil lives and compromise national security.
But there is no harm at all in discovering that President Barack Obama ‘prefers to look East rather than West’, and ‘has no feelings for Europe’; that he critical of David Cameron; that the US spies on the UN; that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il suffers from epilepsy; that Russia has become a ‘virtual mafia state’; that Libyan leader Colonel Gaddhafi's full-time nurse is a ‘hot blond’; that Germany’s Chancellor is referred to as Angela ‘Teflon’ Merkel; or that Afghan President Hamid Karzai is ‘driven by paranoia’.
Such things constitute political trivial pursuits: they were always widely suspected; now that they are common knowledge, nothing will change.
It is, however, surprising that Alan Duncan is the subject of an intelligence dossier and that he even features on US radar.
The release of several hundred thousand classified cables from the US State Department is embarrassing for politicians and diplomats, but it is all very entertaining for everyone else.Except, perhaps, for Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, who is probably himself now a target for assassination.
But it’s very difficult to see what all the fuss is about.
Anyone with an ounce of psychological discernment or insight knows that nasty things are said behind one’s back, and that politicians are particularly predisposed to dissing their colleagues and counterparts.
But what is rather more interesting is that Arab nations – including the Wahhabi King Abdulla of Saudi Arabia – have been urging the US to attack Iran and end its nuclear weapons programme:
Al-Jubeir recalled the King's frequent exhortations to the US to attack Iran and so put an end to its nuclear weapons program. "He told you to cut off the head of the snake," he recalled to the Charge', adding that working with the US to roll back Iranian influence in Iraq is a strategic priority for the King and his government.Perhaps, again, it ought to come as no surprise to us that Sunni Muslims are seeking to wipe their Shi’a cousins off the map.
King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa of Bahrain has also argued forcefully for taking action to terminate Iran's nuclear programme: '...by whatever means necessary. That programme must be stopped. The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it.’
Zeid Rifai, then president of the Jordanian senate, told a senior US official: ‘Bomb Iran, or live with an Iranian bomb. Sanctions, carrots, incentives won't matter.’
But it gets even more interesting to learn that Yemeni government has been involved in the systematic cover-up of US strikes on al-Qaeda strongholds. Yemen is split virtually 50/50 Sunni/Shi’a, and they clearly do not see al-Qaeda as the route to the worldwide caliphate. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh told Gen David Petraeus, then commander of US forces in the Middle East: "We'll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours."
So it’s not all some evil US-Jewish-Zionist plot to humiliate Islam and eradicate Allah.
Indeed, there is Arab-Israeli consensus that neither wishes to be blown to kingdom come in a puff of Iranian nuclear smoke: Israel’s Ehud Barak ("Fate of world rests on stopping Iran") clearly sings the same acrostic psalm as King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia ("cut off the head of the snake").
Bombing Iranian nuclear facilities has hitherto been viewed by Muslims of all shades as a desperate last resort of the ‘crusading Christians’ to prevent Islam rising to challenge Western hegemony.
But these communications don’t leave much wriggle room.
They reveal the manifest contradictions between a state’s public persona and what it says behind closed doors: foreign policy is not what it seems, and no amount of openness, transparency or FOI requests will bring to light what is taking place in the darkness.
We have long known that politicians may be ‘economical with the truth’, but on the matter of the Middle East we discover a plethora of bare-faced lies that make Tony Blair’s ‘sexed-up’ dossier on Iraq look like a picnic in the park.
His Grace is not disposed to conspiracies or to believe in secret plots.
But Wikileaks is a whistleblower’s website, and they appear to have an awful lot of whistles to blow. As these revelations reverberate around the world, it is evident that they serve a purpose.
It is worth considering what and whose.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Just in time for Christmas: 20% off my Prints!!!
As my Christmas gift to you I am offering a 20% discount on prints of my work through Fine Art America. Use coupon code GKYRSR when ordering! Just click on the link below to get started!!!
http://wendie-thompson.artistwebsites.com/
Happy Holidays to all!!!
http://wendie-thompson.artistwebsites.com/
Happy Holidays to all!!!
Vermont Wins IDAS 2010 Tournament
Stephen Boyle with his team from Vermont, John Sadek and Jessica Bullock
John Sadek and Jessica Bullock have won the 60 team 24 country International Debate Academy Slovenia 2010 tournament held at the Faculty of Administration, University of Ljubljana in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Filip Dobranic and Maja Cimernan of Ljubljana, the reigning EUDC ESL champs, came second, other teams in the final Were Anna England Kerr and Crt Podlogar from Ljublljana along with the Serbian team of Goran Jankuloski and Pedrag Pevicevic from Belgrade. JUDGES:
Anne Valkering, Netherlands (chair), John Hampson, British Council, Loke Wing Fatt, Singapore, TJ Senamngern, Thailand and Maja Nenadovic, Netherlands.
Semifinals: bold go through
ROOM: AUDITORIUM
Kerr Podlogar 1O
Williams Eng 2O
Cimerman Dobranic 1P
Pitic Moscovici 2P
ROOM: 14
Dicu Gadeke 1O
Jankuloski Petricevic 2P
Sobocan Denkovski 1P
Sadek Bullock 2O
Quarterfinals: bold go through
ROOM: 2
1 Cimerman Dobranic, Slovenia/Ljubljana
16 Alexandrescu Sovaiala-Ionescu, Romania/Argo
8 Pitic Moscovici, Romania/Argo
9 Durrani Joyce, USA/St. John's
ROOM: 3
4 Kerr Podlogar, Slovenia/Ljubljana
13 Vignevic Cirovic, Serbia/Belgrade
5 Suleic Kolundzic, Serbia/Belgrade
12 Williams Eng, USA/Air Force Academy
ROOM: 4
2 Dicu Gadeke, Romania-Germany
15 Jutersek Polsak, Slovenia/Maribor
7 Jankuloski Petricevic, Serbia/Belgrade
10 Salapic Martinic, Croatia
ROOM: 5
3 Sadek Bullock, USA/Vermont
14 Sobocan Denkovski, Slovenia/Maribor-Cambridge
6 Vrecic Zitek, Slovenia/Ljubljana
11 Velikovski Georgievska, Macedonia
Speakers:
| Position | Name | Team | Total points | Average | ||||||
| 1 | Maja Cimerman | Cimerman Dobranic | 481 | 80,16 | ||||||
| 2 | Filip Muki Dobranic | Cimerman Dobranic | 479 | 79,83 | ||||||
| 3 | Marietta Gadeke | Dicu Gaeke | 475 | 79,16 | ||||||
| 4 | Eveline Dicu | Dicu Gaeke | 473 | 78,83 | ||||||
| 5 | Goran Jankulovski | Jankulovski Petricevic | 472 | 78,66 | ||||||
| 5 | Jessica Bullock | Sadek Bullock | 472 | 78,66 | ||||||
| 7 | Anna England Kerr | Kerr Podlogar | 470 | 78,33 | ||||||
| 7 | Serban Pitic | Pitic Moscovici | 470 | 78,33 | ||||||
| 9 | Mlden Suleic | Suleic Kolundzic | 469 | 78,16 | ||||||
| 10 | John Sadek | Sadek Bullock | 468 | 78,00 |
Motions:
1. THW require migrants wishing to have European citizenship to pass language and value tests.
2. This House would return national treasures to their country of origin
3. This House believes that adoption agencies that receve state funding should give priority to same sex couples and infertile couples.
4. This House would require large online social networks to be controlled democratically by their users.
5. This House would refuse to negotiate with kidnappers and hijackers.
6. This House believes that Roma should be recognized as the first transnational minority in the European Union.
Quarters.
THBT Arabic nations should stop selling oil to France until it removes restrictions on Islamic dress.
Semis. THBT the ECB should have veto power over member states budgets
Finals. THBT the free market does not make the workers free.
The oprogram is sponsored by ZIP Slovenia, World Debate Institute USA, European Union, Europe for Citizens Program and the law firm of Bickell and Brewer.
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