Daily HotShots! 5*2*06

Snowy days bring bad drivers who think that cars make great snowmobiles; white landscapes, horses decked with blankets of snow, rabbits and their tracks in the front yard. I am trying to stay abreast of changes in the political world while keeping in focus personal alignments with spiritual realities that I cherish.

Is secularism part of a greater historical movement to a newer more spiritually advanced civilization? Or are we going to hell in a hand basket? That indeed is the question from my perspective.

100,000 mercenaries in Iraq One of the major threats to a democratic republic is power in the hands of private groups and organizations who operate outside the are of public debate. Mercenaries operate at the behest of those who pay them, not the general good. When will the MSM cover this story?

Following up on the Iraq Fiasco with the CIA's Political Islam Expert Yes, the CIA does have Islam experts. No doubt, they were considered too biased when the Bush admin. ranted and raved for war in Iraq like a bull in heat.

"the politics of the last atrocity" You want straight talk, no spin, no BS on Iraq? Here it is. Now, can you handle the truth? And what you gonna do about it? It's worse than you think. ....

Video Is a Window Into a Terror Suspect’s Isolation The treatment of so-called Dirty Bomber Padilla is getting some coverage in the MSM and rightly so. The physical aspects of torture are always the ones that people glorify. The psychological techniques, though, are perhaps even more barbaric. I know, what could be worse than having your entrails pulled out of your body as you watched? I guess you have to have a soul to understand.

The U.S. Has a History of Using Torture Speaking of torture, it seems that the methods used at Guantanamo and countless unknown tortuaries around the world were begun and refined in the Philippines many decades ago.

'Mugged by Magic Realism' after 911 An excellent little tongue-in-cheek analysis of what's wrong with the neocon agenda.

The Billionaires Club Okay, you know I wear pink pajamas if you've been reading this blog for some time. But hey, as Grissom says, I just go where the evidence leads me. This study in world wealth distribution says something, doesn't it?

The Jihad: An Ironic Contrast with the CrusadesAnother excellent installment in Laura Rosen's series on the Crusades and Islamic reactions. If you haven't seen the other installments be sure to take a gander. This section investigates the ideological similarities and differences between the religious rationales of the protagonists.

Religion and Intolerance This posting provides links to two extensive studies of 1) religion and suicide bombers and 2) religion and intolerance.

Precis of Heidegger, Language, and World-disclosure Over at Eteraz I've been discussing some of Heidegger's ideas on technology. If you're not familiar with that guy, here's a relatively decent overview of his thought.

Emergency ethics — Michael Walzer! Ethicist Walzer explores how much backtracking we can do to justify just about any act.

Merely Christian? Reflections on C.S. Lewis's Apologetics After 60 years by N.T. Wright Anyone familiar with the Christian tradition has to acknowledge the power of CS Lewis' Everyman approach to religious issues. Writing in that wonderful plain style that's the mark of both style and intelligence, Lewis glided easily between imagination and theology. If you ever get a chance, see the movie Shadowlands, based on Lewis' late-in-life marriage and eventual loss of his beloved. It made even such a cynic as I get water in the eyes. Anyway, in this piece, the good Bishop of Durham asks whether Lewis' theology has withstood the advances in historical critical findings in biblical research. Excuse me Bishop, but as much as I respect your scholarship, the power of the imagination is much more relevant to the life of religion than historical-critical jots and tittles.

Biblical Studies Carnival XII Speaking of those pesky biblical historians, take a look at the recent carnival of numerous blog writings on the most up-to-date research in the area. IE Search for the Historical Jesus 4.0--but seriously, this is often a stimulating and informative area of public discourse.

history and the end of the story When do you know that you've got "the rest of the story," as Paul Harvey used to say? In other words, when do historians know where and when to stop in their collection of data?