GIVE Richard Dawkins a child for a week’s summer camp and he will try to give you an atheist for life.
The author of The God Delusion is helping to launch Britain’s first summer retreat for non-believers, where children will have lessons in evolution and sing along to John Lennon’s Imagine.
The five-day camp in Somerset (motto: “It’s beyond belief”) is for children aged eight to 17 and will rival traditional faith-based breaks run by the Scouts and church groups.
I learned from my guide that tourists are complaining that some tour guides and their cohorts rob visitors of their valuables. Tour guides (locally known as haulers) are also charging exorbitant fees, especially from foreigners. But robbery incidents have been reduced after local officials met with and warned tour guides about this.
Yesterday’s O-presser was a little interesting. The White House seems to be doing what I predicted the other day; they’re suggesting that the so-so Cairo speech was the impetus for the popular uprising in Iran. Funny how that worked out. When the president finally figured out what was the right side to be on, then it was the side he’d always vociferously been on, and in fact, he caused the whole thing to happen. But the Weenee diplomacy is still on.
While the White House co-ordinated a question from the Huffington Post, even astonishing the press corps with their brazen stagecraft, here are some questions that the mostly fawning press did not ask the adolescent-angst-ridden POTUS:
2. Use global warming only as a supporting story, not as the primary frame.Hah!
Awareness about global warming is broad, and some in the public are seriously concerned about it. But almost no one in our groups expressed such concern; for most voters, global warming is not significant enough on its own to drive support for major energy reform. So while it can be a part of the story that reform advocates are telling, global warming should be used only in addition to the broader economic frame, not in place of it.
In his address, Pope Benedict said the priestly ministry consists of total adherence to the ecclesial tradition of participating "in a spiritually intense new life and a new lifestyle which was inaugurated by the Lord Jesus and which the apostles made their own."
Priestly ordination creates new men who are bestowed with the gift and office of sanctifying, teaching and governing, he said.
The pope underlined the necessary and "indispensable struggle for moral perfection which must dwell in every authentically priestly heart."
The pope said he was calling for the special year for priests in an effort to foster the priest's yearning "for spiritual perfection, upon which the effectiveness of their ministry principally depends."
"The awareness of the radical social changes over the past decades must stir the best ecclesial energies to look after the formation of priestly candidates," the pope said.
This means great care must be taken to ensure permanent and consistent doctrinal and spiritual formation for seminarians and priests, he said, specifying the importance of passing down, especially to younger generations, "a correct reading of the texts of the Second Vatican Council, interpreted in the light of all the church's doctrinal heritage."
Priests must also be "present, identifiable and recognizable -- for their judgment of faith, their personal virtues and their attire -- in the fields of culture and charity which have always been at the heart of the church's mission," he said.
"The centrality of Christ leads to a correct valuation of ordained ministry," he said, adding that, without priestly ministry, there would be no Eucharist, no mission and even no church.
Therefore, he said, it is crucial to make sure that new bodies or pastoral organizations are not set up "for a time in which one might have to 'dispense with' ordained ministry based on an erroneous interpretation of the rightful promotion of the laity."
"This would lay the foundations for further diluting the priestly ministry, and any supposed 'solutions' would dramatically coincide with the real causes of the problems currently connected with the ministry," he said.
I know just what they mean. I couldn't do it either. Until, with God's help, I did.
Obama also said that it was unfair that "some countries have weapons that others do not" and proclaimed that "any nation -- including Iran -- should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."
Wait -- how about us? If a fanatical holocaust denier with messianic delusions can have nuclear power, can't the U.S. at least build one nuclear power plant every 30 years?
I'm sure Iran's compliance will be policed as well as North Korea's was. Clinton struck a much-heralded "peace deal" with North Korea in 1994, giving them $4 billion to construct nuclear facilities and 500,000 tons of fuel oil in return for a promise that they wouldn't build nuclear weapons. The ink wasn't dry before the North Koreans began feverishly building nukes.
But back to Iran, what precisely do Iranians need nuclear power for, again? They're not exactly a manufacturing powerhouse. Iran is a primitive nation in the middle of a desert that happens to sit on top of a large percentage of the world's oil and gas reserves. That's not enough oil and gas to run household fans?
Summary
The facts of the first 50 days of the Obama presidency seem overwhelming. According to the 55-page pro-abortion document, "Advancing Reproductive Rights and Health in a New Administration," $4.5 billion in federal funding will be disbursed at home and abroad to "advance reproductive rights." This document is posted on www.change.org, Obama's official website for his transition team.Obama's Steps for the First 100 Days projects the end of the Mexico City Policy, the Hyde Amendment, the Kemp-Kasten Amendment, the Weldon Amendment, restrictions on emergency contraception (Plan B), the termination of all abstinence-only programs and a reversal of the recent HHS regulation protecting pro-life physicians and institutions. By Day 50, many of these had been accomplished already. Any present obstacles to so-called abortion rights not covered by removing these restrictions, such as the ban on partial birth abortion and state laws requiring parental notification, will be covered by the passage of the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) or perhaps by many acts or regulations each embodying one particular aspect.
We draw the attention of our readers especially to the coercion which is built into many of these measures. A combined United States-United Nations assault on the freedom of poor countries to determine their own domestic policies on population is already underway.
At home, the Obama regime will take on more abusive, tyrannical features as it seeks to destroy the rights of people to disagree and dissent. All along, this has been the implication of the new legislated rights to kill and to overthrow the natural moral law in family and sexual matters introduced 40 years ago.
... - Alas it is much more. Freedom of speech, thought and religion are now under attack. False "rights" are about to triumph. The Culture of Death is seeking to destroy the Culture of Life. In this it will fail because of the secret power on the side of Life, which will conquer even despite the mass apostasy of its Protestant and Catholic followers.
Did you read about the Memphis-based Burger King franchisee who put up "Global Warming is Baloney" signs in his stores?
