Alice, it's for you. Wonderland's calling.

Reading the morning newspaper or listening to the news in the evening, I sometimes think I've fallen down the rabbit hole and joined Alice in Wonderland. Here are just a few examples of some of the strangeness I've culled from news reports...

UN brings cholera to Haiti. There's something about internationalist bureaucrats that causes them to leave chaos in their wake. In this instance, although they are purportedly in Haiti to help, it seems the United Nations peacekeepers either from Bangladesh or Nepal are apparently responsible for introducing the cholera epidemic that has left over 1,000 Haitians dead. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, genetic analysis of the strain of cholera currently causing so many deaths in Haiti indicates it originated in South Asia. (You can read the results of the study here: Origins of Haitian Cholera.) Don't get me wrong. I'm not against providing aid to people suffering from devastating natural disasters. Far form it. I simply think we shouldn't send incompetent and corrupt organizations like the United Nations to do the job.

Planned Parenthood "Christmas" Card. This primary provider of abortions has sent out a "Christmas" card that calls for "Choice on Earth" and wishes recipients a "happy and healthy holiday season." It makes one wonder how healthy it will be for the thousands of unborn human beings Planned Parenthood will murder over the next few weeks.

Junk Science and Moon Goddesses. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was recently held in Cancun, Mexico. Attended by a large number of surprisingly apathetic delegates from 192 countries, the convention yielded the usual crazy predictions that the world is doomed and universal destruction is right around the corner unless we revert to stone-age technology and return to the caves our ancient ancestors deserted.

The tenor of the convention was set right from the beginning when the Convention's Executive Secretary, Christiana Figueres, kicked off the proceedings by praying to the Mayan goddess Ixchel (depicted at left) whom she described as "the goddess of reason, creativity and weaving." In her prayer to Ixchel, Figueres said, "May she inspire you -- because today, you are gathered in Cancun to weave together the elements of a solid response to climate change, using both reason and creativity as your tools...Excellencies, the goddess Ixchel would probably tell you that a tapestry is the result of the skilful [sic] interlacing of many threads.  I am convinced that twenty years from now, we will admire the policy tapestry that you have woven together and think back fondly to Cancun and the inspiration of Ixchel."

Makes you just want to run away from home and join the Mayan priesthood, doesn't it? Of course, the Mayans and the Aztecs weren't particularly "green" in their day, but could more properly be labeled "red" since their one area of expertise was human sacrifice. The Aztecs, for example, sacrificed upwards of 80,000 people in one four-day period. They remind me a bit of one of my environmentalist friends who once told me over a third glass of wine, "What the world needs is a major war or a devastating plague, so we can get rid of most of the people. We're the ones who are killing the earth." He would have fit right in with the Ixchel worshipers.

I suspect that Figueres' prayer, along with the Climate-gate fiasco, just might cause some people to question whether real "science" is behind the claims of human-caused global warming.

Experts Surprised by Higher Unemployment Figures. Speaking of experts, a few weeks ago when the latest figures on unemployment were released, we were told the unemployment rate had increased from 9.6% to 9.8%. We were also informed that this took the experts completely by surprise. The experts, we are told, were expecting a decrease rather than an increase in the rate. It seems to me that the designated experts are being taken by surprise more and more frequently these days, and not just on unemployment rates, but on a whole range of political, economic and social issues. My question is, why do we keep calling them "experts" when they obviously don't have a clue?

It calls to mind William F. Buckley's famous comment: "I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University."

Department of Defense Fastest Computer: PlayStation. If you are concerned about the size of the federal budget and the growing deficit, here's one to make you weep.The Air Force has constructed the Defense Department's fastest supercomputer by linking together 1,760 PlayStation 3 gaming systems. It's capable of performing 500 trillion (that's 500,000,000,000,000) floating point mathematical operations per second. For those of you who are technically challenged, that's a very fast computer. The Air Force, of course, couldn't call their system "PlayStation Group" and so they named it "Condor Cluster." The total cost was $2 million, a pretty reasonable cost for something so capable and certainly far less than it would have cost had the Air Force used their usual procurement process. Makes you wonder what else the government could buy off the shelf at BestBuy.

Ah, well, enough of these secular musings...

Pray that God's will be done in our world.

Cold Days in the Midst of "Global Warming"

"Man is certainly stark mad. He can't make a worm, but he makes gods by the dozen." -Michel de Montaigne

___________________________________________

A busy morning for an old retired guy. Up at 5:30 a.m. so I could preach at the 7:00 and 8:30 a.m. Masses. Then, facilitate a Bible Study for an hour, followed by a meeting with several parishioners to plan a novena and celebration in February for Our Lady of Good Success. The afternoon has been far more relaxed and has given me an opportunity to catch up on my reading, write this post for the blog, and prepare for this evening's Bible Study. With any luck I'll be home in time to watch tonight's bowl game.

Of course, throughout it all, I'm constantly grumbling about the absolutely crazy weather we are experiencing here in Florida. As I drove to church this morning at a little after 6:00, the outside air temperature reading was 23 degrees. Yes, I know, all you folks up north wish your weather was that warm...but this is Florida! It's not supposed to get that cold here. This ain't International Falls, Minnesota. And they're predicting more of the same throughout this week and into the next. Of course, the daytime highs will be in the 50s so it's not all that bad...but it's still far below what we normally experience this time of year.

Dear Diane is worried about her camellias surviving the hard freezes and so she's covered them with newspapers and plastic bags. The heck with the camellias, I'm just worried about my surviving, and I suspect a large plastic bag would only aggravate the situation. It's remarkable, though, how quickly one gets acclimated to a new climate. Diane and I moved here from New England just six years ago, and yet whenever the temperature drops below 40 I am extremely uncomfortable. In fact, if I can't wear shorts, I consider it a very bad day.

All of this causes me once again to question Al Gore and his corps of global warming doomsayers who expect melting ice caps to cause the oceans to inundate our coastal plains any day now. The trouble is, where is the warm weather? And it seems to be cold everywhere...the UK and mainland Europe, North America, China -- all are experiencing extremely cold weather. It all makes me seriously doubt the claim that humanity has such a large impact on the world's climate. The world has experienced countless cycles of ice age and warming, all without any input by humans. And I suspect it will continue to experience these cycles in the future.

I read this morning that this winter may turn out to be the coldest in 25 years. Here's what AccuWeather.com had to say:

Nearly the entire eastern half of the United States is enduring bitterly cold temperatures not experienced since 1985. Even Florida, which has been hovering around freezing levels overnight recently, is also feeling the almost-nationwide chill.

"It'll be like the great winters of the '60s and '70s," said AccuWeather.com Chief Meteorologist and Expert Long Range Forecaster Joe Bastardi.

The last time a large swath of severely low temperatures struck the nation was in January 1985. That historic arctic outbreak had below-zero temperatures Fahrenheit stretching from Chicago eastward to New York City, and all the way south to Macon, Ga.

Makes you wonder doesn't it? Especially in light of the recent revelations that some of the world's leading climatologists connected with the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia were fudging the data to support their global warming theories. Indeed, according to a piece in the London Times, they apparently did all sorts of nasty and very unscientific things:

"(a) the scientists have been manipulating the raw temperature figures to show a relentlessly rising global warming trend; (b) they have consistently refused outsiders access to the raw data; (c) the scientists have been trying to avoid freedom of information requests; and (d) they have been discussing ways to prevent papers by dissenting scientists being published in learned journals."

It all seems to fulfill a prophecy of sorts made by sociologist and historian Robert Nisbet who, in an essay written almost 30 years ago challenged the myth that the Church maltreated Galileo.

"Probably more scientists have been adversely affected – stopped altogether from a given line of research, guided, shaped, propelled, decelerated, forced into non-publication, secrecy, turned down for funds or promotion, and barred from access to laboratory space or archives – because of defiance of conventional wisdom in America since World War II . . . than existed in the whole of the world in Galileo's day."

Nisbet was no Catholic, indeed he could hardly be called a believer, so he had no ax to grind when it came to Enlightenment myths and the Church. If you'd like to read more about Nisbet (who died in 1996) and global warming, check out this essay by Scott Walter on TheCatholicThing.org

This, of course, should remind us of how human and, consequently, how sinful we all are, even the supposedly most rational and objective among us: the scientists. We are all tempted to serve ourselves instead of the truth. That's what Satan does. In his temptations he tries to subvert our innate desire for God -- "the Way, the Truth, and the Life" -- by making us long instead for the things of this world.

There are certainly no lack of problems confronting us today, and I think we humans can honestly claim to be the source of most of them. As Christians we are called to address them by applying Gospel values and the teachings of our Faith. But, personally, I really don't believe that global warming is among them.

Stay warm and God's peace...

It's In the Air

Every once in a while I write about the current and coming persecution of the Church. I'm always amazed at the responses I receive from some folks who simply can't believe that such a thing could happen in today's enlightened world. A few months ago one reader (a Catholic priest) sent me a long and really rather unfriendly email. He was livid that I had labeled 21st century liberalism a form of unconscious suicide. Others have been equally critical because I have expressed even mild support for Israel in its struggle for existence against a host of enemies who want nothing less than its total annihilation. Indeed, I hesitate to mention Israel in the presence of some of my acquaintances because their response is so visceral and so negative that any sort of reasoned argument becomes impossible.

I often receive similar responses from those who fall in the pro-choice camp whenever I write or speak out against the plague of abortion. And when I describe abortion as a symptom of something far greater and far more evil they can become almost apoplectic, unable even to respond to my apparent absurdities.

Another issue I have been addressing lately among some of my friends is what I see as a link between the supporters of abortion and those who believe "climate change" is largely the result of human activity. This has led some to slap a permanent "conspiracy theorist" label on me. But then, this morning, I read that the Chinese delegation to the UN Conference on Climate in Copenhagen has stated that the cause of all this global warming is overpopulation. The world should, therefore, adopt China's "one-child" policy. According to the AsiaNews article:

China defended its family planning policy as a way to reduce global warming. According to Beijing, its one-child and birth control policies, which include forced abortions and sterilizations on unwilling women, are part of its global strategy to fight climate problems and should be adopted by the international community.

In spite of the gross violation of human rights, the strategy has been a “great success” according to Chinese authorities. “I'm not saying that what we have done is 100 per cent right, but I'm sure we are going in the right direction," said Zhao Baige, vice-minister of National Population and Family Planning Commission of China.

This suggestion by China to the world community was preceded last week by an editorial in Canada's leading newspaper encouraging pretty much the same thing. Diane Francis, columnist for the National Post and the Financial Post wrote that, "The 'inconvenient truth' overhanging the UN's Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world. A planetary law, such as China's one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently, which is one million births every four days." Click here to read Francis' column.

And so, in my conspiratorial mind, the connections among abortion "rights" activists, population control supporters, and the Al-Gore-worshiping climate control fanatics is real and will only strengthen as each group grasps the potential of this developing symbiotic relationship. The pressure on governments to conform to these new realities will increase: only abortion can save the world from the catastrophic consequences of a global warming driven by overpopulation. And then we can expect continued and escalating attacks on the Catholic Church for its intransigent attitude toward abortion, contraception and euthanasia. I expect it will get very nasty. One of the more interesting dramas that will soon play out will be the conflict faced by those Catholics, both laypeople and clerics, who have been drinking the global warming cool-aid. On which side will they ultimately fall?

An interesting world we live in. Strange things are in the air...pray for us. God's peace.