How does one respond to an unpopular tyranny who is threatening to start a war? Do you try to encourage them to reform, with soft words and promises to help if they turn to cooperation? Or do you be blunt and articulate the idea that unjust government must reform, because freedom lives in the hearts […]

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Would Jesus pack heat?
An easy question you say, since Jesus told his followers to “turn the other cheek”, and this quote is often quoted by those opposing all war or violence of any sort…mainly by those living in safe suburbs and working in tenured academic jobs.
Yet this article states that some pastors in the Detroit […]

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I was startled to find this important editorial in the NYTimes:

A Final Verdict on the Presidential Salute

After a couple of paragraphs explaining the writer’s expertise in saluting, and another couple of paragraphs on the history of presidential salutes, we come to the conclusion:
(President Obama’s) salute, it struck me, was impeccable in every way.
Huh?
It’s true that […]

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Ah, Halloween is here, and the TV channels are full of stories of witches and ghosts and goblins of all sorts.
Most of it is harmless fun: art and literature helps mankind be able to confront the evils around them in a way that strengthens their ability to hope that confronting the more real evils around […]

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Ah, how quickly the grandchildren grow up. The grandsons have changed from computer game freaks to college geeks, and the granddaughters are now budding teenagers, on the threshold of being a woman.
In the past, the “Themes” for birthday parties were various Disney princesses; now little girls are starting to grow up, so the Theme of […]

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The latest kerfuffle on the Health Care bill is that the Obama church has leashed the Am Cath types against the Catholic bishops.
For those of you who are not Catholic, much of the church bureaucracy is full of those who claim Vatican II to justify changing the Catholic church into a Episcopalian wanna be church.
Luckily, […]

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President Obama was brought up in Asia, yet he seems clueless about Afghanistan, and of the geopolitical problems in this area.
The press is even worse, preferring the simplistic out of date explanations of the “Afghanistan is Viet Nam” meme, or the “Stop the war” meme, or stressing civilian casualties “reported” by Taliban linked sources without […]

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We’ve had a few sunny days here in the Philippines to finish harvesting the rice. Our fields are on high ground, so the main problems we face are finding a dry day to cut and thresh the rice, and a rice mill to dry it.
Usually in our area, rice is dried in the hot sun. […]

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First came Typhoon Ondoy, which flooded Manila and the Laguna area.
Manila had at least one million people displaced from their homes due to flooding, and many whose houses were built in low lying areas were drowned from flash flooding that they did not expect. When even movie stars have to flee to the rooftops of […]

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The flood waters in Manila are slowly subsiding. Family members who traveled to Manila yesterday for business reported that most of the roads were clear, but that the garbage and mud from the floods were all over the place. Some of the roads remained blocked, including major highway “underpasses” that were now lakes of water.
Several […]

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On my family blog, I often write the headline: Another Day, Another Typhoon.
The Philippines gets hit by about ten typhoons a year, but we live inland so are usually safe.
On Saturday, however, the winds were brisk and the rains very very heavy. Our house has good drainage, but the main street where the vendors have […]

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The over-hyped story of a new “HIV Vaccine” cause a lot of people working in public health to worry.
Every time these stories come out, there are laypeople who think: well, there will be a vaccine so I don’t have to change my behavior”, and voila, case numbers spike.
That is why the Department of Health here […]

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Dr. Diep Le is fixing teeth in Quang Tri province.
Ho hum, another do gooder article, let’s all look away to the good stuff: blood and guts and political mudslinging.
But hold it a second. There is a lot more to the story.

Not only is Major Le an American born in Viet Nam, but she is working […]

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Supposedly, George W. Bush squandered all the goodwill we got from the world as a result of the 9/11 attacks.  Enemies became friends, the uncooperative became helpful, and all was right with the world, until Bush screwed it up.  What is forgotten in all of this is that those that opposed us before 9/11 opposed […]

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So President Obama is scrapping the Bush “Missile Defense program” that was planned to protect Europe from Iran.
Yes, I know. There is some question if the missile defense was any good against the actual threat, and all it seemed to do is irritate Russia. And it’s not like the program would merely be scrapped: there […]

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Congress has censored the gentleman (?) who interrupted the President’s speech last week by shouting Liar.
Good for them.
One of the most terrible things about politics during the Bush administration was that those who should have known better winked at the harsh and even paranoid voices that shouted hatred at him personally. And, alas, now it […]

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The father of the “green revolution”, Norman Borlaug, has died.
Some of use are old enough to remember when famines in Asia were common, and when the “Population bomb” types were predicting mass starvation of millions of poor people.
The famines didn’t happen, because Borlaug, and other agricultural scientists, developed high yield wheat and grains, along with […]

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Reportedly, when Thomas Beckett, a “born again” Christian, turned against his former friend Henry II to defend the rights of the church from a state takeover, Henry was heard to say the above phrase, and promptly several of his henchmen went out and killed the meddlesome bishop.
Nothing new there.
One of the dangerous things about priests […]

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Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, after spending some days  praying about it, has decided to run for President of the Philippines next year, and his candidacy has upset a lot of plans.
The ruling party (theLakas-Kampi coalition) is saying “no big deal”, but actually it is, if for no other reason that he has “name recognition” […]

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Lots of hyperventillation on the right wing blogs about the “truther” who was picked by the president as his “green job” Czar, Van Jones.
I’m not sure what a “green job” czar is supposed to do, but if they fired every Democrat who lauded conspiracy theorist Michael Moore the Congress would be half empty.
But Van Jones’ […]

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A lot of nonsense being written in the news about Conservative writer George Will deciding to throw in the towel in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is a mess. Big deal. It’s been a mess for a couple thousand years, and trying to “win” a war there and put in a crumpets and tea democracy is a bit delusional.
But […]

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Does Huntsman’s Road Through Beijing Lead To The Obama White House?
When President Barack Obama rang up Utah’s moderate Republican Governor Jon Huntsman a while back to feel him out about joining a Democratic administration, insiders say the first question out of his mouth went something like this: “So, are you going to run against me […]

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Yes, it’s recess time for the US Congress, and there are some red faces in Congress because the Wall Street Journal and the local newspaper in Seattle just noticed a cushy trip to the Galapagos, the Great Barrier Reef, and the South Pole as a fact finding trip to discover “global warming”.
One would think that […]

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The headlines are not helpful. This one is from CBS News:
“Mutant Polio Virus Spreads in Nigeria
124 Children Afflicted This Year By Paralyzing Disease, Believed To Be Caused By Same Vaccine Used To Fight It
And other new sources print the same story with even more frightening headlines…
Reality check please.
Let’s talk about Polio. I’m old enough to […]

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On August 15th (August 14 in the US), Japan surrendered, ending the long struggles of World War II.
One would think that the end of a war that cost millions of Asian civilians their lives would cause rejoicing, but a lot of news organizations are ignoring the story.
The New York Times, admonished last year by a […]

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The beloved ex president of the Philippines, Cory Aquino, has died after a long battle with cancer.
Corazon Aquino is most famous for leading the “People Power” revolution that peacefully overthrew President Marcos in 1986, but she was more than that.
The entire nation has been sending in prayers for her, with masses, vigils, and prayer services […]

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The Anchoress today linked to a story in the National Catholic Reporter about a woman in North Korea who was executed for the “crime” of distributing Bibles.
Well, the gulags and executions in North Korea are an under-covered story in the West, at least until National Geographic’s roving reporter got arrested for “spying” a couple months […]

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Hillary Clinton declares the US is back in Asia.
Uh, I hate to tell her but I wasn’t aware that they left.
Here in the Philippines, there has been an ongoing revolt by the Moro tribes on and off for about a hundred years but with the resurgence of “charity money” funneled to AlQaeda linked terror groups […]

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Doctor Sally Satel has an editorial in the NYPost promoting giving payment to those who donate organs, or to their families.
She tells a variation of the usual spin: by allowing money to enter into the decision on whether to donate, we would increase organ donations. Ergo, it would help save the lives of many people.
Ah, […]

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The Burma government’s doing it’s best to keep quiet about a new iron mine  project in the war-torn state of Shan, fuelling suspicions among local villagers that there may be more going on than meets the eye.
As it stands right now, the project will “decimate” Mount Pinpet, and  possibly lead to the permanent displacement of  […]

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