From The Telegraph:

Indonesian police said 19 suspects, who had planted bombs beneath a gas pipeline at the Christ Cathedral near Jakarta, were part of a new terrorist cell inspired by al-Qaeda.

The bombs, which were defused in a 10-hour operation on Thursday, had been rigged to go off just as services at the 3,000-seat Roman Catholic church were taking place for Good Friday…

Yes, I can – indeed, must – forgive and pray for these misguided fools. Wicked men have set them afoot, and only a stroke of luck prevented a gigantic, human tragedy from unfolding on Good Friday. But, I ask you, is it in any may merciful or just to treat this as other than the war it really is?

I know that war is bad – but our failure to take this seriously just put 3,000 peaceful, innocent people at risk. Good that it was stopped – but this won’t be the last attempt. The Islamists will keep trying and trying and trying – the forces of decency have to get it right 100% of the time; the wicked only have to succeed once. It is inevitable that they will carry out their horrific plans. Unless, that is, we stop them.

And how do we stop them? By fighting them. By stopping our absurd efforts at “engagement” with Iran. By refusing to call the hideous dictator of Syria a “reformer”. By getting back in to the fight – regardless of cost – rather than hoping stand-off drones and aerial bombardment will do the trick. What we are doing in Afghanistan is the right way to go about it – boots on the ground, fighting the enemy on his home turf. Yes, it is difficult, lengthy and bloody business. But would you rather that 3,000 more people be murdered one morning?

The enemy presents himself to us. He tells us who he is and what he proposes to do. He has his soldiers in arms as well as his fifth columnists among us. His goal is complete victory and he doesn’t care if it takes a century, nor does he care how many innocent people are killed. There is no question here about who we fight or why we should fight – there is only a question of whether or not we’ve got the will to fight.

Stand back, if you wish. Pretend its a matter for the police. Raise absurd claims that the enemy in captivity is handled roughly (as if he, having you in his power, would act as other than a complete beast). And then you’ll die – the enemy will kill you, or enslave you. He will not leave you alone – he recognizes no borders and believes that you, in your home, must bend the knee to his beliefs, or you should be killed. Make your choice.

Indeed, He is risen:

On the first day of the week,

Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning,

while it was still dark,

and saw the stone removed from the tomb.

So she ran and went to Simon Peter

and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them,

“They have taken the Lord from the tomb,

and we don’t know where they put him.”

So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.

They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter

and arrived at the tomb first;

he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.

When Simon Peter arrived after him,

he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there,

and the cloth that had covered his head,

not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.

Then the other disciple also went in,

the one who had arrived at the tomb first,

and he saw and believed.

For they did not yet understand the Scripture

that he had to rise from the dead. – John 20:1-9

In a world grown weary and cold there is always this – that this is not all things; there is more to life than the trials of this world. In the fullness of time there came among us a Savior, Jesus – the Christ, the Son of the Living God. All things are made new in Him and all who believe in him will obtain everlasting life. I know that not all my readers believe as I do, but I cannot help – at least at times – to speak of what I believe most fervently in my heart: that Jesus really is the Messiah and that all the troubles of this world will amount to less than nothing in the life of the world to come. Call it what you will, but I believe that when I die, I shall not die as an end, but only as a means of getting in to the next world, my true world – the place I was meant to be. And I do hope to see all of you there.

Just astounding – from Newsmax:

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint said Thursday the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) complaint against Boeing for violating federal law shows the Obama administration is against right-to-work states and “is acting like a bunch of thugs.”

The NLRB said Wednesday Boeing violated labor law when it decided jim,demint,labor,relationsto open an assembly line for its 787 Dreamliner airplanes in a non-union plant in South Carolina instead of at a union factory near its Washington state headquarters. The aerospace giant said it will go forward with its South Carolina plans — first announced two years ago — while it fights the NLRB complaint…

What the Labor Relations Board is saying is that if you make a legal product in the United States you can only make it where it pleases the Labor Relations Board. The people of South Carolina? Screw you – unless you form a corrupt, restraint-of-trade union and become as utterly screwed up as unionized areas of the country. This is an unconstitutional outrage – a plain diktat from tyrants.

But it is, also, what you get when you vote for “hope and change” rather than rational policy. Allow yourself to get blinded sided by a slick media campaign and you’re going to find yourself in hot water. The corrective of this is to be found in 2012…and hopefully the lesson will be learned.

HAT TIP: Mish’s

RIP:

God rest his soul, and all those like him who have given their all for our nation.

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. – John 15:13

Astounding – WXYZ Detroit:

Controversial Quran-burning Pastor Terry Jones was ordered taken to the Wayne County Jail after refusing to post a $1 peace bond. However, someone posted the bond on his behalf not long after he was taken into custody.

The development came after a jury found a proposed protest by Jones and his associate Wayne Sapp outside the Islamic Center of America, the largest mosque in the United States, was likely to breach the peace and incite violence…

As for Jones, himself, he is clearly tired of not being in the news and has found a swift and sure means of getting back in to it. As to whether someone should hold a demonstration outside someone’s religious site – never figured it was a wise thing to do, but protests are often held outside Catholic churches and as far as I can recall not one of us Catholics have gotten violent about it. Maybe we should, though – it appears that if you’re a bit crazy and bloodthirsty, you get more respect in the American judicial system.

This needs to be smacked down – we cannot allow either craven fear or, if a district is Moslem-majority, the rise of an Islamist state-within-a-state to deprive Americans of their rights. As long as the demonstrator does not block access and does not cause damage to private or public property, there can be no justification for prior restraint on peaceable assembly…and if the police are worried that some Moslems might commit violence, then I recommend the police keep an eye on those people. And not just during the demonstration, but all the time.

Want to screw up a market? Want to put taxpayers on the hook for a lot more risk, then pull the plug on that, thus forcing a rush of people to take advantage of your interference in the market? Then Obamunism is for you – bet you didn’t know that Uncle Sam was actually backing much larger home loans than he did before the crash – I sure as heck didn’t. From Reuters:

…Beginning on October 1, the government will dial back on the size of mortgages it guarantees in high-cost areas like San Francisco, New York and Washington.

After that, the maximum loan amount that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will back is scheduled to drop from $729,750 to $625,500. And that may make mortgages more expensive or harder to get…

I had been entirely unsurprised that the DC-metro area was still experiencing a property boom. After all, with Obama massively increasing the size of government – and thus the number of government employees – it stood to reason that the DC housing market would continue to surge. I have been a little bit perplexed at the home prices in New York City, however. I know – stock prices have surged and that is a big deal in the New York area housing market…but, still, the economy is down, the New York economy is far from recovered and its not like there is a population boom in that area. Now I know better – Uncle Sam has been underwriting “jumbo” loans, allowing loans which used to require 30% down to be obtained by people with 10% down…meaning, of course, that we’ve been assisting people in getting homes they probably can’t afford, thus fueling a housing bubble which will now pop come October when the “free” money dries up.

Splendid bit of government work there, huh? Nothing like government stepping in to “help”, now is there?

This is why you can’t have the government run the economy – there is no way the government will ever get it right. Pressed this way and that by various interests, government policy when applied to economic activities will, at best, favor a few well-connected people and groups and, at worst, will so badly wreck the normal flow of economic activity that a crash will occur. While liberals like to place all the blame for the 2008 crash on Wall Street, the fact will always remain that Wall Street merely worked in the economic house set up by DC – we didn’t just allow a speculative bubble in real estate to emerge, we downright encouraged it. The government tried to re-inflate that bubble in 2009 with stimulus programs but the dead animal could not even be temporarily revived…except in a few, high-end markets. But now even that is coming to an end.

Let it all crash – it is the only way we can find out what our economy is really worth and which companies are actually in good shape. Yes, it will be painful…but not as painful as it’ll get if we keep trying to prop up the economy with fake money, borrowing and screwball incentives.

HAT TIP: Mish’s

Too bad, I guess, that the Syrians are not the right sort of civilians – we’re fighting to protect them in Libya, but won’t lift a finger for them in Syria:

The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms the use of force by the Syrian government against demonstrators. This outrageous use of violence to quell protests must come to an end now. We regret the loss of life and our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the victims, and with the Syrian people in this challenging time…

The statement goes on to say that we really, really don’t like all this oppression and killing stuff and we’d really, really, really like the Syrian government to stop. Nothing in there about what concrete steps we might take to make Syria stop, of course. Which means that little Assad will be able to use this statement the next time he defecates.

Does anyone out there think that a government which has just deliberately organized a massacre of its citizens will be deterred from further action by mere words? Does anyone out there think that anyone in the Syrian government cares how much we deplore their actions? For goodness sake, the Syrian government can already see in Libya that we won’t move any time soon and even if we do decide to move, we won’t go in for the kill.

The people who govern Syria should not be thought of as patriots who want what is best for Syria. They are corrupt brutes who only want to amass as much power and wealth for themselves as they can..they are beasts in human skin, the product of half a century of political, economic and moral corruption by a totalitarian, gangster regime. The only thing such people will ever understand is a gun pointed at their head – or a noose around their neck. If we’re not prepared to kill them, then we shouldn’t even bother…statements about how much we don’t like an action, unless followed up by stern measures of our own, are counter-productive…they may encourage continued rebellion in which people will die, but they’ll do nothing to curb the regime’s ability to kill.

Its just going to get worse from here, folks. I do hope that the Syrian people manage to topple their government – perhaps even the Syrian army is sick of all this? But I’m not at all sure they can do it – rumors are that Syria, like Libya and Iran, has hired foreign goons to do the killing…thus ensuring a pool of armed supporters who will kill without let up and won’t be moved by pity for the people. Just a few years ago, we had these forces of evil rocked back on their heels…and then the left went to work and undermined President Bush and helped to elect President Obama…and now our official policy is a combination of kowtowing and Carterism (ie, condemn your friends, help your enemies). The world has taken the measure of Barack Obama and knows that the United States carries little weight in the world while he is in office.

From the New York Post:

He wasn’t PC enough for Princeton.

A vicious campaign to end the unblemished 10-year career of a popular but often politically incorrect Princeton teacher left him so despondent that he took his own life, brokenhearted pals said yesterday.

Spanish teacher Antonio Calvo, 45 — who stabbed himself to death in his Chelsea apartment on April 12 — believed at least two graduate students and another lecturer were behind a poisonous political maneuver that robbed him of a contract renewal, two friends told The Post…

This is what happens when you allow an institution of higher learning to become a fascist stew of political correctness – when someone strays from the party line, they will be attacked based on that.

Pull the plug on Princeton – not another dime of federal money until they become a politically pluralistic institution of higher education…and then set that as the marker for all education establishments receiving federal funds…if you can’t freely express yourself, no taxpayer money. Period.

From News Busters:

In a bizarre wrap-up to the 2 p.m. EDT hour of CNN “Newsroom” Thursday, anchor T.J. Holmes confessed his “eco-sins” to the audience. Commemorating the eve of “Earth Day,” Holmes admitted to his “green” faults which included driving an SUV by himself to work daily, blasting the heat in his house during winter, and using “less efficient” incandescent bulbs for lighting.

“These are my eco-sins. I’m confessing them to you because tomorrow is Earth Day,” Holmes announced to the audience…

There is a thing we Catholics do from time to time at Mass – in unison, we say:

I confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault. In my thoughts and in my words; in what I have done and what I have failed to do. And I ask Blessed Mary, ever virgin, all the angles and saints and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord, Our God.

Holmes has shown something here – that Environmentalism is a church (yes, a sort of anti-Church, if you will)…it has its sacraments (recycling) and its holy days (Earth Day). It has its deity (Mother Earth) and its priests (Al Gore). And you can be excommunicated from this church if you wantonly sin by driving an SUV or failing to recycle.

This is creepy on a lot of levels – first off all by putting a thing (the earth, or the environment) above both God and man. Secondly, by public confession of individual sins – something very much out of the communist playbook where if you strayed from the party line you were required to recant in public.

Suffice it to say you cannot sin except by violating some command of God – and driving an SUV, last I checked, was not one of the Seven Deadly Sins. I doubt that any priest would even so much as make you do ten Ave Maria’s over it. The earth is not an entity – there is no Earth Mother. The world, all we see around us, is a subordinate creation which only gains value in relation to what we, the people of the world, make of it. To start down the road of Mr. Holmes is to head straight in to paganism – and while in ancient times there was a healthy, humane paganism, there was also paganism with human sacrifice…and in a large sense, that is just what the priests of environmentalism want: human sacrifice to the Earth Mother. Human lives and happiness are to be sacrificed allegedly to save the earth…to propagate the gods of land, air, water and fire in hopes that they will allow us to continue to live.

Thanks, but no thanks. I happen to worship God, not a small part of God’s creation. And I do wish that people would start to think about what they are doing before they go on and do it.

From Yes, But, However:

Last week Mark Knoller of CBS broke a seemingly big story. He released partial audio of President Obama talking to donors on a mic that was inadvertently “hot”. The tidbits CBS released were great. Chief among them was Mr. Obama calling some Federal employees “slugs” and his taking a much nastier tone with the GOP than he does in front of the cameras. The most famous, Obama asking his donors if the GOP thinks “we’re stupid”, was choice.

However, CBS has not released the entire tape to the public or other media outlets. After several tweets by Yes, But, However! to Mr. Knoller as to why the full tape hasn’t been made public, he responded: “My editors decided against it.” Mr. Knoller offered (no) further explanation…

As what was released was pretty bad, the only rational presumption to be made is that the un-released portion was even worse. This is probably “Bitter Clingers II”. But, the MSM doesn’t care about that – they know their job. Their task, first and foremost, is to help Obama in his re-election efforts. All MSM coverage will be geared towards downplaying anything bad for Obama, highlighting anything good and, of course, a relentless examination of Obama’s opponents – with there being no requirement that accusations against the opponents be credible. To put it bluntly, the MSM will lie through its collective teeth from now until election day, 2012.

The good news is that fewer and fewer people are paying any attention to the MSM. The New Media is rapidly becoming dominant – and especially dominant among those forces most determined to oust Obama.