How many different sorts of suffering are there in the world? And how many of them are innocent? I've no doubt there are many, and that asking how many forms can be described as innocent is akin to asking how many angels can dance on the point of a pin - not head, as is usually stated. A mathematical answer has been worked out ( Link ) but mathematics has no soul and can't be thought of theologically. So be damned to it. Participatory, sacrificial pain interests me. And the best, the ...

Let's start with a few basic points. This article is written from the point of view of a Civil Authoritarian - not a fascist, not a communist, not a socialist - a Civil Authoritarian. In my view the State has primacy over the individual and is subject to no law but it's own. I reject out of hand any counter-arguments made on the basis of some mythical body of 'international law'. 'International Law' is a myth because the only supra-national body with even a remote claim to being able to enfor...

Let's imagine that a World Revolution has taken place (unlikely I know). And let's further imagine that, as a consequence, I have been made Universal Dictator and Lord Paramount of All Creation (even more unlikely, but still, let's imagine...). Here I am, on the first day of the New Era, snug as a bug in a rug on my Throne of Perpetual Rule contemplating what to do next. The first thing I'd do is annihilate, dissolve, and forever do away with any ordinance whether local, national, or inter...

I didn't know Schatze for long, just the little over two years that I've been here, when she was long past her glory days. I knew a very grand old lady, full of character, a dog whose favorite creature in all the world was a man - almost any man. She was a floozy, and something of a petting-tart, happily sitting at the feet of anyone who would pet her for as long as they were willing to do it, especially if that someone was male. But in these last weeks she spent more and more time with me...

Eze 16:48 [As] I live, saith the Lord GOD, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters. Eze 16:49 Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. Eze 16:50 And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw [good]. The destruction of ...

Like many others, I had no kind or charitable thoughts for America in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. I was shocked but not surprised, and to me it seemed that an inevitability had come to pass that flowed naturally from the policies of the American government. Despite my lifelong love affair with the idea of America I had little idea of what America is, and like every other European I was deeply cynical about American sincerity, American generosity, American faith, American self-confidenc...