Age of Enlightenment

Why secularists hid Bach's music

Escape From Paradise

Cuban circus juggling act vanishes on Mexican tour

Eight Cuban acrobat jugglers disappeared before a performance at a festival in central Mexico last week, presumably to defect to the United States,

Are they crazy? Leave the land of universal health care to come to the evil United States? Why would anyone want to escape from communism?

Western democracies are voting for more and more socialist programs and the people who live with socialist programs want to get the hell out! People risk life and limb trying to get out from under those regimes. Reality trumps theory - get a clue.

Where Psychiatry Goes Wrong

Why so many Americans today are 'mentally ill'

Thus we have the spectacle of troubled people coming to mental-health experts with serious personal problems – emotional conflicts, fears, obsessions, compulsions and perhaps delusions rooted in early trauma, or in seriously flawed family relationships, or in buried resentments toward cruelty and injustice that were never resolved but just festered and grew. Yet, instead of being helped to understand where they've gone wrong, or where their negative programming, unhealthy relationships and destructive attitudes came from so they can correct them and find genuine healing, they're given clever drugs designed to chemically trick the body and mind into "feeling better."

And then, when they discontinue taking the drugs, they risk serious deterioration of their condition. But isn't that exactly what happens when we just mask symptoms and ignore root causes?

Moreover, why do even the smartest and most educated of our experts today tend reflexively to ignore root causes?

Because root causes have to do with God and our relationship, or lack thereof, with Him.

I guarantee that many people who read that last sentence either glazed over it or were somehow put off by it.

I'll say it again using different words: We need to wake up to the spiritual dimension of life or we will never be able to understand what goes wrong with us, or to genuinely resolve our problems.

Unfortunately, right now many of us are in love with the idea that there is no God. Books currently riding high atop national best-seller lists include "God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" by Christopher Hitchens, "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins and "The End of Faith" by Sam Harris – all of them unapologetically rabid atheist manifestos.

For an atheist, the problem here is that although you can still be a good engineer or a skillful surgeon, if you're trying to help people who are full of rage and conflict and plagued by dark thoughts and malevolent inner voices urging them to kill people, you're worse than clueless. Worse because your lethal combination of prideful arrogance and utter lack of comprehension of what you're actually dealing with will inevitably lead you to "fix" such problems in ways that not only don't help people, but vastly multiply their woes – and those of their victims.

Field Test

How long before Christians take to the streets and demand his head? Harvey wants to know: Just Checking Something

If I'm wrong, and fanatical Christians behead me, then posting may be light for the next few days.

Global warming will kill him first.

By the way, is there a name for the Christian equivalent of a "fatwa"?

Besides "forgiveness", I mean.

Science Fiction

The Science of Gore's Nobel

What if everyone believes in global warmism only because everyone believes in global warmism?

Hidden Pleasures

Luxury toilet built into aquarium

According to the cafe owner, the 30-million-yen ($270,000) sub-aquatic restroom is designed to recreate the pleasant sensation of relieving yourself while swimming in the ocean

Maybe not.

Breaking: Pork Chop Offensive

I only wish this was the most ridiculous thing I ever heard.

The Lehigh Valley IronPigs minor league baseball team this afternoon announced it is replacing the winning entry in its "Name the Mascot" contest from PorkChop to Ferrous.

IronPigs General Manager Kurt Landes said he received a handful of e-mails and phone calls last night from people in the Latino community who called the name derogatory.

Well, better change the name of the meat, too. How does 'the other white meat chop' sound. Anyone offended?

Oye Veh!

Light one less candle this Hanukka to save the planet.

"The campaign calls for Jews around the world to save the last candle and save the planet, so we won't need another miracle,"

Thought I'd Seen Everything Dept.

Something for that special cat in your life.


What's next? Lipstick and high heels?

Did They Get You to Trade your Heroes for Ghosts?

Dennis Prager says Baby Boomers Owe America's Young People an Apology

Our generation came up with two truly foolish slogans that also ended up robbing you of childhood.

One was, "Never trust anyone over 30." Our infantile attitude toward adult authority has inflicted great harm on you. Because of it, many baby boomers decided not to become adults, and this has had disastrous consequences in your lives. It deprived you of one of the greatest needs in your life -- adults. That in turn deprived you of something as important as love -- parental and other adult authority. With little parental authority, you were left with little personal security, few guardrails and a diminished sense of order in life. And we transferred this denial of authority to virtually all authority figures, from teachers to police.

The other slogan whose awful consequences we baby boomers bequeathed to you was, "Make love, not war." Our parents had liberated the world from immeasurably cruel and murderous regimes in Germany and Japan -- solely thanks to waging war. But instead of concluding that war could do great moral good, we sang ourselves silly with such inane lyrics as "Give peace a chance," as if that deals in any way with the world's most monstrous evils. So we taught you to make love and not war. And we succeeded.

We made you anti-war and almost completely sexualized your lives. We told you that having sex was terrific or at least to be expected, even in early teens, and that your only concerns should be avoiding sexually transmitted diseases and getting pregnant. And if you did get pregnant, we made sure that you could extinguish the life you were carrying as effortlessly and guiltlessly as possible.

Rude & Crude

Mark Steyn sheds some light on the underbelly of society: When it's no country for old men

"A society's first line of defence is not the law but customs, traditions and moral values," wrote Walter Williams of George Mason University recently. "They include important thou-shalt-nots such as shalt not murder, shalt not steal, shalt not lie and cheat, but they also include all those courtesies one might call ladylike and gentlemanly conduct. Policemen and laws can never replace these restraints on personal conduct."

"Restraint" is an unfashionable concept these days.

Eats Pit Bulls for Lunch

You can wear a skirt walking one of these and pit bull owners will wet their pants as you walk by.

What's Peace Got To Do With It?

Muhammad teddy haters: Died in the wool

We've heard it before, "convert or die." Or at the very least, do everything the way Islam demands – or die.

If we don't see it that way, then what do we to make of vicious, threatening mobs reacting to an innocuous and innocent action of a British teacher and her 7-year-old students?

If we're to walk the same paths we've been pushed into, particularly since the 9/11 attacks in the United States, we're to consider mobs as just a "small part" of Islam.

Just as we were told after cartoons in Danish newspapers last year sparked violence across several continents, causing damage, injuries and death – those mobs represent just a "small part" of Islam.

Just as when a speech of Pope Benedict was deliberately taken out of context to reflect on Islam, leading to violent demonstrations and mobs demanding his death – we're told to consider it just a "small part" of Islam.

Just as in the premeditated vicious street attack and killing of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh because Islamists didn't like the subject matter of his films – we're told to consider it just a "small part" of Islam.

Just as in the death threats issued against people because Islamists don't like what they say or think – consider author Salman Rushdie, journalist Oriana Fallaci and Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali. There are many others.

Considering the pattern, it's hard not to consider these threats and this violence just the normal, peaceful religion of Islam in action.

There's a similarity in all these events – and so many more it would take pages to list them –and that is when there is a perceived slight to Islam; the reaction is mob violence, destruction and murder – always justified by Islam, the religion of peace.

Bonus cartoon: Killer Teddy Bear

Cool, Sexy, Safe and Convenient

That's what they say. Nice, but not too good in the rain, I'd say. Seems like it complicates an easy job, there is a reason car door opening technology hasn't changed much. It's not because they haven't tried. I don't hate it though. Well, unless Ford puts their stupid combination lock on the outside of it. What's with that?

Disappearing Car door

Someone will get their leg, arm or head stuck in it somehow - it's practically the law.

Hat tip: Wizbang

Save the Children!

Get them out of government schools! Protect your children!

When a Des Moines public school encouraged an event it characterized as a "gender-bender," where boys dressed as girls and girls as boys, dozens of families – and perhaps as many as 200 – pulled their kids out of the high school permanently.

Americans need to start waking up and taking appropriate action. Don't wait for leaders to arise. Be a leader! Take responsibility – especially for your own family, your own children!

That's what the parents in Iowa did – finally. When more parents take this action, we will be on our way toward taking America back. It won't be because we elect people to the local school boards. It won't be because we elect the right president. It won't be because we elect one party or the other to a majority in Congress. It will be because a remnant of American citizens remembers we are supposed to be a self-governing people and do what is necessary to protect our children and, thus, the future of this nation.

We're seeing more of this kind of child abuse on a daily basis in America – and it is no accident. It is not a matter of chance. It is not the exception; it is the rule. This is where we are all headed unless you take control of your life and the lives of your children today.

Leave the Whales Alone

Whale takeaways hit streets of Tokyo

Some animals are just not meant to be eaten. I wish everyone agreed on this one.

Let's Outlaw Canadian Beer Drinkers

Study: Canadian Beer Drinkers Threaten Planet

The government-commissioned study says the old, inefficient "beer fridges" that one in three Canadian households use to store their Molson and Labatt's contribute significantly to global warming by guzzling gas- and coal-fired electricity.

How many beers did the government-commissioned scientists have before doing the study? I think there is a running joke among scientists to see just how ridiculous a study they can get the government to pay them for.

RIP Evel Kneivel

Evel Knievel.com

I grew up in the era of Evel Knievel, he was 'the man.' Never thought he'd grow old.

Go Savage!

Savage lawsuit calls CAIR 'vehicle of international terrorism'

Trend-setting radio talk show host Michael Savage has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the Council on Islamic-American Relations, and has accused the organization of being a "political vehicle of international terrorism" that seeks to do "material harm to those voices who speak against the violent agenda of CAIR's clients."

Come Out of Her My People

Mob bay for teachers death

Fanatics demanding Mrs Gibbons' execution by firing squad streamed out of mosques yesterday after prayers — grabbing machetes, knives and clubs.

The hate-filled protesters — whipped into a frenzy by religious leaders — converged on the presidential palace as it emerged Gillian was an INNOCENT victim of a vindictive school secretary.

Pictures of Gillian, 54, were burned as hardline clerics in pick-up trucks chanted through loudhailers: “No one lives who insults the prophet.”

Hundreds of riot police refused to intervene — even though the demo threatened to spiral out of control. Fearful officials moved their prisoner to a different jail for her own safety.

Hundreds of placard-waving extremists marched on the city’s Unity High School — where Gillian taught.

She was jailed even though the bear, used in a project on animals, was named by her PUPILS after one of their classmates.

Demonstrators then headed towards the nearby British Embassy — before security forces finally stopped them.

Don't EVER talk to me about your so called religion of peace - I am so over it. There is no peace in Islam - body pieces maybe - not peace. No way, no how. The actions of the people do not show it. And it's not just a few extremists either, don't even go there. It's way beyond that. Action speaks louder than words. Words are meaningless without action to back them up. I'm not listening, but I am watching.

The good people who are Muslims need to get a grip, think real hard about the way things are and seriously consider who they are worshiping. Is it a God of love? Really? A God of love wants to kill a woman over a teddy bear? Or cartoons? Hate to rock your world, but no. Never.

Your God is not big enough to take insults? Your God is not big enough to avenge Himself? In His time? Then your god is way, way, way too small. He is not GOD. He is not a God of peace. He is a god you have to carry. Sorry, the truth hurts sometimes.

We've all been deceived, don't feel too bad. We all have to come out of deception, the whole world is deceived. So much so that I doubt anyone can fully get clear of it before their death. It's most important to start where you are and work your way out of the mess, if you are honestly seeking GOD, willing to admit you have had it wrong in the past and willing to obey the truth you learn, then you will make progress. GOD will slowly reveal Himself to you. If not, then you are where you are going to be. It's not easy to let go of all that you thought was true your whole life, but you will be glad you did.