THE HOLY ROMAN ...
The Muslim Brotherhood, an Egyptian Islamist opposition group, said Monday that the pope's meeting with Muslim envoys to the Vatican was another way of avoiding an apology.
An ill-judged quotation about Islam has obscured a more serious message.
Rome has spoken. Once, that meant the question was settled. Now that means the question has been inflamed. In all of this, Benedict is defending a hierarchy of truth. Faith is superior to reason. Christian faith is superior to other faiths (especially Islam). Roman Catholicism is superior to other Christian faiths. And the pope is supreme among Catholics.
Pope Benedict XVI is "arrogant," "stupid," and "criminal," and will be judged by Allah on the day "when eyes will stare in terror."
... EMPIRE OF THE GERMAN NATION
Tempers are fraying in Chancellor Angela Merkel's grand coalition less than a year after the conservatives and the Social Democrats began their marriage of convenience. Rumors of a break-up are swirling around Berlin.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that his country intends to map out a timetable for the European Union's constitution by the end of its EU presidency in 2007.
German troops in Congo could be heading home at the end of the year after Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said Monday that the EU's mandate for the DRC should not be extended past its Nov. 30 deadline.
EUROPE/RUSSIA
The agreements concluded by Putin, Chirac and Merkel in Paris will show a considerable influence on the global energy policy. The new European “axis of energy” has become a response to Washington’s aspiration to dominate the whole world.
MIDEAST/AFRICA/ASIA
Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu and Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz met recently and planned strategy for toppling Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Mofaz would become Netanyahu's defense minister, but only if Mofaz would be among the first MKs to break off from Kadima.
The Bush administration and the British government are under increasing pressure from the Israelis to conduct an illegal air strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, according to a number of reports in Europe’s largest newspapers.
Every would-be mover and shaker in our nation's capital knows that Gulf War III will begin shortly after President Bush can claim, however implausibly, that international "diplomacy" has failed to get the Iranian mullahs to give up their pursuit of nuclear weapons.
The neoconservative Bush administration will attack Iran with tactical nuclear weapons, because it is the only way the neocons believe they can rescue their goal of U.S. (and Israeli) hegemony in the Middle East.
(Buchanan: Consult America - before Iran war!)
“I felt I was in the presence of someone of deep wisdom and spirituality, far beyond his years.”
ECONOMY
Almost half of all Americans believe the November elections have more influence than market forces. For them, the plunge at the pump is about politics, not economics.
Public markets for raising and investing capital are plunging into the shadows.
MISC
The secret cost of suspending tariffs is human slavery and lost tax revenue... More Housing prices slump in Cali... US AG Gonzales wants to know more about your internet sex life.... America renews its thumb on Africa to ensure the flow of oil...
Richard Dawkins has long trumpeted the rationale of science. Now, at 65, he has finally marshalled a lifetime's arguments against believing in God.
The prevalent Jewish myth today is not the founding myth of Abraham or Moses on Sinai, but the story of Jewish persecution. In our time the Jews are defined less by ancestry than by “anti-Semitism,”
Swiss doctors have been able to solve the mystery behind hallucinations. Since the strange sensation of someone’s presence, an experience of one’s actions being performed by another, and the perception of a different self appear to be the results of electrical brain stimulation, scientists are led to believe that their discovery might help shed light on brain processes that contribute to the symptoms of schizophrenia. They could also explain the origin of paranormal experiences such as ghost and UFO encounters.
Now that's a NEW moon!
[WAR: In yesterday's issue I forgot to type "new" in front of moon. So last night the "new moon" was visible, making today the beginning of a new month.]
