With the election of Pope Francis, there are the usual complaints about how the Catholic Church has got to get with the times. The Huffington Post ran the headline, “Pope Francis Against [sic] Gay Marriage, Gay Adoption,” which is much like thinking it newsworthy to write, “New Pope Believes in the Divinity of Jesus.” Mother Jones laments the “missed opportunity to bring the papacy closer to where the people are.” And Forbes’ John Baldoni dishes the baloney, writing of “a Catholic Church that is resistant to change but one that must certainly adapt (and rather radically) if it is going to continue to attract well-intentioned men and women who adhere to its faith but also are willing to devote themselves to its perpetuation” (hat tip: Drew Belsky). Yet this misses the point that it is creatures who must adapt to their ecosystem, and the Church is the moral ecosystem. Our modernistic culture is simply a pretender to that throne.

When I see the hand-wringing over the rise of Italian politician Beppe Grillo, I can’t help but think of a man complaining about cigarette smoke while his own derriere is on fire. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Grillo is a wacko, for sure. I can’t even take issue with the claim that he’s a wicked wacko. But I also know this: one thing he isn’t is a wacko without company.

The year is 632 A.D., and Muslim hordes have set their sights on the Mideast and North Africa — the old Christian world. And the Caliphate, as the Islamic realm is called, will not be denied. Syria and Iraq fall in 636. Palestine is next in 638. And Byzantine Egypt and North Africa, not even Arab lands, are conquered by 642 and 709, respectively. Then, just two years later, the Muslims cross the Strait of Gibraltar and enter Iberia (now Spain and Portugal). The invasion of Europe has begun.

One day back in high school, a very interesting English teacher asked our class a moral question: if you could press a button and get a million dollars, but a little old man — with no family, friends, or ties of any kind — in the backwoods of China would die, would you push that button?

“Modern liberalism is moral dysfunction.” When I recently made that statement after citing leftist social-media support for murderer Christopher Dorner, some readers thought I’d gone overboard. Surely, the twisted rooting for a paranoid killer on Facebook and elsewhere is just the rambling of an odd minority; there are radicals “on both sides” and one in every bunch, right? But now more evidence has surfaced vindicating my statement that such feelings aren’t at all unusual among the passionate left — evidence provided courtesy of the “professionals” at CNN.

While I was a conservative by age 12, for some time thereafter I viewed liberalism as most do, as just another ideology. Sure, it was an irritating ideology, but an ideology nonetheless. But then something happened. I don’t quite remember if I was 20, 21, or 22, but some experiences in my life and much pondering of the issues and the human condition led to an insight. It hit me like a bolt of lightning:

Being a conservative just ain’t what it used to be. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) was recently accused of tweeting a “racist” joke — by another Republican.

On the heels of my recent article on women in combat, in which I defend traditionalism, it’s perhaps a good time to also take up the cudgels for that bugaboo of women’s studies classes: the housewife. Thus do I provide you with the quotation below from G.K. Chesterton’s book What’s Wrong with the World. He wrote:

Senseless advice and nothing nice; that’s what little-girls-in-combat policy is made of.

Okay, half-slow laughin’ Joe didn’t actually say that, but he might as well have. While defending his position this past Thursday that banning the rifles incorrectly called “assault weapons” won’t negatively impact upon Americans’ safety, he pointed out that you shouldn’t trouble yourself: shotguns would still be available — and they’re more effective, anyway. He said, reports the Daily Caller:

Liberal icon Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “You’re entitled to your own opinions, but you’re not entitled to your own facts.” But that was decades ago, and today more leftists than ever have graduated from confusion to delusion and believe they’re entitled to their own fiction.

We all know what can happen when kids and guns mix. And today I will tell you some stories about that very thing. The kids’ names were Kendra and Alyssa, and then there was the 11-year-old boy whose name we just don’t know. What we do know is that they lived in places called Bryan County, Albuquerque, and Palmview. We know that guns were in their homes — and that something horrible befell them. 

When I’ve written about our listing mis-education system, my focus has mainly been on rampant political correctness, on how students learn few of the right things partially because of emphasis on teaching the wrong things. Yet there’s another problem: in some cases the teachers couldn’t teach the right things even if they wanted to — they don’t know them.

You might think that a professional outfit such as Bank of America operated based on stated policy and not caprice. But not according to owner of American Spirit Arms Joe Sirochman.

My mother always used to say “Life is the best teacher.” Sure is — and sometimes it smacks you right upside the head. It appears this has happened with Barack Obama supporters now witnessing their paychecks shrink in the wake of tax increases. And they’re none too happy. In fact, they’re shocked.