"During the past few months we have meditated upon the figures of each individual apostle and the first witnesses of the Christian faith, those mentioned in the New Testament writings. Now, we will turn our attention to the Apostolic Fathers, that is, to the first and second generation of the Church after the apostles. This way we can see how the Church's path started in history."
The Pope tried to stop Bob Dylan playing for the late JP2 because he feared the musician was a "prophet" whose beliefs were at odds with the Roman Catholic Church. "The Pope appeared tired, exhausted. At that very moment the stars arrived, Bob Dylan and others whose names I do not remember. They had a completely different message from the one which the Pope had. There was reason to be sceptical - I was, and in some ways I still am - over whether it was really right to allow this type of 'prophet' to appear."
The visit by German Catholic bishops to Israel and the Palestinian territories had exceeded expectations - until some of the bishops compared the situation of the Palestinians to the Warsaw Ghetto. The comments have enraged the Jewish community in Germany - now the Church is rushing to apologize.
A neurotic obsession is like a bone stuck in your throat. You can't swallow it and you can't spit it out. That is how the German media are hooked on America. It doesn't look quite sane. And while we know that you can't always generalize from media madness to ordinary people, we also know that the media swing a huge weight of influence. So when the German Organs of Propaganda go weird and hateful, get ready to worry. Really.
The impending release of former Red Army Faction terrorists has met with a vicious response from the German political establishment and media. The Bavarian Prime Minister and chairman of the Christian Social Union, Edmund Stoiber, even demanded the prisoners expressly renounce violence and make a positive commitment to the state. He told the press a condition of their release should be an "open" expression of "genuine" regret.
The outspoken head of the German League of Expellees has shaken fragile Polish-German relations by comparing Poland's ruling parties with German far-right extremists. Polish and German politicians were taken aback.
German troops have been deployed as military observers in Sudan for the past 2 years as part of the UN peacekeeping effort there. In a country torn apart by civil war, their job is to ensure a peace the government in Khartoum has little interest in preserving.
The speakers of Germany's and Poland's parliaments agree that Christian principles should be mentioned in the Berlin Declaration.
Since her reappointment as finance minister in September, Gilowska has not turned up at a single ministerial meeting in Brussels, reflecting the go-it-alone attitude of the current conservative Polish government, which threatens to drive Warsaw into isolation on issues ranging from the economy to the environment. In the 3 years since it joined the EU, Poland has emerged as a pesky partner that refuses to be intimidated by traditional EU powers like France or Germany.
Chancellor Merkel's bid to revive the EU constitution is off to a rocky start as opponents tussle over a declaration on European values that was supposed to smooth the path to treaty talks. Germany has been forced to row back in recent weeks on the wording - a worrying sign for Merkel as she begins to tackle the tougher task of forging consensus on a new treaty.
Echoes of Vladimir Putin's warning last month in Munich will rumble around for a long time, particularly in Washington where George W. Bush so jealously stores the grapes of wrath. But it also had a truly astonishing subtext that was only revealed during a "news conference" in Moscow where Gen. Leonid Ivashov, who once ran the Russian military's international relations bureau, told the Russian media how to interpret what Putin said.
What was astonishing, however, was Ivashov's declaration that it was part of a new policy based on Russia's tendency, in turbulent times, "to become a spiritual leader of Christianity."It used to be they were opposites, Russia and the US. Communism, capitalism. Godlessness, Godfulness. Now they're both capitalist. Now they're both God's little helpers, making the world safe for Christianity. And they're both still bristling with no end of atom bombs.
Control of East Jerusalem is perhaps the most intractable issue facing putative Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, and talk of Israeli plans to build another settlement there is dangerous.
The majority of Israelis are secular Jews, but the religious Jews in the country wield enormous influence. David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, designed it that way, inadvertently blueprinting a conflict that has yet to be resolved.
Israel has warned its citizens to immediately leave Egypt and Jordan, the only Arab states with which it has full ties, out of concern they could come under attack. Israeli officials gave no further details.
Let the Gentiles sin...
Infrastructure minister to recruit Arab Israelis to operate electric company facilities on Shabbat.
He is, in many ways, a founding father of the Islamist terrorist network we currently face. It was Turabi's apocalyptic vision for confronting the West, after all, which brought together Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden against their common enemy: the United States.
Sanctions? What sanctions?
German energy giant E.on has confirmed it is in talks with Iran to buy natural gas - although Germany is currently discussing further sanctions over Iran's nuclear program with its allies.
The EU urged Iran on Wednesday to take up an offer to suspend its nuclear enrichment in return for suspending sanctions on Tehran. "We therefore urge Iran to take up the offer of double suspension, as endorsed recently by the director general."
The Iranian former deputy defense minister who disappeared in neighboring Turkey last month is being questioned in a northern European country under strict supervision. Ali Reza Asghari is undergoing thorough investigation by intelligence forces before being transferred to the US.
The conviction of I Lewis "Scooter" Libby brings only a partial conclusion to the sordid political tragedy that is the Bush presidency. Yet the judgment on this matter goes to the heart of the administration. The means and the ends of Bush's White House have received a verdict from the bar of justice. Foreign policy was and is the principal way of consolidating unchecked executive power. In the run-up to the Iraq war, professional standards, even within the military and intelligence agencies, were subordinated to political goals.
Scooter Libby will not lack for legal defense funds as he pursues his appeal, and there will be demands for his pardon before Bush goes home. For Scooter is a martyr of the War Party. Scooter did what he had to do to get us into this war.
So Scooter Libby has taken the fall. The whole focus of the media in this case has been on the narrow, inside-the-Beltway question of who leaked information about Plame to the media. Entirely forgotten or ignored has been what this leak was all about to begin with.
While Scooter Libby faces sentencing after being convicted of four counts of perjury and obstruction of justice, the figureheads of the US and British governments will see out their terms despite voluminous amounts of more damning evidence that proves they have consistently plotted and lied to sell an illegal occupation to their respective populations.
Conservatives traditionally have wrung their hands about lost traditions. As far as I'm concerned, it's mostly for show these days. If those on the Right were really concerned about lost traditions, they would begin to recover their own lost traditions. A generation has come to maturity without any notion of what preceded them.
It might be tempting for people to avoid confronting these critical issues head-on by convincing themselves that there really isn't any great danger to the American people by this post–9/11 assumption of omnipotent military power over the citizenry.
A common objection to the argument that 9/11 was an inside job is that the conspiracy would be too big to keep quiet. In other words, the argument is that it is impossible that so many people could have kept quiet for so long. SOMEONE would have talked or made a mistake, so that the conspiracy would have been discovered. Is that true?
Today, the crucial questions raised by this matter remain unanswered. There is sufficient reason to believe that in the months before 9/11, Israel was running an active spy network inside the US. There is a second piece of evidence that suggests Israeli operatives were spying on al-Qaeda in the US. It is writ in the peculiar tale of the Israeli "art students." Israeli "art students" also lived close to terror suspects in and around Dallas, Texas. Dallas and its environs, especially the town of Richardson, throbbed with "art student" activity.
[WAR: I remember seeing a group of these "art students" one day. One of them - an attractive Jewish female - came up to me with some artwork in hand and asked if I'd be interested in buying any. And it just now occured to me: I need to pay more attention to who I meet! Not only did I meet them, but sometime before the OKC bombing I had given a ride one night to a German military guy who told me that he was heading to Oklahoma.]
After centuries of pageantry and power struggles between the elite and the commoners, the House of Commons voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to introduce elections to the House of Lords. The move could finally end the tenure of appointed and hereditary peers on the red leather benches of the upper chamber and replace them with elected legislators.
Last month's data on a sagging real estate market leaves no doubt that the housing bubble is quickly crashing to earth and that hard times are on the way. In fact, the parallels between our present situation and the period preceding the Great Depression are striking.
The Plunge Protection Team kept the Dow Jones average from plummeting but couldn't cover all the bases. The Plunge Protection Team showed up in the aftermarket - stocks that had plunged during the day were propped up in the aftermarket.
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