LewRockwell.com has posted this amazing commentary from 1980 by Murray Rothbard analyzing our involvement in Afghanistastan. A sample:

But just as we have been whipping ourselves up to nuking Muslims and to declaring war against “fanatical” Islam per se, we are ready to turn on a dime and sing the praises of no-longer fanatical Muslims who are willing to fight Russian tanks with their bare hands: the heroic freedom fighters of Afghanistan. All of a sudden President Carter has gone bananas: declaring himself shocked and stunned by the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan, mobilizing the United Nations in stunned horror, levying embargoes (my how this peanut salesman loves embargoes!), and threatening the Olympics so dear to sports fans around the globe.

The whole column is priceless, but for those of us outraged at Republican support for Obama’s non-war homicides, this portion will produce a special degree of horrified fascination:

The conservatives, the Pentagon, the Social Democrats, the neo-conservatives, the Coalition for a Democratic Majority—all the worst scoundrels in American life—have been yearning to smash detente, and to accelerate an already swollen arms budget and heat up the Cold War. And now Carter has done it—to such an extent that such conservative organs as Human Events are even finding Carter foreign policy to be better in some respects than that of its hero Reagan.

One portion of Rothbard’s commentary needs some correction, but only because Rothbard did not have access to the secret machinations of the Carter Administration:

The reason for the latest Soviet invasion is simple but ironic in our world of corn-fed slogans. For the problem with Hafizullah Amin, the prime minister before the Soviet incursion, was that he was too Commie for the Russians. As a fanatical left-Communist, Amin carried out a brutal program of nationalizing the peasantry and torturing opponents, a policy of collectivism and repression that fanned the flames of guerrilla war against him. Seeing Afghanistan about to slip under to the West once again, the Soviets felt impelled to go in to depose Amin and replace him with an Afghan Communist, Babrak Karmal, who is much more moderate a Communist and therefore a faithful follower of the Soviet line. There are undoubtedly countless conservatives and Social Democrats who still find it impossible to conceive of Soviet tools who are more moderate than other Communists, but it is high time they caught up with several decades of worldwide experience.

As far as Rothbard knew, the guerrilla war against Amin had a completely domestic explanation. However, it turns out that, as bad as Amin was, he did not entirely cause the instability. Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, admitted that the US government was secretly supporting the “no longer fanatical Muslims” before 1980 in order to force the Soviets to intervene.

According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

For a few more points of context, you might read my post from March 2, 2013: “Is Islam a World Threat Without Western Money and Government Aid?”<>ключевое словореклама яндекс директ

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There are several books I read every year. The topics range from marriage and child rearing to education and the Lord’s Supper. There is only one fiction book on this yearly reading list: Beowulf.  I have read Beowulf at least once a year for the past seven years. I never tire of it. I give it to my friends. I read it to my boys. We memorize portions of it. I pull off the shelf and randomly read portions when my soul needs to be stirred.

There are more complex and perhaps more important stories than Beowulf. I read Crime and Punishment  while my wife was bringing our seventh child into the world (Don’t worry. I only read while she was resting.) and had to keep reminding myself where I was and what I was doing. It is a stunning novel. Still Beowulf resonates with who I want to be and who I want my sons to be. Beowulf is a savior, a deliverer, a hero. He slays the great monsters and ultimately gives his life for his people. He weaves speeches of grand, but not pompous, words. He does not fear death, but he is not a fool who risks for no reason. He fights for someone, the good king Hrothgar and finally for his people. He resists the temptations that come with being a wealthy king. I am not sure that I have read a more masculine book. There are swords and torn arms and heads on the tops of spears. There is beer and feasting and song. There is dread and terror, followed by gladness, followed by more dread and terror. Beowulf gets in your bones. You read it and it stays with you.

There are several good versions out there. There is a kid’s version by Serrailer that is worth reading to get an introduction to the text. I own three poetic versions. I own versions by Rebsamen and Chickering.  Both of them are excellent. But I love Seamus Heaney’s version.  Sometimes I just pull it off the shelf and look at it and remember the joy and awe that came when I first read it. Maybe I like his best because he was my introduction to the world of Beowulf. Or maybe it is because when I first read his book it was on a snowy, winter’s night in late January.  That is how Beowulf is meant to read. It is a winter story. So I have Seamus Heaney to thank for my love of Beowulf and my love of poetry. I was not classically schooled. I never read poetry in high school or college. Would I have ever picked up Paradise Lost or Hamlet or Inferno if Heaney had not first given me Beowulf?  That is a heavy debt to repay. Today Seamus Heaney died.  When I think of great poets, I mostly think of dead men. The only living poet I really admired was Heaney. And now he is gone.  I wish I could write a poem in honor of him. But alas, thanks to Heaney I can read poety, but I cannot yet write it. Maybe my sons can pay back my debt to Heaney. Either way, my life was greatly enriched by the work he did. Thanks, Seamus Heaney.

“They extolled his heroic nature and exploits

and gave thanks for his greatness; which was the proper thing,

for a man should praise a prince whom he holds dear

and cherish his memory when that moment comes

when he has to be conveyed from his bodily home.” (Beowulf, 3173-3177)

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If you go search the archives of Google News you will find plenty about our rendition program. Here is one example among many: “When Did We Become Like Syria?”

It was published in late 2007 and is asking the question about America and her government. Given the silence of Evangelicals on this issue–specifically Evangelicals who claim that Christians should “influence the culture”–I have to ask: When Did The American Church Become Like Syria?

Pontifications about how Christians are supposed to transform the world sound like fingernails scratching a chalkboard when those same preachers look away from the homicidal actions of their government, as if they aren’t worth mentioning.

I’m glad Rod Dreher is one of the exceptional voices:

You watch: we’re going to do this thing, and if it brings the rebels to power, they are going to do to the Christian churches and monasteries in Syria — among the oldest in the world — exactly what Muslim fighters did to Christian churches and monasteries in Serbia. And that will not matter one bit to most people in this overwhelmingly Christian country, the United States of America. Don’t get me wrong; I would be against this if there weren’t a single Christian in Syria. But the fact that there are millions of them, and they’re going to face slaughter and exile if the rebels win, makes it even more outrageous that the United States is taking part in this.

When did the American Church train itself to be mute about it’s government engaging in mass murder–even when it specifically targeted Christian populations?<>online gameподбор слова

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So Indian currency is suddenly losing value. This should be a huge boon for Indian exports, giving them a competitive advantage, right? Doesn’t seem to working out so well. How many items for export from any country can be produced without using imports for material?<>раскрутка ов в google

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A few years ago, I decided to write letters to my literary heroes in order to thank them for their work, to encourage them to produce more, and to open up the possibility that they might write me back.  Several of them have. Now, the men who have shaped who I am are accessible to me for future contact. I’ve found that we all have feet of clay and most of the men that I respect know that fact as well. I am always honored when I get a return email in which they actually thank me for having written to them. I never expected return emails in the beginning, but more often than not, receive them. I’ll never forget the night that I was shopping at Publix, pushing the shopping cart, having an email conversation with Peter Leithart.

Recently, a letter has surfaced that was written by C. S. Lewis in response to a thank you letter sent to him by a twelve-year-old girl. It’s always good to see your heroes act with grace and honor. Here’s a link to the article on Mere Orthodoxy. A special thanks to the folks at Mere Orthodoxy as well for posting this letter for us to see.

Here’s the link.<>google adwords что такоепоиск на е от google

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We condemn mass murder.

If you want a web site that will find some other–any other!–social issue to discuss besides our government’s latest move to rain death and destruction down on people without any moral or legal justification, you have plenty to choose from.

Here at Kuyperian.com, we let the Sixth Commandment count for something.<>game online rpgкак проверить свой пинг

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Should we “Drop the Filioque?” – Kuyperian Commentary.

This almost gave birth to my impending, “Why I Hate The Trinitarian Blogosphere” post, but I don’t have time. Suffice it to say, I find all the argument for the truth of the Filioque completely convincing and the arguments against it unconvincing or just plain indecipherable. If anything I am even more convinced that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son than I was before.

I still would be fine dropping it from the Nicene Creed.

Look, the original affirmation, as included in the original Nicene Creed, was a quotation from Scripture. Inserting an alien clause in that phrase really bothers me. Yes, a Confession can and sometimes should say more than what is in one passage of Scripture. But editing an actual verse is still unnecessary. As a Bible-believing Protestant I can’t think that God is happy with such a procedure.

Secondly, I don’t see why the Western Church had to unilaterally change an Ecumenical creed and then , essentially, pass it off as the ancient creed itself.

As a Presbyterian, I still have the filioque affirmed and required in the tenth Q&A of the Westminster Larger Catechism. That strikes me as about the right place for such a definition at that level. But even if it was put in a creed for congregational worship, I don’t think it should be, or be called, “The Nicene Creed.”

I already believe plenty of things that are not affirmed in the Nicene Creed, and break with other professing Christians over these matters. I don’t need the Nicene Creed to affirm all my particular beliefs, even truths I do not think others should deny or teach against. If I did, it would be a longer document.

So I don’t understand why the fact that the filioque happens to be true, or even important, counts as an argument that it should remain in the Nicene Creed as we recite it in the Western Church.<>веб контент этояндекс директ цена

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Cluster bombs.

Just another day of enlightened foreign policy. Remember, isolationism is evil and we are the good guys.<>как проверить индексацыю страницы а в поисковиках

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