extreme Catholic 

The Vatican's Terrorism Omission : FrontPage

...[The Vatican] singled out Israel for criticism, saying that that beleaguered nation’s responses to attacks against its civilians was “not always compatible with the rules of international law.” It then went on to say that the Vatican could not protest every Palestinian attack against Jewish civilians if Israel did not always follow international law.

Let’s try to understand what this means. Unless a country is absolutely flawless in its response to terrorism, the Vatican will not condemn terrorism against its civilian citizens. This seems to justify the killing of civilians as a protest against violation of international law.

Blogger Credit to: Mystery Achievement

It's the double standard: every Muslim country gets a free pass on their rejection of international law, Israel is held to a higher standard. Israel makes real concessions like withdrawing from Gaza while getting nothing but empty promises in return.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:14 PM   Permalink  

U.S. Bishops Mark Anniversary of Atomic Bombings, Reaffirm Condemnation of 'Total War' - has the full text of the statement.

No matter how noble the ends of a war may be, they cannot justify employing means or weapons that fail to discriminate between noncombatants and combatants. As the Second Vatican Council declared, "Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation." (Gaudium et Spes, no. 80)

Also discussed in Catholic World News. where I commented (edited from its original form):

Does anyone recall a letter sent by the Japanese Bishop's Conference to the United States with their unequivocal condemnation of "indiscriminate destruction and death to civilians and soldiers alike" on the 60th anniversary of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 2001?

To end the war, a land invasion of Japan would be necessary. We may quibble about the exact number of deaths and injuries, but it certainly would have been more in a land invasion than those consequential to the atomic bomb. It shortened the war.

Are the bishops suggesting that we should have surrendered in 1941 or that in 1945 we negotiate a ceasefire that would allow Tojo to remain Prime Minister? What is their peace plan for 1945? To slowly starve the Japanese people with a nonviolent naval blockade?

It's odd to condemn the dead leaders of the United States for a great moral evil of 60 years ago when they are silent on today's slaughter of the unborn for which living American leaders, among them Catholics, are responsible.

Victory is achieved in a war only when the other side concedes defeat. Any suspension of hostilities would only allow the Japanese government to retool and accumulate more soldiers and weapons. How to make the Japanese War Cabinet concede defeat? is the critical question. Arguments that rely on American knowledge or estimates or Soviet knowledge or estimates are irrelevant. What matters is what Japan thought about their own ability to make the Americans pay such a high cost to defeat them that they would seek a negotiated peace.

The Japanese were willing to pay a high price indeed: on Iwo Jima only 200 of the 21,000 of the Japanese garrison survived. The rest were killed, wounded, captured, or missing. The American cost was 6821 killed and 20,000 wounded. Both Japanese and American commanders extrapolated the numbers to invasion of the Japanese mainland.

The other alternatives to invasion are just as deadly: In brief, they are bomb them to the stone age with conventional bombs and let the Soviets absorb 250,000 casualities and allow them repeat what they did to Germany in Japan.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 3:09 PM   Permalink  

They write

Robbing PETA to Spay Paul: Do Animal Rights Include Reproductive Rights? forthcoming in Between the Species. Colorado University

while the rest of us wonder if we will be given nutrition or hydration when we are no longer able to swallow.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 2:40 PM   Permalink  

Thank God we got the bomb before Hitler or Tojo.

Thank God we didn't have to invade Japan and take hundreds of thousands of casualities and in the process kill millions of Japanese combatants and civilians.

	Day by day objective account of what was going on in the countdown to 8/6/1945.
	Argues that the bomb was not necessary to force Japanese surrender
	A focus on the influences upon Truman's decision making. Material on how history has been written since 1945 on the subject.
	Okinawa and the lessons learned from the experience -- the awful expectation of the horrors of this battle multiplied a thousandfold on the Japanese mainland.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 2:06 PM   Permalink  

My bags were not checked today. It would have been interesting since I was collecting stuff on Islam, the decision to use the atomic bomb at the end of World War II, and what was passed from the native American culture to the European-American culture in British North America and later, the United States.

On the other side, a young woman with leaflets shouting "Stop Dick Cheney's Secret Plan to Invade Iraq."

I answered her: "I agree. Syria first."

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 7:56 PM   Permalink  

My summary: Israel watched for several years how the Vatican ignored terrorism directed at Israel. With the election of a new pope, it was now opportune for Israel to show that the status quo would no longer be accepted. Making the complaint on the July 12 Netanya suicide bombing was that start.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 5:32 PM   Permalink  

A 42-year-old teacher at a Catholic school who was charged with rape for allegedly having sex with an underage male student posted a $20,000 bond Tuesday and was released from jail.

Authorities said Sandra Beth Geisel had sex with four students from the Christian Brothers Academy in Colonie, N.Y., but in three of the cases the boys were 17-years-old and therefore were legally able to give their consent. Geisel faces sexual assault charges for allegedly having sex with a 16-year-old boy.

John Aretakis, who has represented alleged victims of clerical sexual abuse and is now the lawyer for a 17-year-old CBA student who allegedly had sex with Geisel, said the school ignored her "bizarre and irresponsible behavior" for months.

Other articles discuss the double standard when it comes to treating male perpetrators differently from female perpetrators.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 5:20 PM   Permalink  

George Ferrandi has seen saints at their worst - stained by lipstick, burned, cracked and faded - and with skilled hands and the tools of her trade, she skillfully restores them. She gives them a makeover and has built a career out of it.

Saints preserve us, the saying goes, but Ms. Ferrandi helps preserve saints.

Ms. Ferrandi (who goes by George even though her name is Georgina) combined the knowledge from her graduate degree in sculpture with her experience in her father's church restoration business to found her own company that fixes religious statuary, primarily Roman Catholic figures.

When St. Francis needs retouching or there is a crack in the Madonna, Ms. Ferrandi, 38, is the one who gets the call.

Her phone rang again recently after a 25-year-old man who the police said had a history of mental illness attacked a granite statue of St. Anne, the mother of Mary, outside a Roman Catholic church in Queens Village with a sword and a shotgun, decapitating the sculpture. Two police officers responding to emergency calls were shot and wounded by the man outside SS. Joachim and Anne Roman Catholic Church.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 4:33 PM   Permalink  

I'm blogging on what in New York is major news: Pataki is doing something about something.

The lies start with: (1) Artificial contraception (although "artificial" is often dropped as it is implied) is good while abortion is bad. The truth is artificial contraception is a violation of natural law as well as abortion (the killing of the unborn).

(2) Lie: So-called emergency contraceptives prevent conception. Although there's a little more honesty among the promoters now, it's clear that they are designed to prevent implantation. They make the uterus a toxic environment to the unborn child (aka human zygote).

(3) Lie: Pregancy commences after implantation triggers detectable horomone changes in the mother. In this lexicon they don't have a word to describe a woman carrying in her body a non-implanted unborn child (aka human zygote).

(4) Lie: Emergency contraceptives need to be available over the counter to minors. These are drugs which have dangerous side effects. We've raised the mimium drinking age in New York to 21. It seems to be a different set of rules when it applies to sex.

(5) Lie: Emergency contraceptives prevent abortions. This is a lie if you accept that life begins at fertilization. Scientifically, this is the point where a unique individual of the human species takes on a form for which the design is immutable from this point forward.

Pataki spokesman Kevin Quinn had said Sunday night the governor was prepared to veto what he called the "politically expedient" legislation primarily because it "fails to include any commonsense protections for minors." (Newsday)

Yeah, it's a politically motivated veto, but a good politically motivated veto. Pataki has stated that he will not run for a fourth term in 2006 and it is speculated that he might run for the Presidential nomination.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:15 PM   Permalink  

(1) Why is the sound quality always so poor and is it ever going to get better?

(2) Why are terrorists continuing to use cellphones going to contact each other? Are they ever going to wise up?

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:00 AM   Permalink