Vatican and Bodleian Libraries Launch Online Archive of Ancient Religious Texts

Website funding from Polonsky Foundation includes Bodleian's 1455 Gutenberg Bible and aims to put 1.5m pages online

Radcliffe Square, Oxford University. The Bodleian Library, together with the Vatican, is putting thousands of religious texts online. Photograph: Alamy

From The Guardian

By Maev Kennedy

Some of the rarest and most fragile religious texts in the Vatican and Bodleian libraries, including ancient bibles and some of the oldest Hebrew manuscript and printed books, are being placed online in a joint project by the two great libraries, which will eventually create an online archive of 1.5m pages.

The website launched on Tuesday with funding from the Polonsky Foundation includes the first results of the four-year project, including the Bodleian's 1455 Gutenberg Bible, one of only 50 surviving copies of the first major book printed in the west with metal type.

Has the Asian Tiger Gone Tiger?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

When Montecore, one of two white tigers in the Las Vegas act of Siegfried and Roy, turned and almost killed Roy on stage, the reaction was that the tame and complacent beast had gone berserk.

Comedian Chris Rock was nearer the mark:

“That tiger ain’t go crazy; that tiger went tiger.”

Seems our Asian tiger is going tiger as well.

Sharply escalating its clash with Japan over ownership of the Senkaku Islands, Beijing has established an air defense identification zone over the islands and a huge stretch of the East China Sea. Before entering its ADIZ, says Beijing, all planes must now notify China.

The United States responded by flying two B-52s through the zone. Japan and South Korea sent fighter jets through, also without permission. China then sent a squadron of fighters over the islands.

Now, in a move that has startled Tokyo, the United States has advised U.S. airliners entering China’s new ADIZ to alert China. Japan considers this tacit U.S. recognition of China’s territorial claim. 

Paying in Blood: The Global War on Christians (Part 1)

Sometime in November, the North Korean regime publicly executed eighty people in seven cities across the country. In each instance, a crowd was forced to watch as ten people, their heads covered with white bags, were tied to stakes and machine gunned to death.

The "crimes" for which these people were put to death were "watching or illegally trafficking South Korean videos, or involvement in prostitution, [or] possessing a Bible."

That's right. Possessing a Bible.

Read more at The Christian Post >>

The First Sunday of Advent

The Choir of King's College, Cambridge - "Lo, He Comes With Clouds Descending"

A New Dawn: An Advent Reflection by the Carmelite Nuns of Thicket Priory in Yorkshire

For information about the Carmelite Nuns of Thicket Priory, visit their website here.

The Single Most Objectionable Thing About the EU (In a Crowded Field)

In our humble opinion, the brilliant Daniel Hannan is a man that Great Britain and the world needs as British Prime Minister.

By Daniel Hannan

Shall I tell you the worst thing about the EU? It’s not the waste or the corruption or the Michelin-starred lifestyles of its leaders. It’s not the contempt for voters or the readiness to swat referendum results aside. It’s not the way that multi-nationals and NGOs and all manner of corporate interests are privileged over consumers. It’s not the pettifogging rules that plague small employers. It’s not the Common Agricultural Policy or the Common Fisheries Policy. It’s not the anti-Britishness or the anti-Americanism. It’s not even the way in which the euro is inflicting preventable poverty on tens of millions of southern Europeans.

No, it’s something more objectionable than any of these things – and something which, bizarrely, doesn’t exercise us nearly as much as it should. Put simply, it’s this: the EU makes up the rules as it goes along.

Just think, for a moment, about what that means. It means that any deal you’ve signed can be arbitrarily altered later. It means that any plans you’ve made, on the basis of what you took to be binding agreements, can be retrospectively destroyed. It means, in short, that there is no effective rule of law.

Happy Thanksgiving and May God Richly Bless You, Friends, Today and Always

The Prayer of an Unknown Confederate Soldier

I asked for strength that I might achieve;
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health that I might do greater things;
I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy;
I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of men;
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life;
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for but everything that I had hoped for.
Almost despite myself my unspoken prayers were answered,
I am, among all men, most richly blessed.