History Linkfest 9 August 2008

It's a walk through history in the links today, all below the fold:
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Murder, sex, adultery – the History News Network has it all in a post by Ronan Thomas asking whether Dr. Harvey Crippen, an American adulterer, actually poisoned his wife Cora in 1910 Britain. Dr. Crippen was executed for the crime.

"On August 6, 1945, the B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing an estimated 140,000 civilians. Three days later, the B-29 bomber Bock’s Car dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki, killing about 80,000 civilians." Mark Grimsley, a Professor of Military History, asks what if the Manhattan Project had failed and those bombs were never dropped?

At Walking the Berkshires, they are holding a small contest: name that castle


I have no idea which one this is. The flag it is flying is not British. It is tough to assess the terrain in black and white, but it appears to be near desert terrain, so its probably in the Middle East. I do not recognize the architectual style, but it does not look like one of the major Crusader styles. . . . hmmmm

Brits At Their Best walks us along the Heddon Valley and back in time to the black plague and the Peasents Revolt of 1381 – a revolt by men who refused to be turned back to serfdom and servitude.

Johnathan Jarret has an interesting post at A Corner Of 10th Century Europe on his meandering through some of the historical sites in and around Gairloch, Scotland.

At Religion in American History, John Fea blogs on how, at Williamsburg, the reenactments and displays accurately reflect the important role of religion in all aspects of life during the Colonial period. The wall between Church and State did not come into existence until the mid 20th century beyond a remark in a letter by Thomas Jefferson writ long after the First Amendment.

Westminster Wisdom has a very thoughtful post on the movie The Virgin Spring, a sort of retelling of the story of Job set in Scandanavia of a millenium ago.

The Irish Elk has another of his eclectic posts, Party Animals. I too wish there was still a Pat Moynihan fan club.

From Cardinal Wolsey, the remains of Shakespeare’s original theatre has been found.

Got Medieval tells us of some of the major events that occurred in the medieval world during the month of August, including:

. . . August 12th, 1099: The Battle of Ascalon, the final major battle of the First Crusade.

August 15th, 778: The Battle of Roncesvalles, where the shot heard round the world is made by Roland's brains exiting his ears.

August 15th, 1040: King Duncan I of Scotland killed by a fellow you may have heard of, goes by the name of Macbeth.
. . .
August 24th, 410: The Visigoths sack Rome and everyone has to change their desk calendars over from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages.

Do read them all.

At Rouge Classicalism, the remains of a vast, ancient city found in Northern Afghanistan. Speculation is that it might be where Alexander met Roxanne in about 327 B.C.

Mockery has the dual benefits of undercutting the object’s legitimacy and really t’ing them off. At Cliopatria, Ralph Luker has the Nazi reaction at finding themselves goose-stepping on the big screen to the Lambeth Walk, Oi..

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Nazir Ali - The Collapse Of Chistianity Is Wrecking British Society & Islam Is Filling The Void

Nearly two centuries after socialism was born in France and began its attack on Christianity, and about one and a half centuries after Karl Marx called religion the "opiate of the masses," socialism's war on Christianity, the foundaional element of Western civilization, is bearing truly malignant fruit. This is nowhere more true than in Britain, a country that firmly embraced socialism in the twentieth century to cure the social ills of a class based society only to find, today, that the cure is proving far more deadly than the disease. The majority of the problem is the inherent nature of socialism itself, with the utter rejection of moral limits growing out of the Judeo-Christian ethic, elevating in its stead narcissism, moral relativism, multiculturalism, and a firm belief that the evils in this world derive from Western oppression. Add to that the pressures from Salafi and Deobandi Islam, two deeply expansionist and triumphalist sects that are opposed on many points to Western values and that suffer no such internal angst, and you have, today, Britain in crisis.

Not only is Britian in crisis, but so too, of course, is the Church of England. As I wrote below, at the current rate of progression, Islam will overtake Christianity as the dominant religion in Britain within thirty years. It is fascinating that, at the head of the Anglican Church today, is a weak and incredibly misguided Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, an inveterate Marxist and multiculturalist who seeks to appease the Islamists.

At the other end of the spectrum is the man increasingly in the news as the voice of the Anglican Church - and the one man in Britain who speaks honestly on the virtues of Christianity, the malignant effects of socialism and the dangers of Islamism - the Pakistani-born Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali. Indeed, he is shouting all this from the roof tops. And he does so today, quite eloquently.
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This from the Daily Mail:

The collapse of Christianity has wrecked British society, a leading Church of England bishop declared yesterday.

It has destroyed family life and left the country defenceless against the rise of radical Islam in a moral and spiritual vacuum.

In a lacerating attack on liberal values, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, said the country was mired in a doctrine of 'endless self-indulgence' that had brought an explosion in public violence and binge-drinking.

In a blow to Gordon Brown, he mocked the 'scramblings and scratchings' of politicians who try to cast new British values such as respect and tolerance.

The Pakistani-born bishop dated the downfall of Christianity from the 'social and sexual revolution' of the 1960s.

He said Church leaders had capitulated to Marxist revolutionary thinking and quoted an academic who blames the loss of 'faith and piety among women' for the steep decline in Christian worship.

Dr Nazir-Ali said the ' newfangled and insecurely founded' doctrine of multiculturalism has left immigrant communities 'segregated, living parallel lives'.

Christian values of human dignity, equality and freedom could be lost as the way is left open for the advance of brands of Islam that do not respect Western values.

The Bishopric of Rochester is one of the ten most powerful positions in the Church of England.

Dr Nazir-Ali's attack on the decline of Christianity appears to put him in the opposite corner to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and many of his fellow bishops.

But he holds some views in common with the Church's other widely-heard and popular prelate, Ugandan-born Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York.

Over the past six months, Dr Nazir-Ali has made a number of criticisms of Islam and its influence.

Among them have been charges about the spread of no-go areas for non-Muslims and worries over the impact of new mosques.

Last weekend he was one of just three bishops who backed a move in the Church's parliament, the General Synod, to encourage the conversion of Muslims to Christianity.

His latest attack once again criticises Dr Williams's backing for sharia law, saying that 'recognising its jurisdiction in public law is fraught with difficulties, precisely as it arises from a different set of assumptions than the tradition of law here'.

Dr Nazir-Ali detailed his arguments in an article in the newly-launched political magazine Standpoint.

The bishop, himself an immigrant from Pakistan in the mid-1980s, admitted that he might be thought the least qualified person to discuss British identity. But he quoted Kipling: 'What should they know of England who only England know?'

The bishop said 'something momentous' had happened in the 1960s. He quoted historians who point to a cultural revolution in which women ceased to uphold or pass on the Christian faith and to the role of Marxist revolutionaries.

Dr Nazir-Ali pointed with approval to a finding that 'instead of resisting this phenomenon, liberal theologians and church leaders all but capitulated.

He said: 'It has created the moral and spiritual vacuum in which we now find ourselves.' In the place of Christianity there was nothing 'except perhaps endless self-indulgence'.

The bishop said the consequences were 'the destruction of the family because of the alleged parity of different forms of life together, the loss of a father figure, especially for boys, because the role of fathers is deemed otiose, the abuse of substances (including alcohol), the loss of respect for the person leading to horrendous and mindless attacks, the increasing communications gap between generations and social classes - the list is very long.'

Another result, he said, was that immigrants had been welcomed, not on the basis of Britain's Christian heritage, to which they would be welcome to contribute, but by the 'newfangled and insecurely-founded doctrine of multiculturalism'.

The bishop warned that views not founded on Christianity would not produce the same values. 'Instead of Christian virtues of humility, service and sacrifice, there may be honour, piety, the saving of face, etc'.

He questioned what resources were available for an ideological battle against radical Islamism, saying 'the scramblings and scratchings around of politicians for values which would provide ammunition' were hardly adequate.

. . . Born into a Roman Catholic family in Pakistan, the young Michael Nazir-Ali converted to Anglicanism at the age of 20.

As a young man, he suffered rough treatment of the kind regularly handed out to Christians in a country where failing to follow the official religion can sometimes end in murder.

He moved to Cambridge to study theology and then returned as a priest to Pakistan before being brought to London in the 1980s to serve as an assistant to the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Robert Runcie.

He is one of the bishops who has been called on by the Prince of Wales to give advice on Islam.

However, Dr Nazir-Ali does not share the prince's enthusiasm for Islamic values. He has warned Charles to give up his hope of being 'defender of faiths' because of the incompatibility of different beliefs.

Dr Nazir-Ali has accused Muslims of promoting double standards by looking for both 'victimhood and domination'; he has called for powers for officialdom to remove veils from Muslim women for security reasons; and he has warned repeatedly over the dangers of extremism.

In particular he has called on Islamic leaders to allow Muslims to abandon their beliefs and adopt other religions.

Dr Nazir-Ali has spoken up for an estimated 3,000 Britons under threat of retaliation for giving up their faith and he has condemned Islamic states that maintain the death penalty for apostasy.

His outspokenness has put him in the vanguard of opposition to hardline Islamism and made him one of the highest-placed enemies of the gay rights movement.

He angered the Archbishop of Canterbury by threatening to boycott this year's Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops from around the world.

He has criticised civil partnerships and opposed the extension of IVF treatment to single women and lesbians.

Dr Nazir-Ali has much in common with the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu. Unlike him, however, he does not have a populist touch.

This may have contributed to his failure to win the post of Archbishop of Canterbury, for which he was once considered a leading candidate.

The 58-year-old bishop has now remained in Rochester for nearly 14 years.

Read the entire article. It is ironic indeed that the two most staunch defenders of Western values and civilization in Britain were both born in Asia, Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali and the Muslim author Ibn Warraq. If you have not read Ibn Warraq's eloquent defense of the West, I urge you to do so. You can find it here.

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Obama Takes A Nose Dive In Philly

Finally, at a debate, Obama gets asked some difficult questions - though with minimal follow-up - and he stumbles badly. He was on the defensive most of the night and not only was his performance weak, but some of his answers will very likely come back to haunt him.

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The far left is screaming this morn that the questions asked of Obama in last night’s debate were grossly unfair. You can find the high decibel round-up at Instapundit. They absolutely do not want a spotlight shown on Obama’s history from which we can infer the measure of the man. To ABC’s credit, they did ask questions about some of the major issues surrounding Obama’s character. That said, they did so without the follow-up questions to Obama’s facile attempts to sweep them away. Nonetheless, Obama looked bad and on the defensive throughout the night.

The lowest of the low points for Obama during last night’s debate came on the issues of “bittergate” and gun rights. Almost right out of the gate, Charles Gibson asked Obama about bittergate:

[You said] small town Pennsylvanians who have had tough economic times in recent years. And you said they get bitter and they cling to guns or they cling to their religion or they cling to antipathy toward people who are not like them. . . . Do you understand that some people in this state find that patronizing and think that you said actually what you meant?

Obama seems to have really fumbled his answer. He claims he misspoke, but then went on to say:

. . . when people [are] like promised year after year, decade after decade, that their economic situation is going to change and it doesn't, then, politically, they end up focusing on those things that are constant like religion. They end up feeling this is a place where I can find some refuge. This is something I can count on. They end up being much more concerned about votes around things like guns, where traditions have been passed on from generation to generation. And those are incredibly important to them. And, yes, what is also true is that wedge issues, hot-button issues, end up taking prominence in our politics.

Didn’t he just repeat the bittergate remarks, substituting the word “focusing” for the word cling? That is certainly what it seems to me. Just as it seems that he is saying is that its economic concerns that drive concerns about Second Amendment rights and moral issues. So if we only had enough money in our pockets, we would be unconcerned with such things as efforts to restrict gun ownership and moral issues such as gay marriage, abortion and the role religion should play in society. Its pretty clear Obama said exactly what he meant in the “bittergate” remarks to San Francisco’s elite left.

Then on gun rights issues, Obama sidestepped a question about where he stood on the highly restrictive D.C. gun laws, stating that he had not read the legal briefs before the Supreme Court. How that keeps him from forming his own opinion on the matter is beyond me – and his refusal to answer this question appeared very weak. Indeed, he has sponsored incredibly restrictive gun legislation while in the Illinois State Senate (see here), though Gibson did not ask him about that legislation.

Obama did give an answer that could have real long-term problems for him. He stated that he had “never favored a total ban on hand-guns.” Asked about a 1996 survey filled out by his campaign that clearly stated the opposite, Obama disclaimed any knowledge of the survey in the debate, stating “No, my writing wasn't on that particular questionnaire . . .” I blogged in detail about this questionnaire here. Obama was quizzed on the questionnaire the day after his campaign submitted it. The day after that, he submitted an amended questionnaire with both the answer about a ban on hand guns unedited and with what, until yesterday, his campaign acknowledged were Obama's own handwritten comments in the margins. This is not the last we have heard of this issue, by any means.

On his association with Rev. Wright, Obama claimed that he had already fully addressed this issue and again trotted out the frankly unbelievable assertion that he never heard Rev. Wright’s racist screed throughout his entire twenty year attendance at the church. The truth is we have yet to hear a Rev. Wright sermon that is not racist. I am waiting for someone to request copies of the Rev. Wright’s sermons over the past twenty years – and to ask Obama whether he will demand Rev. Wright make them available. And Gibson did not ask Obama about his reference to “white greed” in his book Audacity of Hope – an inclusion that clearly shows Obama not only heard such vile screed over his twenty year association, but that he adopted it. Be that as it may, Clinton had the right take on this:

I think in addition to the questions about Reverend Wright and what he said and when he said it, and for whatever reason he might have said these things, there were so many different variations on the explanations that we heard.

And it is something that I think deserves further exploration because clearly, what we've got to figure out is how we're going to bring people together in a way that overcomes the anger, overcomes the divisiveness and whatever bitterness there may be out there. You know?

It is clear that, as leaders, we have a choice who we associate with and who we apparently give some kind of seal of approval to. And I think that it wasn't only the specific remarks but some of the relationships with Reverend Farrakhan, with giving the church bulletin over to the leader of Hamas, to put a message in.
You know, these are problems. And they raise questions in people's minds. And, so, this is a legitimate area, as everything is, when we run for office, for people to be exploring and trying to find answers.

And on his long association with the unrepentent terrorist bomber William Ayers, Obama had the audacity to liken Ayers to conservative Senator Tom Colburn, a man who is virulently anti-abortion but who has certainly never advocated violence against the pro-abortion crowd, let alone carried out such an act. Gateway Pundit has more on this.

Both Obama and Clinton were allowed to repeat their ‘out of Iraq now' canard to softball questioning. Both said they would ignore the advice of Petraeus and Crocker, but neither were questioned on the explicit premise articulated by Petraeus and Crocker that such a precipitous drawdown would be a disaster that would open Iraq to being dominated by Iran and reinfiltrated by al Qaeda.

On the issue of a nuclear armed Iran, when asked whether the U.S. should put Israel under its umbrella of nuclear protection, while Clinton answered forcefully, Obama danced around the answer, never answering with a clear “yes.”

Obama was asked about his plans to nearly double the capital gains tax rate. When he was told that each time the capital gains tax rate has been cut, it has brought in more revenue, Obama responded by justifying his sophmoric class warfare on the grounds of “fairness.”

Obama continues to favor affirmative action and considerations of race in college admissions to overcome “current discrimination.” I was floored by that. The group most being discriminated against in college admissions today, according to the most recent surveys, are white male gentiles. How Obama’s support for affirmative action in regards to that reality portends to unite America across the vast racial divide we hear exists from the far left and from race baiters such as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton – and you can add Rev. Wright to the list – is an issue that Obama needs to explain in detail.

You can find the entire debate transcript here. This was not only a poor performance by Obama, it is likely one that will - and very much should - resurface often between now and November. The more I see of Obama, the less I trust this man's judgment to hold any elected office.

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His Emminence, the Goracle

Michael Crichton very astutely observed several years ago that the green movement had become a new religion for the left with a belief system based on faith, a paradise, a fall from grace, a defined heresey, and a doomsday scenario. And if one questions the accuracy of that assessment, perhaps reading this Time magazine article on the Global Warming movement's High Priest, the Goracle, will be enlightening. It is authored by Bono.

As 2007 closes and 2008 begins, . . . Americans are looking for leadership that can turn spiritual yearnings into practical realities.

Al Gore is the kind of leader these times require. Not as President — God and the Electoral College have given him a different job. As it happens, Al is at work repositioning his country from the inside out as a leader in clean energy; and along the way restoring faith in the U.S. as a moral powerhouse that can lead a great, global spiritual revival as the temperature rises.

That's right, a spiritual revival. Because this apostle of all things digital is the first to admit that technology alone will not reverse the damage done. . . .

For Al, 2008 is a rendezvous with destiny and an appointment with the enemy. The foe he sees is our own indifference to the future and a lack of faith in our ability to do anything about it. He stresses that through crisis we can find opportunity. His language is pretty Biblical, but, then, doesn't the Bible say something about floods? He is like an Old Testament prophet amped up with PowerPoint and an army of the world's scientists at his disposal. The right response to the global-warming crisis, he explains, will be a mosaic of solutions that will kick off a whole new economic boom, one that is low-carbon and high-productivity, with truly sustainable development, and an atlas for planet management — using not New Age technology but old age wisdom generating sustainable solutions.

Is he Noah or are we King Canute? Are we prepared to make difficult choices on behalf of children not yet born? . . .

. . . [Bishop] Desmond Tutu often uses the word ubuntu, meaning "I am because we are." It's my favorite epithet, an ode to interdependence. When I told Al that, he responded with Gandhi: Satyagraha, meaning "hold tight to the truth."

Personally, I'm trying to live up to both words, but it's hard. Like a lot of folks, I've got a lot on my plate without trying to make sure the dishwasher liquid is in a biodegradable container. (It is, but were it not for the eco-warrior with whom I share a bed, I would have fallen behind.) As Al leaves our house, I fall over myself to explain that my fancy car runs on ethanol, then laugh nervously, like when you meet a parish priest in the supermarket and it turns into confession. . .

Read the article here. A big part of the global warming movement are secularists for whom belief in the environment and global warming has filled the spiritual void left in the absence of a true religion. And further, I think there are more than a few who may or may not be true believers in global warming, but who do adhere to socialism and see global warming as a vehicle to justify centralizing power and redistributing wealth. It is a potent marriage with the potential to do great harm - as at least one truly spiritual man has recognized.

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Interesting News From Around the Web - 12-18-07

The U.S. is providing intelligence to Turkey on the location of PKK targets in northern Iraq and Turkey is following that up with targeted strikes. This has Iraq’s Kurds screaming like stuck pigs, but it seems the only reasonable solution to what could otherwise prove a very destabilizing issue.

Our House of Representatives is still refusing to fund the war in Iraq. The President needs to refuse their proffered Budget until they do so. The House Democratic Leadership varies between insane (Pelosi), dementia (Murtha), and adolescence (Obey). They are the not so funny 3 Stooges who are determined to declare defeat in Iraq, irrespective of the national security consequences and wholly irrespective of the reality of our success in Iraq. They are al Qaeda in Iraq’s last best hope for victory.

$7.4 billion has been pledged for aid to "Palestine" at an international conference. The amount actually exceeds what the Palestinian government of Fatah was seeing in aid. It is not clear from the news story how much, if any, of these funds will be provided to Hamas. If there is a single dollar that goes to them, the U.S. should halt its portion of the funding. As to the rest, funding the Palestinians has been a black whole of corruption to this point. I wonder if the donors will start requiring accountability?

The Economist takes a look at Indonesia’s program for deradicalizing jihadists. And WaPo looks at a similar program in Saudi Arabia for recent guests of Guantanamo. And then there is a very successful program being run by our military for detainees in Iraq.

Right Truth has more on the infiltration of our CIA by people related to Hezbollah and the potential damage that could be severe.

Q&O looks at the insanity of our entitlement programs and the gap between what is promised and what our income streams look like. My own thought, we need an NIE that tells us this is no problem and that we can safely ignore it. And take a look at this.

Done with Mirrors has an interesting post on Glenn Greenwald and his mildly biased criticism from on high of Michael Totten.

Bastard. Since I blogged this when it occurred, I need to also blog it now. The conservative student at Princeton who claimed to have been beaten for his exercise of free speech has now admitted to having made it all up. See here.

A really good post the other day from Dr. Sanity: "When religion is rooted in human freedom, as it is in the Judeo-Christian tradition, then it is able to enhance human life and give meaning and purpose to that life. When it is perverted and used for secular political ends--by either the political left or right who want to impose or mandate some social policy or another on others, then it inevitably leads to oppression and cheapens or devalues human life. Even on his best day, a "good" communist, socialist, fascist etc. will never be any better than a really "bad" Christian."

And from TNOY, it’s a Muslim Rage Boy Christmas Caroling . . . .



Do visit their site. Its one of the best humor sites on the web.

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