These general conditions apply to all agreements you close with CRAFT STUDIO SWEDEN AB.
By ordering products on www.craftstudio.se you accept the terms and conditions. We require parental approval for the agreement to be valid if you are under 18 years old.
All prices on www.craftstudio.se is in Swedish kronor (SEK), including 25% VAT.
When you order to a address in Sweden the shipping fee is 50 SEK. If you want to order to another country there will be a higher shipping fee, please contact us so we can give you further information about the shipping fee to your country.
Some of the products shown on www.craftstudio.se is in stock for immediate delivery. If there are products that are out in stock, there will be information about that in the web shop. All our products are hand made and our ordinary production process is 2-3 weeks. Rates are quoted in Swedish SEK, including VAT. You will see the total price at checkout.
Once we have received and confirmed your order, we will send an order confirmation to your e-mail address. It includes information about your order. Check your confirmation and contact us if you have any questions. The package is delivered by DHL to your nearest delivery point. As soon as the package arrives at your delivery point you will receive an SMS notification that you need along with valid ID upon pick-up.
If you order to an address in Sweden there is a shipping fee, 50 SEK. If you want to order to another country shipping fee will higher. Price for shipping depends on which country it is. Please contact us for further information.
Our delivery time for products in stock is normally 3-5 weekdays. If any problem occurs on our end or if you order a product that we need to produce, we will get back to you with further information about the order. You will receive an order confirmation to your email address before we send the goods to you. Our packages are shipped by DHL to your nearest delivery point. Is your parcel damaged report it immediately to DHL.
There will be a fee of 300 SEK if you don´t pick up you package. It corresponds to the costs incurred to bring the package in return.
From the time your package has arrived at the post-office, you have 14 days purchase, exchange or return policy. Our condition is that the goods will be returned in the original condition, not used and as well as the original packaging enclosed. Of course, you always have the right to open the package to check that the product works.
When exercising the right of withdrawal will send you the item back to CRAFT STUDIO SWEDEN AB and pay for the return shipping and transportation risk. When we receive the product and found that this is unused and undamaged refunded the amount you paid for the item, return shipping costs deducted.
Contact us at CRAFT STUDIO SWEDEN AB on shop@craftstudio.se so that we can send a return form to you and reserve the new product.
Return the product together with the return form and a copy of your order confirmation. Be aware of how important it is to pack the goods that you want to exchange in a way that they can´t break in transit. Please use the protective materials that you received in the delivery. If you feel unsure or have any questions, please feel free to contact us and we will help you. If the item is destroyed or that we do not accept the exchange, you are charged a fee of SEK 300.
Once we have received the goods and approved the change, we will send the new goods to you. If the new product is more expensive, you pay the difference in cash to your account before delivery and if it is cheaper we can adjust your invoice or alternatively refund the difference to the account that you specified in the return form. Return shipping costs 60 SEK will be deducted.
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CRAFT STUDIO SWEDEN AB will refund the consumer within 30 days in the event the consumer on proper grounds cancels an order or to get money refunded.
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In any dispute, CRAFT STUDIO SWEDEN AB follows the Allmänna Reklamationsnämnden recommendations.


Ottawa, October 16, 2015 - Portuguese Cheese Co. Ltd. is recalling St. Jorge and Queijo São Jorge raw milk cheese from the marketplace because they may contain the toxin produced by Staphylococcus bacteria. Consumers should not consume the recalled products described.
The following products, imported from Portugal, have been sold in Ontario.
The Queijo São Jorge raw milk cheese may have been sold in smaller packages, cut and wrapped by some retailers. Consumers who are unsure if they have purchased affected products should check with their retailer.


A truly useful, usable and easy-to-use website requires that designers and developers do more than ensure that the programming code runs reliably on the computer. They must deal effectively and efficiently with a wide variety of usability issues as they proceed through the design and development process. The tools listed in this section have proved to be a useful way to help ensure optimal usability, and a great user experience.
Focusing on the tools that are available to be used at each step along the way will help you consider those activities that are most important.
There are over 200 software tools (currently about 240) that can be used to help improve the user interface of websites and web applications. We have divided all of the available tools into five major sections: Testing and Evaluation, Prototyping and Mockups, Card Sorting and Navigation, Display (Screen) Design, and Content Design.


This is a placeholder page for Darrin Goin, which means this person is not currently on this site. We do suggest using the tools below to find Darrin Goin.
You are visiting the placeholder page for Darrin Goin. This page is here because someone used our placeholder utility to look for Darrin Goin. We created this page automatically in hopes Darrin Goin would find it. If you are not Darrin Goin, but are an alumni of Magna Vista High School, register on this site for free now.


The Truth podcast features original fiction stories that range from the dark to the funny to the intriguing. Each episode features compelling narration and sound effects to make movies for a listener�s ears. The Truth includes many writers, directors and performers to bring each 10- to 20-minute story to life. Audiences are encouraged to listen with headphones to get the full experience. Recent episodes include: "The Saint of Machine," Wonderland, U.S.A." and "Fish Girl."
Meeting total strangers can be a scary thought, but Peabody-award winner and host Lea Thau shows how meaningful relationships can happen through meeting strangers. Thau connects listeners with people you have never met by listening to their stories. Each episode features stories about the connections we make, the heartbreaks we suffer and the kindness we encounter. Past episodes include: "Hi," "Isn�t It Nice" and "Do You Like My Little Lie?"


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text:
Q: Nested model form not submitting everything I heard about this community while listening to Hypercritical and I am excited to join in with my first question. I am working on my first rails App and I have run into an issue that I cannot seem to crack. I have been watching Railscast, Lynda.com, and Googling for days but I still cannot comprehend how to create a form that that will update my has_many :through associations at once. Allow me to try an explain what I am doing.
My Goal:
The firm I work for provides many "Service Offerings" and I want to be able to create a new service offering on one page and have it create the contacts and other information that is associated with it. The additional information such as "contacts" will live in their own tables because they may need to be referenced by many "Service Offerings."
Problem:
When I submit the form the "Service Offering" fields submit and are entered into the database, but the fields for the "Business Developer" do not. Obviously, I would like everything to be entered into its appropriate table and the for the IDs to be linked in the join table. I would really appreciate any insight that you could provide.
What I Have So Far: What you see below is Service Offerings and Business Developers. Eventually I will be adding Contacts, Photos, and Files but I thought I would start simply and work my way up.
Models:
class ServiceOffering < ActiveRecord::Base
 attr_accessible :name, :description
 has_many :business_developer_service_offerings
 has_many :business_developers, :through => :business_developer_service_offerings
 accepts_nested_attributes_for :business_developer_service_offerings
end

class BusinessDeveloper < ActiveRecord::Base
 attr_accessible :first_name, :last_name
 has_many :business_developer_service_offerings
 has_many :service_offerings, :through => :business_developer_service_offerings
end

class BusinessDeveloperServiceOffering < ActiveRecord::Base
 belongs_to :business_developer
 belongs_to :service_offering
end

Controller:
def new
 @service_offering = ServiceOffering.new
 @service_offering.business_developers.build
end

def create
 @service_offering = ServiceOffering.new(params[:service_offering])
 if @service_offering.save
  redirect_to(:action => 'list')
 else
  render('new')
 end
end

View:
<%= form_for((@service_offering), :url => {:action => 'create'}) do |f|%>

    <%= f.label :name%>
    <%= f.text_field :name %>

    <%= f.label :description%>
    <%= f.text_field :description %>

<%= f.fields_for :business_developer do |builder| %>

    <%= builder.label :first_name%>
    <%= builder.text_field :first_name %>

    <%= builder.label :last_name%>
    <%= builder.text_field :last_name %>

<%end%>
    <%= f.submit "Submit" %>
<%end%>

A: I figured it out. It turns out a few things were wrong and needed to be changed in addition to the two suggestions @Delba made.
The Form:
I took a look at RailsCasts #196 again and noticed that my form looked different than the one used there, so I tried to match it up:
    <%= form_for @service_offering do |f|%>

      <%= f.label :name%>
      <%= f.text_field :name %>

      <%= f.label :description %>
      <%= f.text_field :description %>

    <%= f.fields_for :business_developers do |builder| %>

      <%= builder.label :first_name %>
      <%= builder.text_field :first_name %>

      <%= builder.label :last_name %>
      <%= builder.text_field :last_name %>

<%end%>
    <%= f.submit "Submit" %>
<%end%>

Initially, this presented an error:
undefined method `service_offerings_path'

Routes:
This lead me to learn about RESTful Routes because I was using the old routing style:
match ':controller(/:action(/:id(.:format)))'

So I updated my routes to the new RESTful Routes style:
  get "service_offerings/list"
  resource :service_offerings
  resource :business_developers

attr_accessible:
That got the form visible but it was still not working. So I did some searching around on this site and found this post that talked about adding "something_attributes" to your parent objects model under attr_accessible. So I did:
class ServiceOffering < ActiveRecord::Base
 has_many :business_developer_service_offerings
 has_many :business_developers, :through => :business_developer_service_offerings
 accepts_nested_attributes_for :business_developers
 attr_accessible :name, :description, :business_developers_attributes
end

That change along with @Delba's suggestion shown in the above model and controller listed below solved it.
def new
 @service_offering = ServiceOffering.new
 @business_developer = @service_offering.business_developers.build
end

A: You just forgot to assign @business_developper.
def new
  @service_offering = ServiceOffering.new
  @business_developper = @service_offering.business_developpers.build
end

-
@business_developer = @service_offering.business_developers.build

initializes an instance of biz_dev which is then available in the view.
fields_for :biz_dev isn't really tied to this instance but to the many-to-many relationship btw serv_off and biz_dev.
In this way, you can add multiple input for additional biz_dev if you initialize another biz_dev instance in your controller. For instance:
5.times { @service_offering.biz_dev.build }

will add additional fields in your form without you having to declare them in your view.
I hope it helped.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
GIC releases 'Report on the Management of the Government's Portfolio for the Year 2011/12'
The Government of Singapore Investment Corporation Pte Ltd (GIC) releases its annual report on its management of the Singapore Government's portfolio for the financial year ended 31 March 2012.
For the financial year ended March 2012, the 20-year annualised real rate of return was 3.9%, the same as the real rate of return for the previous financial year. This means that GIC has enhanced the Government's portfolio with real returns averaging 3.9% per year, in addition to having protected the portfolio against global inflation.
GIC continues to publish the 5-year and 10-year nominal rates of return to provide a sense of the on-going medium-term investment performance, even while GIC maintains its sights on the long term. The 5-year annualised return in USD terms was 3.4% net of fees with a volatility of 12.9%, while the 10-year annualised return was 7.6% with a volatility of 10.4%. The returns and volatility statistics are compared against two composite global portfolios to offer perspective in reading the 5-year and 10-year figures.
Mr Ng Kok Song, GIC's Group Chief Investment Officer, says: "Investment returns are likely to be low until the global economy returns to balanced and sustainable growth. Debt-deleveraging in the developed economies will continue to hinder their growth. The emerging economies led by China will have higher and more robust growth but are not yet of a sufficient scale to offset anaemic growth in the developed economies."
Mr Lim Siong Guan, GIC's Group President, says: "This year, our report offers specific insights into GIC's investment considerations. Two feature articles explain how GIC invests with a long-term horizon and how GIC goes about selecting external public market fund managers."

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Following Wednesday morning's announcement from the Isles of Scilly Steamship Company regarding the early departure of the Scillonian III, we have taken the decision to close the school early to allow families to catch the boat without it affecting their children's attendance. This includes the bases on St Agnes, St Martin's and Tresco & Bryher. Base Leaders will make individual decisions regarding Collaboration Day and will inform their families accordingly.
School will close at 12 midday on Friday 20th October to allow families to check in by 12.45pm. Work will be set by teachers to cover the missed afternoon session.
Because of this early closure, there will be no hot meals available.
I wish you a happy and restful break. Fingers crossed for good weather at the start of November!


"error-message":"Request could not be completed because the relevant data model content does not exist "
The methods (GET, PUT, DELETE, POST) are defined and exposed in the Yang UI and the API explorer. Are they supposed to be able to change the network configuration or are they meant to serve a different purpose?
I have tried connecting both a real switch (Pica8 3290 running OVS) and mininet OvS, and used the YangUI within Dlux. In all cases, this URL (restconf/config/network-topology:network-topology) returns this error.
A different URL (/restconf/operational/network-topology:network-topology) has only the GET method and works fine as ready-only topology.
[edit 2] Just wanted to clarify that I'm trying to manipulate the topology entirely within and only within OpenDayLight, independent of the initial network topology that ODL first received/constructed. Is that possible?
Is e.g. openvswitch or a real switch attached ? Try also the yangui within dlux. This allows you to easily explore the rest calls.
/config/ is the "desired state" (no default state -> no data in there), but your live topology is visible in the operational tree, so that matches your observation. This is the split between config / operation inherited from the NETCONF standard.
My advice is , don't try to populate topology using REST API instead write program to populate Operational Data store of network topology.
I guess this will help.
Thanks, that makes sense but how did you figure out that data doesn't transfer? Is there an API for populating Operational Data Store?
Are the features for what you are trying to achieve installed ? In this case, it seems you are trying to use the OVSDB feature to connect some OVS switches.
Can you include the json payload used to create the topology ?
I'm trying to set network topology with RESTCONF, not OVSDB directly. I have this module installed: 78 | Active | 80 | 2013.10.19.7-Lithium | org.opendaylight.yangtools.model.ietf-restconf What URL and methods should I use?


text:
Q: How do I configure SqlServer for BCP on linux? I have my client on linux and my server on Windows.  The functionality I need is to run BCP with the option -T to use automated authentication.  This works with my account from Windows and Linux but fails with the automated build user on Linux (it does not run on Windows).
I have manually cloned my user and login attributes fot the build user but it does not work.  I keep getting the error:

[DB][139693847296160] DB: HY000: [unixODBC][Microsoft][ODBC Driver 11
  for SQL Server]SSPI Provider: Key has been revoked

I have also tried setting the build user as a login on SqlServer and mapping it to a new build user on the database.  This user owns every schema and is a member of every role on the table.  However, the error is the same.
Is there some other configuration that needs to be done?


text:
Does a thaw in relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia offer hope for Christians?
Posted on 01/08/2018 24/06/2021 by cswpress in Eritrea, Sub-Saharan Africa
A thick layer of dust coats everything inside the Eritrean embassy in the Ethiopian capital, which was unlocked this week for the first time since 1998. Photos of this 'time capsule' were published by the BBC, which, along with the world's media, is charting the remarkable thaw in relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia. The two nations went to war in 1998 but maintained a war footing due to Ethiopia's refusal to allow demarcation of their common border, in accordance with a 2003 ruling.
Raft of Reforms, and Peace with Eritrea
Since coming to power in April, Ethiopia's new president, Abiy Ahmed, has embarked on a raft of reforms. The state of emergency was ended; the head of prison services was fired following allegations of widespread torture; thousands of political prisoners were released; proscribed organisations can now function and media restrictions were lifted.
President Abiy also prioritised peace with Eritrea. In a change in direction, he agreed to implement the UN-brokered agreement in full, including border demarcation. Things have moved swiftly: he visited Eritrea, peace was officially instituted, and Eritrea's President Isaias Afewerki made his own historic visit to Ethiopia, where he received gifts, attended a peace concert and raised the flag at the re-opened embassy alongside his counterpart. Meanwhile, the UN Secretary General amongst others has mooted the prospect of lifting the sanctions imposed on Eritrea for destabilising Ethiopia and Somalia.
These welcome developments may assist in lowering tensions in the Horn of Africa and may also produce economic benefits. However, while the rapprochement was preceded by human rights improvements in Ethiopia, similar developments are yet to occur in Eritrea.
"However, while the rapprochement was preceded by human rights improvements in Ethiopia, similar developments are yet to occur in Eritrea."
Violations of the Right to Freedom of Religion or Belief in Eritrea
Eritrea's human rights record remains among the worst in the world. The government's seeming obsession with controlling every aspect of its citizens' lives and its heightened sensitivity to any perceived challenges mean the extensive rights enshrined within its ratified but unimplemented constitution have been disregarded.
Rights are comprehensively violated, including the right to freedom of religion or belief. A UN Commission of Inquiry has determined the regime and its officials have committed crimes against humanity since 1991, including the crime of persecution. Eritrea's Christian community has experienced severe repression since 2002, when the government effectively outlawed every religious community except those practising Sunni Islam, Orthodox Christianity, Catholicism, and Evangelical Lutheranism.
"Eritrea's Christian community has experienced severe repression since 2002, when the government effectively outlawed every religious community except those practising Sunni Islam, Orthodox Christianity, Catholicism, and Evangelical Lutheranism."
As he arrived in Ethiopia, President Afewerki was met by several dignitaries, including representatives of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, whom he greeted warmly. Yet members of the Eritrean Orthodox Church who remain loyal to the legitimate patriarch face mistreatment and imprisonment, while Church assets are regularly expropriated. On July 12, Patriarch Abune Antonios marked his 91st birthday under house arrest, which he has endured since 2007. One of many prisoners of conscience, his release and reinstatement would serve as a litmus test for genuine reform.
Even as President Afewerki basked in admiration in Ethiopia, tens of thousands of Eritreans were languishing in unsatisfactory detention facilities ranging from shipping containers to open air facilities in deserts. Among them are several hundred Christians from non-sanctioned churches, detained indefinitely in a campaign of arrests that has been ongoing since 2002, and which at its zenith saw around 3,000 detained arbitrarily.
Conditions are dire. According to eyewitnesses, prisoners of all faiths and none are deprived of adequate food and water and timely access to medication. The lack hygiene poses particular problems for female prisoners. All prisoners are also subject to severe mistreatment; however, female prisoners are vulnerable to gender-based violence.
Conditions are also life-threatening. In August 2017, Fikadu Debesay, a Christian mother-of-four detained in house-to-house raids in Adi Quala in May 2017 and held in a desert camp, died on her way to hospital following mistreatment, poor conditions and delayed medical assistance. Her husband and eldest son, who had also been detained, only found out about her death when they were released weeks later.
Children are not spared. In May 2016, 79 men, women and children, including a mother and baby, were rounded up during a wedding party. In August 2016, eight Christians, including a mother and her three year-old child, were arrested while gathering in a rural area.
Even when they are not arrested with their parents, children still suffer. In May 2017, 45 Christians were arrested during raids in Adi Quala including entire families, the elderly and a disabled woman, leaving 23 children without parental care. Thirty-three women who were among the first to be arrested in the raids in May were detained in an infamous island prison. Most were young mothers whose husbands were either military conscripts or were eking out existences elsewhere. Their arrests deprived 50 children of parental care.
"Thousands flee Eritrea each month, risking a shoot-to-kill border practice and abuse by traffickers."
Thousands flee Eritrea each month, risking a shoot-to-kill border practice and abuse by traffickers. Figures from the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) illustrate that by the end of 2015, around 12 per cent of the entire population had fled. According to the organisation's March 2018 report, 167,969 Eritreans have sought refuge in Ethiopia, with 2,772 arriving from January to March. Seeing the author and embodiment of the abuses from which they fled being feted in the country where they sought refuge must be deeply worrying for this vulnerable community.
Eritrea used the conflict with Ethiopia to justify its militarised society, the perpetual war footing, indefinite military service, civilian militia duties even for the elderly and clergy, and the indefinite deferral of democratisation. Since peace is now official, demobilising the civilian militia and conscripts, and facilitating fundamental rights and freedoms would constitute additional evidence of genuine change.
"The international community must resist the urge to take Eritrea at face value. While the current rapprochement is to be encouraged, true peace must include justice for Eritreans."
The international community must resist the urge to take Eritrea at face value. While the current rapprochement is to be encouraged, true peace must include justice for Eritreans. Human rights monitoring remains more important than ever, as the regime's greatest victims are still its own people.
By Dr Khataza Gondwe, CSW's joint Head of Advocacy and Team Leader for Africa and the Middle East.
[First published by Christian Today, 18 July 2018]
Tagged abune antonios, adi quala, arrest, christians, civil war, fikadu debesay, isaias afewerki, military, peace agreement, persecution, prison, raid, refugee, sanctions, torture
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James E. Finch, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Oklahoma, and Rex Eskridge, Chief, Muskogee Police Department, announced the arrest of Roger Reed, Jr, 23, of Muskogee, related to the recent robbery of a Bank of Oklahoma branch in Muskogee.
At approximately 9 a.m. today, Reed was taken into custody in Alexander, Arkansas, near Little Rock. Reed was arrested without incident by Officers of the Alexander Police Department. The Bank of Oklahoma branch bank, located at 300 N. 32nd Street, Muskogee, was robbed at approximately 12:20 p.m. last Friday, July 10, when a black male approached a teller and demanded money.
Both the FBI and Muskogee Police Department received numerous tips from the public which assisted in identifying and locating Reed.
"The public and media play a huge role in assisting law enforcement in these types of cases," said Finch. "When we have good descriptions or photographs of a subject, and we get good media coverage, we usually get good results. That was the case in this situation."
Reed faces Federal Bank Robbery charges in Muskogee. He is being held in the Saline County Jail, Benton, Arkansas.


text:
Audit and feedback to improve laboratory test and transfusion ordering in critical care: a systematic review
Foster M ;
Presseau J ;
McCleary N ;
Carroll K ;
McIntyre L ;
Hutton B ;
Brehaut J
School of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Ottawa, 451 Smyth Road, Ottawa, ON, K1H 8M5, Canada. Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Clinical Epidemiology Program, The Ottawa Hospital, General Campus, 501 Smyth Road, Centre for Practice Changing Research, Box 201B, Ottawa, ON, K1H 8L6, Canada. School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, 136 Jean-Jacques Lussier, Vanier Hall, Ottawa, ON, K1N 6N5, Canada. Department of Critical Care Medicine, The Ottawa Hospital, General Campus, 501 Smyth Road, Ottawa, ON, K1H 8L6, Canada. Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Knowledge Synthesis Unit, The Ottawa Hospital, General Campus, 501 Smyth Road, Centre for Practice Changing Research, Box 201B, Ottawa, ON, K1H 8L6, Canada. School of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Ottawa, 451 Smyth Road, Ottawa, ON, K1H 8M5, Canada: jbrehaut@ohri.ca Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Clinical Epidemiology Program, The Ottawa Hospital, General Campus, 501 Smyth Road, Centre for Practice Changing Research, Box 201B, Ottawa, ON, K1H 8L6, Canada: jbrehaut@ohri.ca
Implement Sci. 2020;15(1):46
Georg Thieme Verlag Stuttgart, New York
Ovid Technologies, Inc.
PICO Summary
Healthcare professionals ordering laboratory tests or blood transfusion components for patients in an intensive care unit (16 studies).
17 different Audit and Feedback (A&F) interventions to improve laboratory test and transfusion ordering.
Usual care (no intervention; historical or concurrent), or any other single or multifaceted behavioral intervention that did not involve A&F (e.g., education, incentives, reminders, or systems-based changes).
The included studies described 17 interventions, mostly (88%) multifaceted interventions with an A&F component. Feedback was most often provided in a written format only (41%), more than once (53%), and most often only provided data aggregated to the group-level (41%). Most studies saw a change in the hypothesized direction, but not all studies provided statistical analyses to formally test improvement. Overall study quality was low, with studies often lacking a concurrent control group.
BACKGROUND Laboratory tests and transfusions are sometimes ordered inappropriately, particularly in the critical care setting, which sees frequent use of both. Audit and Feedback (A&F) is a potentially useful intervention for modifying healthcare provider behaviors, but its application to the complex, team-based environment of critical care is not well understood. We conducted a systematic review of the literature on A&F interventions for improving test or transfusion ordering in the critical care setting. METHODS Five databases, two registries, and the bibliographies of relevant articles were searched. We included critical care studies that assessed the use of A&F targeting healthcare provider behaviors, alone or in combination with other interventions to improve test and transfusion ordering, as compared to historical practice, no intervention, or another healthcare behaviour change intervention. Studies were included only if they reported laboratory test or transfusion orders, or the appropriateness of orders, as outcomes. There were no restrictions based on study design, date of publication, or follow-up time. Intervention characteristics and absolute differences in outcomes were summarized. The quality of individual studies was assessed using a modified version of the Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Cochrane Review Group's criteria. RESULTS We identified 16 studies, including 13 uncontrolled before-after studies, one randomized controlled trial, one controlled before-after study, and one controlled clinical trial (quasi-experimental). These studies described 17 interventions, mostly (88%) multifaceted interventions with an A&F component. Feedback was most often provided in a written format only (41%), more than once (53%), and most often only provided data aggregated to the group-level (41%). Most studies saw a change in the hypothesized direction, but not all studies provided statistical analyses to formally test improvement. Overall study quality was low, with studies often lacking a concurrent control group. CONCLUSIONS Our review summarizes characteristics of A&F interventions implemented in the critical care context, points to some mechanisms by which A&F might be made more effective in this setting, and provides an overview of how the appropriateness of orders was reported. Our findings suggest that A&F can be effective in the context of critical care; however, further research is required to characterize approaches that optimize the effectiveness in this setting alongside more rigorous evaluation methods. TRIAL REGISTRATION PROSPERO CRD42016051941.
Study Design : Systematic Review


metals. Discover the new jewel of the UT Southwestern neighborhood.
activities here at The Southwestern.
This apartment is $206 cheaper than the median price for 1BR / 1BA apartments in Northwest Dallas, which is $1,175.
The apartment is a unit offered at a monthly price of . One of the key perks is the building doorman. The building also boasts a fitness center to help residents stay in great shape. Both cats and dogs are allowed, but as always, double check with the manager about any specific pet concerns you may have. The kitchen conveniently includes a dishwasher.


only a nitpick, but aren't they kinetic balls?
@katsushiro: Indeed they are… But how do you know they aren't *magnetic* kinetic balls Hmmm?
@Phyreblade: good point, perhaps they might even be *Germanic* magnetic kinetic balls?
@katsushiro: I've seen these before. They're Tantric Germanic kinetic magnetic balls.
Gigantic Tantric Germanic Kinetic Magnetic Balls.
Lmao. You guys crack me up. Love the song.
hmmmm balls… chocolate salty balls.. everybody loves my balls when i put them in there mouth ?!!
lol I believe you have something there; now just say it 3 times really fast!
AC/DC w Brian Johnson rocks, but I do miss the fun Bon Scott put into his work.
Concurred that it was the gayest album ever. Pretty Hate Machine ftw.


text:
list of mining companies of india
List of Coal Mining extracting resources in India - BGR Mining
BGR Mining is one of the best List of Coal Mining extracting resources Company in India provides high quality resources all over India.
These are the world''s 40 biggest mining companies – MINING.
Jun 14, 2016· click here for mining''s updated top 50 mining companies ranking PwC''s latest report into the performance of the world''s 40 largest mining companies .
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May 16, 2019· GAIL (India) Limited is a Maharatna Status Company and ranked 8th in the list of top 10 public sector companies in India. Founded in the year 1984, GAIL (India) Limited is a leading producer and distributor of natural gas in India.
List of Coal_Mines Resources - Global Energy Observatory
About GEO. GEO is a set of free interactive databases and tools built collaboratively by people like you. GOAL: to promote an understanding, on a global scale, of the dynamics of change in energy systems, quantify emissions and their impacts, and accelerate the transition to carbon-neutral, environmentally benign energy systems while providing affordable energy to all.
Top 10 Marble Companies in India | Lomrod
Jun 01, 2017· Indian Marble Company is one of the most reputable stone, marble and granite suppliers and installation contracting companies in India, abu dhabi, ajman, bahrain, karachi, United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Dubai. Lomrod is India''s expert in natural stone, granite and marble products.
Mining Investment India | 25 - 26 July 2019, New Delhi
Mining Technology is an integral part of the mining industry throughout the entire mining life cycle, from exploration, production to closure and post mining land use. Embracing the latest technological innovations has helped mining companies improve efficiency, lower costs and enhance profits.
Jun 14, 2016· China is featuring more heavily. All four companies admitted to the list for the first time was from China, pushing out Canada''s First Quantum and Teck Resources.
Top Coal Mining Companies in India | Management Paradise
Jun 14, 2017· Top Coal Mining Companies in India - August 12th, 2011 Coal mining in India: Nowadays, the demand for coal is improving in India with the development of thermal power plants at a very past pace as compared to what it was a decade ago.
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Basically, FMCG companies operate the business through a wide distribution network. And the range of fast moving consumer products also helps to fetch the revenue fast. According to the brand value and revenue earnings, we have compiled here top 10 FMCG companies in India. List of Top 10 FMCG Companies in India 1.
Publicly Traded Metals and Mining Companies | InvestSnips
Metals and Mining Stocks. Gold, Large and Mid-Cap and Small-Cap Companies: Most of the gold mining companies listed on U.S. exchanges are headquartered outside of the United States and most are headquartered in either Canada or South Africa. One of the largest U.S. companies in this section is Newmont Mining Corporation (NEM)...
List of Mining Companies in Nigeria
Palladium Mining Limited is one of the leading mining and exploration company in Nigeria providing expert support services to companies in the areas of solid mineral exploration and more. 9 Red Mining
Opportunities in India mining sector - PwC
Section 1 – Mining industry in India • Large listed state owned mining companies, integrated private mining-metal companies, and independent holdings. – SOMC dominate: 72% by value produced but differ by sector (92% in coal, 31% in iron ore). • A large part of the industry is fragmented (573 coal, 553 metallic, 1523 non-metallic mines)
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complete list of mining companies in india. complete list of mining companies in india. As a leading global manufacturer of crushing and milling equipment, we offer advanced, rational solutions for any size-reduction requirements, including quarry, aggregate, grinding production and .
Saumya Mining Limited - India''s Leading Mining Company
Saumya Mining is equipped with Credentials and Capabilities, for any kind of Mining (Coal and Other Minerals) and Prospecting across India and is the flagship company of the Group. Ajay Jain SML credits its success and status to its team on the ground which is like one big family and totally focused on Quality and Timely Delivery of all the ...
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To satisfy this demand, heavy investment has been seen in mining assets in Canada, South America, Australia, Asia and Central Europe amongst others. In addition, some mining companies are looking at ways to get to quality reserves in non-traditional locations, including Mongolia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan and Mauritania.
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The above Company, incorporated under the Indian Companies Act, was working in the Manganese Mine in the State of Orissa under the lease granted by that State under the provision of Mines and Minerals (Development & Regulation) Act, 1948, i.e., Central Act 53 .
Adani Enterprises
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Development of Indian Mining Industry - Full version
titled "Development of Indian Mining Industry – The Way Forward". The report covers all non-fuel minerals that are either produced in India or imported and used in India. FICCI''s mining division has developed this report in-house which goes to showcase our capabilities.
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Address:29-30, Old Industrial Area, Alwar, Rajasthan, India, Alwar, Rajasthan, India EMPIRE CABLE INDUSTRIES PVT LTD Power cable, Control Cable, HT and LT Cables, Multi Core Flexible Wire, Coaxial Submersible ho cableok-up wire, instrumentation cables, house wiring single multicore screened, tele-communication self supporting drop wires, industrial auto power cords, XLPE wire harness, mining .
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InData Labs, a data science company that provides big data strategy consulting, engineering & predictive analytics services. Belarus. Inductis, providing Analytics Services and Analytics Outsourcing practice; winners of ECML-PKDD 2006 data mining challenge. Offices in US, India, and Singapore.
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NMDC LIMITED: This State-owned enterprise has received Navratna status for Public Sector Company. It operates 4 mines in the country which are involved in the exploration of diamond, tungsten, phosphate, graphite, dolomite, iron ore and other various minerals and ores and is the leading producer of iron ore in the country.
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Welcome to M/S Naaraayani Minerals, a reputed mining and crushing company based in India. In 2004, we had established a partnership unit with Mr. Ajay Khatore and Mr. Sanjay Passary. Fast forward to 2016, and today we are a highly renowned mining and crushing company in the country.
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Mining Companies in Obuasi, Ghana. List of Best Mining Companies in Obuasi, Ghana with Addresses, Phone numbers, Reviews, Photos and More on Ghana Business Directory.
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Telephone:91-9982685164 Address:bhilwara, Bhilwara, Rajasthan, India. SURFACE COATS & POLYMER SPECIALTIES. We are a major processor and exporter of minerals from India into various global markets. With long-term partnership & close association with some the finest mines in world located India, we able to offer Top quality for export market.
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Mar 26, 2014· Mining giants – the top ten richest mining companies. Image courtesy of Rio Tinto. The world biggest Carajas iron ore mine is operated by vale, the fourth world''s biggest miner. Minas Rio iron ore project in Brazil is owned and operated by Anglo American, the .
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text:
Facts About Nobelium
By Live Science Staff 14 October 2013
Nobelium
(Image: © Andrei Marincas | Shutterstock)
Atomic Number: 102 Atomic Symbol: No Atomic Weight: 259 Melting Point: 1,521 F (827 C) Boiling Point: Unknown
Word Origin: Nobelium is named after Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite.
Discovery: The element was officially discovered in April 1958 in Berkeley, California, by Albert Ghiorso, Glenn Seaborg, Torbørn Sikkeland and John R. Walton. The year before, a team in Stockholm, Sweden, at the Nobel Institute of Physics announced a new element called nobelium that had a half-life of 10 minutes. That discovery could not be replicated, however, though labs in Berkeley and Dubna, Russia, attempted it. The Berkeley team produced an isotope, 254No, with a half-life of three seconds, and the Russians replicated that discovery. Credit for nobelium's discovery was given to the Berkeley team, who decided to keep the name nobelium.
Properties of nobelium
Nobelium is a member of the actinide series and little is known about it. There are 10 recognized isotopes of nobelium. The most stable is 259No, which has a half-life of about 58 minutes. [See Periodic Table of the Elements]
Sources of nobelium
Nobelium is artificially produced, and it has never been made in great quantities. It can be produced through bombarding Curium-246 with Carbon-12 ions.
Uses of nobelium
Because nobelium has only been produced in small quantities, its only use is within scientific research.
(Sources: Los Alamos National Laboratory, Jefferson Lab)
Cats with smooshed faces can't express emotions, and it's all our fault


text:
from __future__ import absolute_import

from tornado import ioloop

from service import KeyValue
from tchannel.tornado import TChannel

app = TChannel('keyvalue-server', hostport='localhost:8889')

values = {'hello': 'world'}

@app.register(KeyValue)
def getValue(request, response):
    key = request.args.key
    value = values.get(key)

    if value is None:
        raise KeyValue.NotFoundError(key)

    return value

@app.register(KeyValue)
def setValue(request, response):
    key = request.args.key
    value = request.args.value
    values[key] = value

def run():
    app.listen()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    run()
    ioloop.IOLoop.current().start()

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Peter Herman, Contributor
Theologian, cyclist, father
Another Debate, More Bad Christianity
DES MOINES, IA-October 31: Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), speaks at the Growth and Opportunity Party, at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, Saturday October 31, 2015. With just 93 days before the Iowa caucuses Republican hopefuls are trying to shore up support amongst the party. (Photo by Steve Pope/Getty Images)
We'll soon be treated to another Republican debate. I don't mean to pick on this one party, but they do seem to like to talk about religion more than the other one. Recently, Ted Cruz opined that atheists ought to be excluded from the presidency. Aside from the howlingly poor understanding of the Constitution this infers, it's important to note where he made this claim. It was at Freedom 2015: National Religious Liberties Conference. Keynote speakers at that gathering included Kevin Swanson, who would go on to make a bizarre, but undeniably impassioned, allusion to Job.
Screenshot from Right Wing Watch/YouTube
Why is it a bizarre allusion? First, there's the matter of who is standing in for Job in the reference. When he begins by moaning that he would cover himself in sackcloth and ashes (and cow manure) at the doorway of his son's hypothetical gay wedding, Swanson continues by calling LGBTQI people the people "covered in the pussy [pus-filled] sores". What is odd is that Job is the one inflicted with horrible sores "from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head" (Job 2:7b). He is also, of course, the one who has rent his clothing in despair upon hearing not of a same-sex wedding, but of the death of his children.
Some have looked to Job as a book that explains theodicy, the term used for the persistence of evil in the presence of a loving God. David Burrell offers a different read of the book, saying even in the sub-title of his work that "Job has nothing to say to the puzzle of suffering." I agree with much of what Burrell offers in this work. Job is much less an explanation of how God is still good even though we may suffer than it is a meditation on the unknowability of God's own motives in all things. We experience God, but we do not know God-in-Godself.
Job was blameless in all things. His wife and his friends argued that he should curse God if this was the case. If this was not the case, they reasoned, then Job was lying about his blamelessness. Job's character is never in question. His misfortunes are the result of a wager between God and a figure often incorrectly identified as the Devil (this figure is called "ha-Satan" in Hebrew, which translates to "the Accuser"). The Accuser is granted power to inflict suffering on Job, because he is certain the latter will turn and curse God. God, however, never doubts Job. Job does not disappoint, only asking for an explanation in the end. God's answer largely boils down to the fact that God's reasons are not human reasons.
Let's return to Swanson. While his discourse on sores certainly seems to invoke Job, his earlier claims about "sackcloth and ashes" may bring Jonah to mind. Most of us know Jonah as "that guy who got swallowed by a whale, or possibly a big fish." Jonah was a prophet, commanded by God to proclaim the destruction of Nineveh. He panicked, and ran to Tarshish instead. From there, he had his encounter with some kind of very large marine creature. When God rescued him from that ordeal, Jonah finally went to Nineveh and proclaimed their destruction. The people of Nineveh converted, proclaimed a fast, and sat in sackcloth and ashes. So perhaps Swanson's intent was an allusion to the necessity of conversion. But if this is the case, his claim that he would be the one in sackcloth and ashes makes him a Ninevite and not a prophet.
So we have a presidential candidate saying that atheists shouldn't be president at an event that also included a man making a strange allusion or two to ancient prophets. Why does this matter in the context of either politics or religion?
Both are examples of bizarre interpretations of their source texts. These interpretations are not just subjectively or subtly incorrect. They are incorrect in bold face. Cruz takes an inexcusable liberty with the Constitution by stating that there could -- indeed should -- be a religious qualification for president. This is explicitly forbidden in Article VI, paragraph 3 of the Constitution. This is not a corner case, subject to argument and nuance. It's just plain not allowed.
In Swanson's case, it's less that he gets the same kind of fact wrong and more that he just doesn't seem to know what to do with his source text. In arguing that same-sex marriage is horrific, Swanson puts LGBTQI people in the metaphorical place of a truly blameless person whose life is being bet on by forces beyond his ken. He places himself in the position of a repentant convert who has heard the cry of a reluctant, and famously petulant, prophet. Here's precisely where it doesn't match up. If Swanson wanted to say that he has repented from approving of same-sex marriage, then his place as a Ninevite is secure. He still, however, places the community he would exclude from Grace in the place of someone without moral culpability for his situation. So is he a repentant convert from approving of something that blameless people do?
These men have both created unworkable and grotesque idols of their texts. Cruz's appeal for a religious test for the presidency flies in the face of the Constitution itself. Swanson's mixed metaphors fly in the face of scriptural literacy. Both men hope to simply make their interpretations true through repetition. If Cruz just calls for a religious litmus test enough, it will be constitutional, right? If Swanson just makes himself a bit less clear, but still appeals to scriptural authority, we'll forget to look into it and come along a bigoted ride, right?
This is bad politics. This is bad Christianity. We hear a lot of this on a daily basis. It is practically background noise during our preternaturally long election season. There are two main ethical duties that fall to us when we hear this kind of speech: one from a secular/political perspective and one from a religious perspective. From the secular/political side, it is important to counter Cruz's unconstitutional assertions about the interplay of religion and politics. From the religious side, it is important to counter Swanson's odd ramblings with a better interpretation of scripture; one that takes the history and context of Job and Jonah into account would be a start. One that calls for justice instead of exclusion would be an even better step.
This post originally appeared on Medium.com.
Religion and Sexuality Religion and Politics Elections 2016 Politics News Republican Party


text:
The War Against Being
by James Larson
Part I: The War Against Being and The Thought of Joseph Ratzinger – Introduction
Article 1: The War Against Being: Science and The Philosophy of Deceit
Article 2: Transubstantiation and the Roots of Priestly Fidelity
Article 3: The Heart of Betrayal
Article 4: The Rosmini Rehabilitation – When To Be is Not To Be
Article 5: The Point of Departure
Article 6: To Belie the Obvious Truth
Article 7: The Suffering Continues
Article 8: A Sobering Assessment
Article 9: Triumph or Chaos
Article 10: The First Essentialization
Article 11: A Confusion of Loves
Article 12: The Quintessential Evolutionist
Article 13: The War Against the Soul
Article 14: The Final Decay
Article 15: The Forgotten Hope
Article 16: The Modernist Deconstruction of Fatima
Article 17: A Living Host: Liturgy, and Cosmic Evolution in the Thought of Benedict XVI and Teilhard de Chardin
Article 18: Why I Am Not SSPX
Article 19: Science: Original and Final Sin
Article 20: The Religion of Abandonment: Sedevacantism and the Concilliarist Heresy
Article 21: The Sifting: The Never- Failing Faith of Peter
Article 22: St. Francis of Assisi: They Pretended to Love You So That They Might Leave You
Article 23: Where We Are Headed and Why
Article 24: The Descent into Darkness: Pope Francis and the Deconstruction of the Human Heart
Article 25: The Darkness of Faith, and the Light of Return
Article 26: "I Know Not the Man": Pope Francis, The Natural Child of Pope Benedict XVI
Article 27: Gnosticism: The Nest of the Antichrist
Article 28: God's Love and Hate
Article 29: The Truth of Mercy
Article 30: Two Altars at the End of Time: Laudato Si, A Manifesto of Teilhardian Theology
Article 31: Our Chastisement, Our Blessing
Part II: The Philosophy of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Henri de Lubac
Article 1: Broken Cisterns
Article 2: By Arts Entirely New
Part III: Eastern Orthodoxy: Never The Twain Should Meet
Part IV: Usury and The Love of Money
Part V: The Return to God
Part VI: Does God Love Us: An Examination of the Epistemology of John Henry Newman
Part VII: Newman and the Pope
Part VIII: Beauty
Part IX: The Restoration of the Supernatural: In Accord with the Teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas
Part X:The War Against the Papacy
Part XI: Sedevacantism & Pope Paul IV's Apostolic Constitution "Cum ex Apostolatus Officio"
Part XII: The Synod on the Family, Joseph Ratzinger, And the Destruction of the Catholic Mind
Part XIII: Our Lady of Good Success, And God's Secret Designs of Victory
Part XIV: Receiving the Kingdom of God as a Little Child
Part XV: The Immaculate Heart of Mary, The Rosary, and The Survival of Our Faith
Part XVI: The Dream of Nabuchodonosor
Part XVII: The Inaugural Address of the First President of the World Union
Part XVII Sequel: Two Hearts Beat as One: Benedict XVI and Francis I, The Path to the Future
Part XVIII: Amoris Laetitia: Heresy Unveiled
Part XIX: Amoris Laetitia, Part II: Seeking the Ruin of Souls
Part XX: Amoris Laetitia, Part III: Modernism Invades the Catholic Heart
Part XXI: Amoris Laetitia, Part IV: The War Against Being
Part XXII: Slouching Towards Lund to be Conceived
Part XXIII: The Antichrist, And The Papacy of Pope Francis
Part XXIV: What Really Is At Stake: The Letter of the Four Cardinals to Pope Francis Concerning Amoris Laetitia
Part XXV: Honorious, Liberius, John XXII
Part XXVI: Cardinal Burke: The Center Will Not Hold
Part XXVII: A Tower of Babel: The Rush To Depose A Pope
Part XXVIII: Truth Shall Be Cast Down on the Ground: Christ's Advent Blasphemed
Part XXIX: Under Every Green Tree: Donald Trump and the Prostitution of Traditional Catholicism
Part XXX: Under Every Green Tree, Part II: Democracy and the Spirit of Antichrist
The Final Decay
On March 9, 2009, President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order on stem cells, and also a Presidential Memorandum on scientific integrity. In commenting on the nature of the Presidential Memorandum, Obama said, "It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda, and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, and not ideology." The President's demand that scientific data be "never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda" is, of course, a manifest impossibility. Science has always been primarily the concubine of the State, receiving the vast majority of its funding from the State, and pursuing the ends and "political agenda" of whatever person or party is in power in the State. The clearly documented historical fact is that the vast majority of scientific "advances" have in fact been financed by rulers in pursuit of military goals (which largely amounted to finding more efficient ways of killing human beings), and that "concealment" and "distortion" have always been handmaidens to the technological game of "one-upmanship" which is demanded by such military and political competition on the world stage. The notion, therefore, that under the Obama administration, or any other administration, science will not be subservient to a particular political agenda is simply a lie.
Similarly, it is also a total falsehood that scientific decisions can be based exclusively on facts, and not upon ideology and the moral perspective which directly derives from this "ideology." Scientific "decisions" always involve whether, when, how, and where to employ the science and technology which has been developed. The decisions to drop the Bomb on Hiroshima, or to kill 130,000 civilians with phosphorous bombs in Dresden during WWII both absolutely required the presence and support of an "ideology." They also both required the denial of another "ideology," which was the Catholic teaching on actions forbidden in a Just War.
Furthermore the very employment of the scientific method itself is fraught with moral meaning and consequences, and therefore its conduct is necessarily subject to ideological considerations. The Nazi doctors who placed a concentration camp slave in a chamber and then decompressed it until the victim died in screaming agony, were practicing a form of "pure" science. And in their own warped minds, they had very good reasons to do so – to determine the effects of decompression upon pilots during high-altitude flights, and to discover a way to overcome these adverse effects. In order to not permit such an experiment upon a human being, a government would have to be profoundly steeped in an ideology which absolutely views such science as morally wrong and not permissible. President Obama lifted the restrictions placed upon embryonic stem-cell research because such restrictions, in his own words, "forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values." He could only do so by denying the "moral value" of an unborn child, just as it was required of the Nazi doctors that they deny the moral value of their concentration camp victims. There is, in other words, always an ideology involved in the practice of science.
No, the "problem" which Barack Obama seeks to remedy in regard to science is not the presence of an ideology per se. It is the presence of what he believes is the wrong ideology. The President wishes to entirely eliminate Christian ideology from American life. He seems to fully understand that the primary means to accomplishing this purging is somehow to be identified with a final unleashing of the scientific enterprise. This should not be surprising to us. The symbols of Freemasonry are the compass and the square; of Communism, the hammer and sickle. These are symbols of man's becoming – of his industry, science, and accumulated evolutionary knowledge – in triumph over Christian revelation and dogma. They represent the current litmus test of the world – symbols of movement, change, adaption, dialogue, diplomacy, and willingness to compromise – which seek to determine if we are worthy to enter into a New World Order, and which demand erasure of any unbending adherence to moral principles or religious truth. I do not know whether this commitment on his part is mostly intuitive, or whether it is accompanied by comprehensive knowledge of the profound antagonism inherent between modern science and Christianity. I suspect the latter. The enemy seems to understand this war quite well. It is the Christian, most often, who seeks to play the harlot before his enemy. Largely, this is done out of an ignorance which results from a long history of compromise with evil. It is for the purpose of eradicating this ignorance, and exposing the depths of this compromise, that this article is being written.
The Greek Perversion
It is part of the intellectual accouterment of every American school boy and girl that much of what constitutes the modern values which we hold most dear – freedom, democracy, the primacy of respect due to the individual rather than the collective, and the real beginnings of what we recognize as rational thought and philosophy – began with the Greeks. Somehow, according to this popular perspective, it all boils down to the idea that what we owe to the Greeks is some deep internal change within the mind and heart of man by which science began its long march of triumph over superstition.
All serious historians of science and its affects upon modern thought conclude that it all began with the "Greek miracle" over 2500 years ago, specifically with the philosopher Thales and the MIlesian School . It is quite wrong to place these early Greek philosophers in a category which only perceives their errors and naivety. What began with them was something radically new and different. It consisted in a proposal to the human spirit that truth was to be found only in that which human reason could discover and confirm. Daniel-Rops put it this way:
"Athens and Jerusalem are the epitome of two contradictory attitudes of the spirit: one calls only on the intellect for an explanation of the world, of life, and of man, while the other relies exclusively on faith to reach the same ultimate goal. In the fifth century B.C., these two paths are pursued independently, totally oblivious to each other. They will eventually collide…; the ultimate showdown was to build up through a lengthy journey across history."
All of this is true enough. Yet I also believe this explanation does not truly penetrate to the real depths of what its admirerers call the "Greek Miracle," but which I prefer to call the "Greek Inversion" (which is at the same time a profound perversion).
Virtually all of the early Greek philosophers practiced one form or another of a very strange scientific reductionism. Imagine, for instance, gazing at two very different things standing next to one another – let us say, the extraordinary thing that is a fully flowering peach tree and a very large boulder – and concluding that the substantial natures of both of these things are reducible to water. You would then have the "science" of the Greek philosopher Thales. Or, picture a large substantial thing called an elephant, and imagine that its substance is entirely reducible to air, and you would have the science of Anaximenes. Finally, but certainly not exhausting the list, imagine that all things, including water and ice, are reducible to fire, and you have the Greek Perversion as practiced by Heraclitus.
Now, we should realize that something truly extraordinary and perverted has happened to the intellectual soul of man in order for him to do such a thing – something on the scale of that original perversion and inversion by which Adam and Eve attempted to become "like gods" in replacing God as the source of the knowledge of good and evil. The one thing which we should notice that all of these "sciences" have in common is their philosophical monism – the reduction of everything in the universe to a unity of one material substance. The interesting thing is that each of these gentlemen also considered their "One" divine. Heraclitus even identified his "fire" with "logos" – the divine principle of reason in the universe. All of this would indeed seem to be the ultimate form of that idolatry described by St. Paul in Romans 1, in which man "changed the glory of the incorruptible God" into the likeness of created things. The significant difference, however, is that these new objects of man's "glorification" are not the idols of birds, beasts, and snakes which we associate with the Old Testament concept of idolatry, but rather idols concocted of his own ideas, conceptualizations, and quantifications. Idolatry, in other words, has been fully internalized, and in this process the entire cosmos has been inverted.
The roots of this fundament inversion – this turning of everything upside down – lie in what might be called a fundamental "philosophical idolatry": the identification of accidental reality with substance. This might at first be a little difficult to see. Water, for instance, is not an accident, but rather a real substance. But science (or the reductive philosophy that accompanies it) never knows water as water, just as it never knows man as man or atom as atom. If Thales had really known water as water he would never have tried to make it into a peach tree or a boulder. Science can only know the quantification (and the other 9 categories of accidental being) of a thing. Pythagoras, because of this inbuilt reality of the scientific method, even went so far as making "number" the substantial essence of all things. But in identifying the accidents of the things with their substantial nature – whether those accidents are of water, air, fire, number, or atoms – and in identifying the accidents of any one of these substances as the unitary substance behind all created reality, reality is perfectly inverted. Such "science" makes accidents into substance, and makes substance into an accidental appearance for which we have no explanation except the subjectivity of our own minds. Thus we end up in that philosophical idealism which will plague Western man from Plato through all the nightmare of relatively modern Western Philosophy – from the Nominalism of Ockham to the Phenomenalism of Joseph Ratzinger.
This whole tradition of reductive analytical science can be viewed as sort of a "diabolical transubstantiation." After engaging in such analysis, accidents remain as the real substance, and our normal perception of substantial reality is reduced to "appearances." Analytical science then becomes the perfect Anagram of reality, in which the "word" or "logos" of God's creation is perfectly inverted, turned upside down, and read backward. I fully believe that the same force which draws a Man to say the Mass backward or invert a Crucifix is the same as that which was at the source of the "Greek Miracle."
In other words, what is effected by the Greek Perversion is not, as postulated by Daniel-Rops, merely a substitution of rational knowledge for faith. Rather, what occurs is the most profound perversion of the inner consciousness and intellect [and thus "rationality" itself) of man at a level which is bound eventually to destroy any possibility of faith in God. This, of course, is Satan's Master Plan. He desires not only the destruction of myriads of individual souls, but also that final alteration of human consciousness which makes it impossible not only to believe in God, but even to desire Him.
In the ancient Greek world, this reductionism reached its pinnacle in the Atomism of Leucippus, Democritus and, most of all, Epicurus, who formulated a logical structure to the theory of Atomism which would remain practically unchanged for the next 2,000 years. With Atomism, philosophical Idealism is in a very real sense completed. Substance becomes totally invisible and unrelated to normal human perception, objective reality ceases to exist as something graspable by the human intellect, subjectivity and idealism triumph, and, matter replaces God as being eternal and infinite.
With some notable exceptions, Atomism was suppressed in the West by Christian realism and the power of the Church from the 1st century AD until the time of the Renaissance. Since the Renaissance consisted largely of the "reawakening" of Greek and Roman culture and thought, the reemergence of Atomism was bound to happen. It exploded upon the scene at the very beginning of the Renaissance in the person of William of Ockham. The great significance of Ockham is that his Atomism was united to his Nominalism, and thus constituted a specific attack upon the metaphysics of St. Thomas. From that point we can gaze upon an ever-increasing tide of Atomism engulfing the West – people like Bruno, Bacon, Galileo, Gassendi, Descartes, and onward through all the empiricists, phenomenologists, etc. We must also include Luther among the Nominalists – he was educated at the University of Erfurt, which was under the control of professors who were Nominalists. Luther himself detested Thomism and opted for the Nominalism of Ockham, which denied the minds ability to grasp universals and the substantial forms of real things.
The immediate victim of the Greek Inversion is the epistemological health of man's mind itself. To convince a man that what he ordinarily perceives as substantive is only subjective, and that what is truly substantive are the reductive formulations, particles, or waves of scientific analysis is to destroy the reliability and objectivity of all of man's perception and knowledge. The ultimate victim, however, of this epistemological nightmare is faith and trust in God Himself. If God created man to see delusions, then the ultimate delusion must be the trustworthiness of God Himself and His Revelation.
What began as ambrosia for wooly-headed philosophers 2500 years ago is now the daily bread of our children. Every child in the public educational system of this country is taught a reductive scientism which produces in them a state of epistemological schizophrenia. And since one can only will on the basis of what one knows, this also results in increasingly widespread moral inversion and perversion. It is no wonder therefore that we are raising what appears to be entirely different kinds of human beings: millions of men and women, for instance, who have no compunction about killing their own unborn children; youth who are submerged in drugs and violence; children who walk into schools and mow down their fellow students and teachers. Nothing is absolute, nothing is substantial, and the human heart and mind react with confusion, despair, irrationality, perversion, and violence.
The Moral Inversion
The fundamental intellectual perversion which science has accomplished in human thinking and its apprehension of reality is necessarily accompanied by a corresponding perversion of man's other great faculty, the will. The human will, by its very nature, is rooted in the human intellect and its apprehension of substantial being. The proper function of the will is therefore to desire and will good for what God has created, whether it be the good of one's own self or the good of others. It's most fundamental orientation is therefore towards being, and not becoming – towards what is, rather than towards what will be or could be.
On the other hand, the person whose consciousness has been so altered as to now identify substantial reality with accidental being, inevitably suffers a loss of this "good will." Since accidental being is by its very nature the foundation of change in life, and since modern man has come to identify such accidental being and change as the very substance of reality, his will has now lost its primary identification with what is, and now functions as a desire for unending change and becoming. Under such conditions, all sacredness is lost to those values and institutions which rely on any concept of substantiality and permanence: marriage, the Family, the equal value of all human life from conception until natural death, the whole concept of revealed eternal truth and, pre-eminently, the concept of a God Who does not change.
Under such a state of altered human consciousness, science becomes the supreme master. Constituted as the greatest agent for growth and human evolution, it must be released from all absolute moral restraints. The primary institution which clings to such absolute moral restraints, and thus represents the only real force "holding back" this messianic vision of unending progress, is the Catholic Church and the Papacy. It must therefore be taken out of the way. This is the ideology to which Barack Obama's scientific agenda is intimately bound.
A Dagger to the Heart
The heart of Catholic belief regarding the primacy of being over becoming is inextricably centered upon the inviolability of the right to life of the unborn child. The child in its mother's womb is at a stage in its development where it has become nothing that the world values. It is totally dependent, cannot think, cannot reason, cannot even know God. If it is to be valued, and therefore protected by any sort of moral absolute, this must be so simply because of what it is – a being with a soul created by God in His own image. This is why any attempt to use any form of secular science to defend its right to life is ultimately self-defeating. Because it has a fully developed nervous system at a certain stage, that its heart has begun beating, that it begins to look like a baby or sucks its thumb – these facts constitute no grounds for its inviolability. Aside from sucking its thumb, a pig embryo does the same. It is therefore profoundly wrong to attempt to identify the sanctity of unborn life primarily with such scientific facts of pre-natal development. Building a pro-life position upon such pre-natal science amounts to a retreat before "the reasoning of this world." The extent to which the pro-life movement has tended to focus on these things, while at the same time asserting that religious belief is not necessary for the defense of the unborn, only reveals the extent to which Christians themselves have fallen under the sway of the dominant philosophical consciousness of secular reductionism.
This attempt to use secular categories in defense of the Faith, while remaining either "minimal" or totally silent in proclaiming the real spiritual truths involved, is always a sign of decay in Christian faith. The Christian who does such a thing creates within himself a contradiction between the basic philosophical and epistemological understanding of reality which he has acquired from the secular world and his profession of faith. This contradiction may perdure within a nominally Christian civilization for centuries, with the vast majority of a population professing Christian dogma while at the same time absorbing secular attitudes, philosophical approaches, and beliefs which at their core are in direct contradiction to this profession. Eventually, however, especially in the face of a geometrically expanding scientific ambience, these beliefs are bound to come crashing down. We are now living in the time of this reckoning.
It remains true, however, that while virtually every other facet of Catholic life was succumbing to this inevitable process of decay during the four decades after Vatican Council II, the traditional, orthodox Catholic remained instinctively true to this vision of the absolute centrality of the pro-life issue. The reasons for this staunch "last fidelity" can be largely attributed to the Papacy of Pope John Paul II. While presiding over the dissolution of the Mass, the denial of the Social Kingship of Christ, the virtual total decay of catechetics, the profound failure to appoint and maintain an orthodox episcopacy, and the promotion of a devastatingly destructive ecumenism, John Paul II was nevertheless totally adamant in his defense of marriage and the sanctity of the unborn. It appears now that this fidelity is also now being taken out of the way. It would appear that the primary force accomplishing this dissolution is President Barack Obama.
Something really quite extraordinary has happened with the Obama Presidency. Many prominent Catholic writers have used the word "messianic" in regard to this phenomenon, and there does indeed seem to be a world-wide messianic expectation in regard to this man and his "mission." What is most frightening about this messianic expectation is that it has deeply infiltrated the only moral force and institution in this world which is capable of preventing the rise of such an Antichrist-type figure: the Catholic Church.
Barack Obama's effect upon the Catholic world has been startling. Despite his abundantly clear statements during the campaign that he was totally committed to a woman's right to abortion under all circumstance (including the killing of a child who survived a "botched" abortion)", and the reversal of all previous restrictions on abortion and embryonic stem-cell research, 54% of American Catholic voted for him.
We need to understand why the majority of American Catholics voted for Obama. They did not do so, for the most part, because they now believed in abortion. They simply focused on issues which they considered more important. Similarly, we need also understand that in order for the forces of the Antichrist to be able to triumph over the Catholic Church and its pro-life position (the reader will understand that this "triumph", while being immensely devastating, will not violate the promise of Christ in Matthew 16:18), it is not necessary for the Church to directly deny its pro-life position. It is only necessary for the Church to believe and act upon the notion that other issues are more important – such things as the economy, the war in Iraq, world peace, etc. This, in turn, demands the altered state of consciousness discussed above, in which a particular human agenda for attaining these goals takes precedence over the truths which God has revealed concerning both His own Being and the being of man.
Ultimately, of course, such compromise of the deepest truth concerning human dignity and life entails an at least implicit denial of the actual reality of the equal dignity and right to life of the unborn. One sees it here in America in the Republican Party. Most Republicans are, of course, nominally pro-life. And yet the vast majority opted for the candidacy of John McCain, while turning a blind eye to the terrible inconsistencies and infidelities in regard to his own pro-life record. The problem is that they did this not only after his nomination as the Republican candidate, but in the very early stages of the campaign when there were still options in regard to candidates who possessed a truly consistent pro-life position. If they had really understood the equal dignity and right to life of the unborn, they could never have done so. In order to see this, one need only imagine a similar scenario in the Democratic Party. Imagine registered Democrats voting for Obama for economic and political reasons if he had in the past voiced support for an individual's right, at least in some circumstances, to kill Jews or Mexicans. Most people who consider themselves pro-life, in other words, are not truly pro-life.
Obama's influence over certain Catholic intellectuals and pro-life activists has been even more alarming. Douglas Kmiec, former Dean of the Law School at Catholic University, former head of the Office of Legal Counsel for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, a keynote speaker at an annual March for Life in Washington D.C. and supposed stalwart pro-life activist, announced on March 23, 2008 that he was endorsing Obama for President. He went on to become the central figure in the Roman Catholics for Obama movement. In addition, after the election several very prominent pro-life activists bewilderingly claimed some sort of disproportionate hope or confidence in his future conversion. I know of none so foolish as to have done so in regard to William Clinton, a man whose anti-life agenda almost pales before that of President Obama. And just recently, Sam Brownback, the staunchly anti-abortion Catholic-convert Senator from Kansas, and great Catholic hope in the early stages of the Presidential race, endorsed the militantly pro-abortion Catholic Kathleen Sebelius for the pivotal cabinet position of Secretary of Health and Human Services. These examples (and there are more) are indeed bewildering. Far more extraordinary, however, is what has occurred within the Vatican itself.
The Final Decay?
It began on the day after Barack Obama was elected. Breaking with a protocol which, in the words of a recent Time Magazine article, "usually prevents the Pope from addressing heads of state before they take office," Pope Benedict XVI sent Obama a a congratulatory telegram. And, on January 20, the day of Obama's inauguration, the Pope sent him another telegram, which contained the following words, very expressive of the "messianic" hopes felt by the rest of the world: "At a time when so many of our brothers and sisters throughout the world yearn for liberation from the scourge of poverty, hunger and violence, I pray that you will be confirmed in your resolve to promote understanding, cooperation and peace among the nations."
The Pope certainly knew that Barack Obama was destined to be the most pro-abortion President in history – that he had made totally clear during his campaign his total commitment to abortion on demand, that he had committed himself to signing FOCA, that he totally supported reversing President Bush's restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research, and that he was poised to place American taxpayer funding behind abortion on both a national and international scale.
Imagine a situation in which the historical record clearly indicated that Barack Obama, instead of being militantly pro-abortion, had been vociferous in his support for unrestricted, elective killing of Jews. Would the Pope have sent him a letter of congratulations on the day of his inauguration? If not, then we are bound to ask the simple question: What has happened within the consciousness of Pope Benedict XVI in regard to the Catholic teaching concerning the equal dignity and right-to-life of the unborn child? Does the unborn child really have the same dignity and right-to-life as the already born Jew, black person, or Native American.? The reader then needs to ask a further question: could he or she have sent such a telegram to Obama? If not, then why aren't they horrified that the Pope did so? Does the "agenda of diplomacy" (the political art of becoming) have the right to silence the "agenda of being"?
But this is not the end of the story.
In March, 2009, Archbishop Dom Jose Dardoso Sobrinho of Recife, Brazil publicly declared the automatic excommunication of the doctors and counselors who facilitated an abortion for a nine year old Brazilian girl pregnant with twins. Archbishop Sobrinho was careful to exclude the girl herself from censure. The Archbishop's action precipitated a world-wide condemnation. His action was, of course, in total accord with Catholic doctrine and canon law.
In the March 15 edition of L'Osservatore Romano, Archbishop Salvatore "Rino" Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Academy of Life, joined this world-wide chorus of condemnation of his episcopal colleague with a front-page article condemning Archbishop Sobrinho's action. The article, titled On the Side of the Brazilian Child, declared that Sobrinho acted "hastily," and denied that the doctors who "interrupted her pregnancy "(thus adopting the perverse language of pro-abortionists) deserved excommunication. He also repeated the error that the girl's life was in danger from a pregnancy carried to term. Archbishop Fisichella said all this, of course, while also affirming the Church's "unchanged" teaching that abortion is an intrinsically evil act, even while affirming the doctors' right of conscience to make this "difficult decision." The obvious conclusion is that the evil of abortion is "mitigated under some circumstances," and therefore is not an absolute truth regarding the inviolability of the life of an unborn child.
In an open letter published by LifeSiteNews on May 1, Professor Joseph Seifert, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, wrote:
"The recent publication of an article by PAV President Mons. Fisichella in the Osservatore Romano and its world-wide distribution and use by pro-abortions as well as a press communication of Father Lombardi [Director of the Vatican Press Office], have led to a deep crisis of the Pontifical Academy for Life and, more importantly, of the public perception of Church teaching on abortion. Countless persons and media in the whole world now attribute to the PAV and (because of the high authority its President is believed to possess in interpreting Church teaching on life), and to the Pope himself (because of the wording of a defense of Mons. Fisichella's article by Father Lombardi) a propagation of a new moral doctrine diametrically opposed to the teachings of the Church…."
Despite the fact that it has now been over four months since the publication of Archbishop Fisichella's article, and despite a flood of protests from Pro-life activists around the world, there has been no retraction or correction made of the article. On July 10, the CDF issued a "Clarification", printed in L'Osservatore Romano on July 11, which reaffirmed the Church's traditional position on the intrinsic evil of abortion. It offered no correction or criticism of Fisichella's article, but rather attributed the cause of the "confusion created in several nations" to "manipulations and distortions" of Fisichella's article. This is, of course, absolutely false. Such disingenuousness represents a criticism not only of the pro-abortion forces who rejoiced at what they perceived as a compromise of the Church's position, but also of the pro-life forces and individuals who were rightly horrified at this weakening and outright contradiction of the Church's inflexible stance against any abortion under any circumstances. As Hillary White expressed it in her April 30 LSN article, "The article, and the silence following it from Pope Benedict's curia, has raised fears among some of the world-wide pro-life community that key members of the Vatican hierarchy are silently moving away from the Church's historically robust condemnation of abortion and defense of the absolute sacredness of human life." She goes on to say that "Adding to the unease is the fear that the article has received the highest possible sanction from the hierarchy of the Church. It is common knowledge that articles intended for L'Osservatore Romano are vetted first by the Vatican's Secretariat of State [Cardinal Bertone], the highest office under the papacy. Vatican watcher and respected journalist Sandro Magister said that given the prominence of the article's author and its content, it 'was certainly among the most carefully scrutinized and authorized by the Vatican Secretariat of State.'"
One and one-half months after the above fiasco, The April 30 issue of L'Osservatore Romano carried an article written by Giuseppe Fiorentino, frequent contributor on foreign affairs, titled "Obama in the White House, One Hundred Days that Didn't Shake the World." Time magazine characterized this article as displaying "a surprising optimism, bordering on enthusiasm, for Obama's presidency." Sandro Magister, writing in Chiesa on-line, characterizes the article as offering "wide-ranging admiration: not only for his strategy in international politics, but also on ethical questions 'that are very pressing for the Catholic Bishops.'"
Fiorentino favorably refers to the notion that Obama has accomplished "a decisive turn from the past, a redefinition of the very image of the United States in the world." He compares him to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his ability to offer the hope "which the nations need." In his discussion of Obama's economic policies, Fiorentino even had the cheek to compare Obama to Reagan, "the president who placed a flag for the state's retreat from the private sector."
But it is the author's positive assessment of Obama's pro-abortion activities during the first hundred days which has sent the pro-life movement reeling. Summarized, Fiorentino claims that Obama's actions do not confirm the radical changes he had proposed before becoming President. This is, of course, manifestly absurd. I will not refute it in detail here, but simply refer the reader to an excellent review of the anti-life activities during the first 100 days of the Obama administration, written by Fr. Alphonse de Valk, and published on LifeSiteNews: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/may/09050808.html
Needless to say, Fiorentino's article, the failure to correct or retract it despite a world-wide barrage of complaints to the Vatican, and the Pope's absolute silence concerning this travesty (ah, how quick he was to correct his mistake in regard to Bishop Williamson!), has precipitated a crisis in the pro-life movement. Monsignor Ignacio Barreiro, the head of the Rome office of Human Life International attributes this fiasco to an attempt by the Vatican Secretary of State to build diplomatic bridges with the current Democratic administration. He compares this effort to the "Ostpolitik" policy promoted by the Vatican, and especially by Cardinal Casaroli, towards the Soviet Union, and concludes: "In the same way that the Ostpolitik did not work and only weakened the Church, this current approach to the Democratic Administration will fail and would lead to a further weakening of the Church in the U.S. and probably worldwide." In less polite language, this means that Fiorentino's assessment of Obama is simply a lie, and represents the triumph of diplomacy over truth. It is this same "diplomacy" which, for the past 50 years or more, has prevented the Consecration of Russia as requested by Our Lady. It represents the triumph of man's ways over God's Way, the triumph of diplomacy over truth, the triumph of man's becoming over the inviolable being of the unborn.
It gets even more bizarre.
On May 12 L'Osservatore Romano published a second article praising Obama, with the bizarre title, "The Biblical Matrix of Obama's Rhetoric; the New Frontier and the Promised Land." The article is dominated by the messianic metaphor of Obama being another "Joshua" who, in imitation of his Old Testament precursor, is able to bring his people into the promised land of equality and multi-ethnicity, a task which his predecessor (Martin Luther King as a symbol of Moses) was not able to fully accomplish. Author Lucia Annunziata writes that Obama is "not a prophet, not a founder, but the fulfiller of the promise." She totally neglects the truth that this same "Joshua" has brought the art of discrimination and murder to a height never before attained, with his promotion of the absolute legal and moral right to the killing of the innocent unborn under all circumstances. He thus is the graphic fulfillment of a very different sort of Biblical character: the Antichrist, consummate killer of the innocent.
Even more disturbing, in a May 20 interview with Paul Rodari of the Italian daily Il Riformista, Gian Maria Vian, Editor-in-chief of L'Osservatore Romano, made the outrageous statement that Obama "is not a pro-abortion president." Judgments proliferated in many traditional pro-life circles that Vian was a lone-wolf liberal acting independently, profoundly out of sync with the Pope and the rest of the Vatican, and that his head would roll. In fact, the very opposite has transpired. In an interview with Delia Gallagher posted June 17 on National Review Online, Vian makes it amply clear that he has received no criticism from either the Pope or Cardinal Bertone (Secretary of State). He further states that L'Osservatore Romano is "owned by the Holy See"; that "My editor, in the Italian sense of the owner of the paper, is the pope, via the secretariat of state;" that "I could not possibly create a paper in disagreement with the owner…;" and that "it is obvious that it [L'Osservatore Romano] is an authoritative point of view of the Holy See [although not "official")…, and "has always been rightly interpreted as the expression of the thought of the Holy See" (without this meaning that every word expresses exactly the thought of the Pope, etc.). Further, Vian strongly reiterates his position that Obama is not a "pro-abortion president", that his words at Notre Dame "should be appreciated," and that the abortion question is a "delicate issue" involving political realities concerning which "there are no dogmas." All of this appears to confirm the thesis that the traditional Catholic, militant defense of the unborn is being subjected to political realities and exigencies.
Finally, I cannot fail to mention Pope Benedict's meeting with Obama at the Vatican. The pictures and videos express it all. The joyful attitude of friendship on the Pope's part and his two-handed embrace of President Obama should be horrific to anyone who is conscious of the fact that that every day back in the U.S. at least 4,000 babies were being brutally murdered with the full support of Barack Obama. Can one imagine such a smile, such an embrace, if these victims had been Jews?
In order for the Pope and the Catholic Church to be "taken out of the way" as the only moral force capable of restraining the rise of the Antichrist in this world, not a single doctrine need be denied. It is only required that truth be relatively silenced, priorities be inverted, diplomacy be emphasized over the bold proclamation of the truth, and evil be engaged in dialogue. During the past 45 years, which saw a profound and widespread dissolution in all other areas of Catholic life, the Church's Pro-Life teaching remained the final bulwark against the world – the one thing boldly proclaimed and not subject to the eviscerating effect of diplomacy and ecumenical dialogue. It now appears to be undergoing the final decay.
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