I'm heading to Arkansas for the holidays. My side of the family celebrates Thanksgiving because the weather is usually too bad for us to drive long distances to all get together for Christmas. My siblings are scattered around Arkansas, Texas. I'm in Missouri. Adios until next week!

Interesting Links:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/patbuchanan/pb20031123.shtml Judges v. legislators

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=466575 Queen's Speech will give go-ahead to sex-change weddings and adoptions


http://www.debka.com/index.php DEBKAfile picks up fresh Al Qaeda warning of countdown to the terror network’s “biggest operation in the United States” which is due “very shortly” and will cut America off from its armies in Muslim countries.

http://www.priestsforlife.org/news/lifenews/lifenews03-11-22.htm#gallup Gallup Survey Shows Teens Hold Strong Pro-Life Views

Here's a bunch of links to articles on the gay union situation:
http://www.ycvf.org/news_articles.php?id=280&search=family CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IF03H01&f=PG03I03
http://www.mdjonline.com/articles/2003/11/18/95/10122758.txt
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/20031118.htm

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,103459,00.html Marriage Promoted as Cure to Social Woes


The christianity.com has reopened the forum on Catholicism:
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Additionally, Rome denies the efficacy of the atonement, in essence stating that the cross work was no sufficient and that the sacrifice needs to be reapplied through the Mass. 24 hours a day / 7 days a week masses are taking place reapplying the sacrifice. This is not neccessary. Christ's work on the cross was sufficient enough. Christ said "It is finished" - the work was done, it need not be repeated.

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How do you explain this?

Colossians 1:24
I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church,

Tit for Tat

Fargo man wants to remove goddess statue
By the Associated Press
GRAND FORKS (AP) -- A Fargo activist has asked a University of North Dakota law professor to help him sue to remove the statue of a Greek goddess from the top of the Grand Forks County Courthouse. Martin Wishnatsky is using a legal argument similar to the one used to try to remove a display of the Ten Commandments in Fargo.

Themis, the ancient Greek goddess of law and order, traditionally has been a symbol at U.S. courthouses, her eyes blindfolded and holding the scales of justice. Her statue has been atop the Grand Forks County Courthouse for nearly 90 years. "As a Christian, I find such representations of pagan religious figures in public places very distressing," Wishnatsky wrote to Rovner.

I am reading a book, Tornado in a Junkyard. I thought it would just debunk evolution, but it goes much further than that. It is making a case for creationism. It gives reasons why the earth is younger than Darwinists say. I was enjoying the anti-Darwinism part, but started to feel uneasy about the creationism part. So I went online to search whether the claims the book made were true. My uneasiness was justified. I found a web site that debunks the young earth arguments. It's at http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/dave_matson/young-earth/specific_arguments/index.shtml Specific Creationist Arguments by
Dave E. Matson. Since the creationism parts are false, it makes me wonder whether the anti-Darwin arguments are also false. The anti-Darwin arguments sound very good, though.
For example, the book claims there are nine chemical reactions in a human's retina that cause the electrical impulse to be created in the optical nerve. Without these reactions, a lens and an optical nerve, we would not be able to see. What are the odds that all these were random mutations that helped an organism survive better than others? If one of the components is missing, the odds of survival would not improve because all of them are necessary simultaneously. Another example, when we are wounded, our blood clots due to a chemical. But if there were not also a chemical that stops the clotting, we would die of too much clotting. What are the odds of both chemicals being caused by mutations simultaneously? Mutations tend to disfigure and deform an organism, not add new information. Conclusion: Darwinism explains micro-evolution, but not macro-evolution. That is, it may explain survival, but not arrival. How did the genes arrive that were later adapted to the environment?
I believed in divinely guided evolution before I read this book. I think I have some good reasons to stick with that. I don't really care how long God took to create the universe, because I believe He did do it. That is what matters.

In the christianity.com forum on Mother Teresa:
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You can find plenty of reading material that shows she did not preach the true gospel to those of different religions. She allowed them to think however they wanted, and the quote I made can not be taken out of context, unless she said something like, "You should never tell someone this" beforehand!

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The first key principle of successful evangelization is to accept someone right where they are and develop a relationship of love for them. Once that happens, you have leverage to move someone into a better relationship with Jesus. For people who do not believe in God, the best way to evangelize them is to show them by one's actions that there is a loving God who motivates people to do kindness. One has to make God visible. She inspired many people to grow closer to Jesus. My friend is a nun in her order. I could never give up everything to do the things she has done.

That is what Blessed Theresa did. She loved people where they were in a culture that treats some castes like animals. Hindus are hard to convert because they have a "any God will do" belief. Getting them to believe in Jesus as the only way is very difficult. But Mother Theresa did it. The nun who took her office after her death is a convert from Hinduism.

Mother Theresa's method works in that part of the world. Our culture is different but those methods also work here. You will never convert anyone by offending them.
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It is one thing to love and respect people and respect their RIGHT to believe in their false religions. It is quite another to give them the very wrong impression that they can be saved through those false religions.



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My response.

God is not limited to obeying his own rules. He wants to save everyone because Jesus died for all men. God will not punish people for their ignorance.

Missionaries in India are forbidden to prostelitize. The government would have kicked them out of the country. The only way to have a long ministry in that country is to wait for the prospective convert to ask to be Christian.

I'm thrilled that the president signed the ban on partial birth abortion. Finally, it seems we have some progress even if it gets blocked by the courts. We've never got this far before. How can anyone be in favor of a partially born baby? Beats me!

My oldest daughter got braces Monday. I can't imagine how bad it must feel since I've never had them. I do know how it feels to get popcorn husks or apple core stuck between my teeth. It drives me nuts till I get it out. Imagine being stuck with this for 18 months! At $3500, this better be worth it!

I'm sore all over from my fencing class last night. I sure am out of shape. It is such a blast, though! It is great for the thigh muscles.

There is an opinion poll at this site that I find sad and frightening.

Faith Commitment Impacts Morality
http://www.barna.org/cgi-bin/PagePressRelease.asp?PressReleaseID=152&Reference=A

I sure hope their definition of "Evangelical" includes faithful Catholics. The footnotes say it is not based on denomination.

It shows me that we are not passing on moral values to the next generation. That is what scares me.

Now that I've finished Triumph, what book will I read next? Tornado in a Junkyard or Early Church Fathers? Tornado in a Junkyard is about debunking the atheistic evolution theory. My husband read it. He was convinced that theory was junk before he got half way through the book. I need to read it to get my apologetics muscles in shape before I see my family at Thanksgiving. I might need it. I think I need this more than reading Early Church Fathers.

Normally, I wouldn't believe anything I heard from Geraldo Rivera. But I got this in my e-mail today, so I'm passing it on. I don't think he has any reason to stretch the truth.

THE BUILDINGS THAT AREN'T BURNING IN IRAQ

"They have a saying in the news business," Geraldo Rivera related this week. "Reporters don't report buildings that don't burn." And with that introduction, he told a TV audience about the story that is being systematically denied to our entire nation: the success story of post-Saddam Iraq. Are we losing some soldiers each week? Yes. Is there some frustration in the public about electricity and water service? Yes.

Are some Saddam Hussein loyalists scurrying throughout the land, making trouble? Yes. Has this opened a window for some terrorist mischief? Yes.

But that's all we hear. No wonder the country is in a mixed mood about Iraq.

If you hear about the buildings that are not burning, though, it is a different story indeed.

Rivera is no shill for George W. Bush. But Bush, Condi Rice and Colin Powell together could not have been as effective as Geraldo was Thursday night on the Fox News Channel's Hannity and Colmes program.

"When I got to Baghdad, I barely recognized it," he began, comparing his just-completed trip to two others he made during and just after the battle to topple Saddam. "You have over 30,000 Iraqi cops and militiamen already on the job. This is four months after major fighting stopped.

"Can you imagine that kind of gearing up in this country? Law and order is better; archaeological sites are being preserved; factories, schools are being guarded."

But what about the secondhand griping that the media have been so efficiently relating about power, water and other infrastructure?

"To say that Iraq is being rebuilt is not true," answered Rivera. "Iraq is being built.. There was no infrastructure before; we are doing it. I just think the good news is being underestimated and underreported."

At this juncture, one must evaluate how to feel about the voices telling us only about the bad news in Iraq, whether from the mouths of news anchors or Democratic presidential hopefuls.

At best, they are under informed. At worst, their one-sided assessments of post-Saddam Iraq are intentional falsehoods for obvious reasons.

If I hear one more person mock that "Mission Accomplished" banner beneath which President Bush thanked a shipload of sailors and Marines a few months back, I'm going to spit. That was a reference to the ouster of Saddam's regime, and that mission was indeed accomplished, apparently to the great chagrin of the American left.

No one said what followed would be easy or cheap, and that's why the dripping-water torture of the cost and casualty stories is so infuriating. Remember we pay our soldiers whether they are in Iraq or in Ft Bragg, North Carolina.

We should all mourn the loss of every fallen soldier. But context cries out to be heard. Our present news media is not performing this task.

As some dare to wonder if this might become a Vietnam-like quagmire, I'll remind whoever needs it that most of our 58,000 Vietnam war toll died between 1966 and 1972, during which we lost an average of about 8,000 per year. That's about 22 per day, every day, for thousands of days on end.

Let us hear no more Vietnam comparisons. They do not equate.

What I hope to hear is more truth, even if we have to wrench it from the mouths of the media and political hacks predisposed to bash the remarkable job we are doing every day in what was not so long ago a totalitarian wasteland.

Local elections are under way across Iraq, Rivera reported. "Where Kurds and Arabs have been battling for decades, things have been settling down. Administrator Paul Bremer is doing a great job."

So does Geraldo think his media colleagues are intentionally painting with one side of the brush?

"I'm not into conspiracy theories...there's just more bang for your buck when you report the GI who got killed rather than the 99 who didn't get killed, who make friends, who helped schedule elections, who helped shops get open for business, who helped traffic flow again.

"The vast majority of Iraqis are very happy to have us there... I would like to see a bit more balance." This needs to be reported to the American Public who are presently being duped. I expect the dominant media culture to nitpick Bush, and Democrats to blast him with reckless abandon.

But when that leads to the willful exclusion of facts that would shine truthful light on the great work of the American armed forces, that level of malice plumbs new depths .. some call it - TREASON

I'm reading a great book:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/flex-sign-in/ref=cm_rate_rev_pagepos1/102-2054630-2000161#rated-review
Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church: A 2,000-Year History
by H. W. Crocker III

I've been mesmerized by this book for a week. It's hard for me to put it down.
What I like best is that it makes clear how our secular humanist culture came to be and why Europe is the moral vacuum that it is. If religion is what gives legitimacy to a government, and that is a big if, then what will happen when or if the secular humanists control the US? If we learn from Europe's mistakes, we would be glad to see the 10 Commandments displayed on every street corner and courtroom. There is a serious lack of foresight about the direction the country is heading. Unfortunately, we are failing to learn from history. God help the US!

I guess you'll have to read the book to see if you come to the same conclusion.

We picked out a Catholic high school for my son. He will start next year.
I made a point of asking the campus minister if the teaching was faithful to the magisterium. She said, "Yes". I was glad to hear that. Now, I hope it is true.
This school's grad has 98% going on to college. I hope that will inspire my son to work hard there.

My three kids had a great time this Halloween. My youngest dressed as a fat tourist, complete with Hawaiian shirt, shorts and straw hat. She ran me around two neighborhoods. The older two don't want to be seen with mom anymore, so they went with friends.
My son told me he didn't go trick-or-treating. His friends think it's childish, I guess? Not for a 14 year-old, I think. Anyway, on Sunday, he got a wild hair and decided to go trick-or-treating with his sister. They went around the neighborhood, laughing their silly heads off at people's reactions at them showing up two days late.
One neighbor preached to them about Halloween being a pagan invention of the Catholic Church, then asked them where they went to church. My kids burst out laughing when they said, "St. Norbert." What was funny was the look on the neighbors face. He didn't know these kids were Catholic. My kids were just being goofy kids, not pagans. Too bad they had to run into that, but it made it all the more fun for them. I wish I had been there to see this.
I bet they never forget the time they went trick-or-treating two days late. There were a lot of folks who wanted to get rid of the leftovers so their bags were full!