The Scouring of the Shire: George Soros Plays Sharkey

"The Elder Days are gone. The Middle Days are passing. The Younger Days are beginning. The time of the Elves is over, but our time is at hand: the world of Men, which we must rule. But we must have power, power to order all things as we will, for that good which only the Wise can see."

Saruman, FotR

"George Soros told a carefully vetted gathering of 70 likeminded millionaires and billionaires last weekend that they must be patient if they want to realize long-term political and ideological yields from an expected massive investment in “startup” progressive think tanks (…) Rob Stein, a veteran of President Bill Clinton’s Commerce Department and of New York investment banking, convened the meeting of venture capitalists, left-leaning moneymen and a select few D.C. strategists on how to seed pro-Democratic think tanks, media outlets and leadership schools to compete with such entrenched conservative institutions as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Leadership Institute."

"One would think that our journalists, who profess a commitment to the Bill of Rights, would raise the alarm. But they're too busy filling out grant applications to the Soros Open Society Institute."

"Smith should know. He's one of the six commissioners at the Federal Election Commission, which is beginning the perilous process of extending a controversial 2002 campaign finance law to the Internet."

’No!’ said Merry. ‘It’s no good “getting under cover”. That is just what people have been doing, and just what these ruffians like. They will simply come down on us in force, corner us, and then drive us out, or burn us in. No, we’ve got to do something at once!’

‘Do what?’ said Pippin.

‘Raise the Shire!’ said Merry. ‘Now! Wake all our people! They hate all this, you can see: all of them except perhaps one or two rascals, and a few fools that want to be important, but don’t at all understand what is really going on. But Shire-folk have been so comfortable so long, they don’t know what to do. They just want a match though, and they’ll go up in fire. The Chief’s Men must know that. They’ll try to stamp on us and put us out quick. We’ve only got a very short time.’

"A highly respected currency speculator, he once shorted the British Pound for a one day gain in excess of $1 billion."

"Known as "the man who almost broke the Bank of England," Soros engaged in a complex financial transaction that resulted in the Bank of England losing billions of dollars defending the British pound before having to devalue it. He is essentially a manipulator of money, able to bet that currencies of nations will rise or fall while he makes billions in the process."

"George Soros: A Bridge to Radicalism -- Soros Funds a Leftwing Network Addressing Media, Legal and Social Issues" (pdf, via Frontpagemag.com)

’I’m sorry, Mr. Merry,’ said Hob, ‘but it isn’t allowed.’

‘What isn’t allowed?’

‘Taking in folk off-hand like, and eating extra food, and all that,’ said Hob.

‘What’s the matter with the place?’ said Merry. ‘Has it been a bad year, or what? I thought it had been a fine summer and harvest.’

‘Well, no, the year’s been good enough,’ said Hob. ‘We grows a lot of food but we don’t rightly know what becomes of it. It’s all these “gatherers” and “sharers”, I reckon, going around and counting and measuring and taking off to storage. They do more gathering than sharing, and we never see most of the stuff again.’

"It would seem that Terri Schiavo had the misfortune to be targeted as a test case for a wide-reaching change in medical policy. That, I believe, is why her would-be killers - those in black robes as well as white ones - run roughshod over the law with such fearless confidence. Powerful forces stand behind them. Hundreds of billions of dollars in future medical entitlements are at stake."

"Compassion in Dying, a Hemlock spinoff founded in 1993 to surreptitiously assist in suicides, is also broadening its mandate. Originally a local group in Seattle, it has metastasized into the Compassion in Dying Federation of America, funded in part by billionaire George Soros, who has donated at least $350,000 to various of its constituent groups."

"This brings me to that hotly debated subject, physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. This is the one aspect of dying that is talked about everywhere -- on television, in public forums, in newspaper headlines, and serious journal articles. Voters in Oregon just approved a law that makes it the first state to lift the prohibition against physician-assisted suicide.

As the son of a mother who was member of the Hemlock Society, and as a reader of Plato's Phaedra, I cannot but approve. But I must emphasize that I am speaking in my personal capacity and not on behalf of the Board of the Project on Death in America."

There was no beer and very little food, but with what the travelers brought and shared out they all made a fair meal; and Pippin broke Rule 4 by putting most of the next day’s allowance of wood on the fire.

‘Well, now, what about a smoke, while you tell us what has been happening in the Shire?’ he said.

‘There isn’t no pipeweed now,’ said Hob; ‘at least, only for the Chief’s men. All the stocks seem to have gone. We do hear that wagon-loads of it went away down the old road out of the Southfarthing, over Sarn Ford way. That would be the end o’ last year, after you left. But it had been going away quietly before that, in a small way…’

‘What’s all this?’ said Frodo, feeling inclined to laugh.

‘This is what it is, Mr. Baggins,’ said the leader of the Shirrifs, a two-feather hobbit: ‘You’re arrested for Gate-breaking, and Tearing up of Rules, and Assaulting Gate-keepers, and Trespassing, and Sleeping in Shire-buildings without Leave, and Bribing Guards with Food.’

’You little folk are getting too uppish. Don’t you trust too much in the Boss’s kind heart. Sharkey’s come now, and he’ll do what Sharkey says.’

‘And what may that be?’ said Frodo quietly.

‘This country wants waking up and setting to rights,’ said the ruffian, ‘and Sharkey’s going to do it; and make it hard, if you drive him to it. You need a bigger Boss. And you’ll get one before the year is out, if there’s any more trouble. Then you’ll learn a thing or two, you little rat-folk.’

A Light in Dark Places

"Anyone who really wanted to get rid of suffering would have to get rid of love before anything else, because there can be no love without suffering, because it always demands an element of self-sacrifice, because, given temperamental differences and the drama of situations, it will always bring with it renunciation and pain."

Loonybiscuit Time

Sen. Barbara Boxer, the Democratic Party's comely obstructionist, has charged that Bolton needs ''anger management lessons (…) So I was interested to hear about the kind of violent Boltonian eruptions that had led Boxer to her diagnosis. Well, here it comes. (If you've got young children present, you might want to take them out of the room.) From the shockingly brutal testimony of Thomas Fingar, assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Intelligence Research:

Q: Could you characterize your meeting with Bolton? Was he calm?

Fingar: No, he was angry. He was standing up.

Q: Did he raise his voice to you? Did he point his finger in your face?

Fingar: I don't remember if he pointed. John speaks in such a low voice normally. Was it louder than normal? Probably. I wouldn't characterize it as screaming at me or anything like that. It was more, hands on hips, the body language as I recall it, I knew he was mad.

Olivia Acton, 13, was told she could not join her classmates at Middleton Technology College because her tightly plaited hair was too "extreme" for the strict uniform policy.

However, two other pupils at the school who have an Afro-Caribbean background are allowed to attend the school with similar hairstyles because it reflects their cultural heritage.

"lay within the territory of the Celtic tribe called the Brigantes and started life as a Roman fort..."

"Around 411 AD the Roman fort was abandoned and in the following decades the Anglo-Saxons began to settle on the eastern coasts of England and by the late sixth century they had begun to penetrate into the area later to be known as Lancashire."

"(M)ost of Lancashire escaped their colonisation. The Manchester area was an exception however and most of the Danish settlement in what was to become Lancashire fell upon the Manchester area."

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, who has accused congressional Republicans of "grandstanding" in the Terri Schiavo case, said his party will use it against the GOP in coming elections.

"This is going to be an issue in 2006, and its going to be an issue in 2008 because we're going to have an ad with a picture of (House Majority Leader) Tom DeLay saying, 'Do you want this guy to decide whether you die or not? Or is that going to be up to your loved ones?"' Dean said in West Hollywood, California.

Karen Finney, Democratic National Committee spokeswoman, defended Dean's comments…

"Tom Delay and his cronies want to intrude in personal family matters. Democrats believe that individuals and their families should be trusted to make these very personal decisions, not Tom DeLay and not the government.”

Shadow on the Pelennor

Plague and Pestilence

The Gifting

The Shire-light is quenched and I am blind.
No path lies clear to guide my vagrant sight
To candled room of Once for me to find,
To lead tomorrow out of ashen Night.

The Shire-light has gone and I am blind
To any Road that Middle-Earth can mend;
The bridge to home was shivered in the End,
                        Like Khazad-dûm

A dusk is on my soul and all is naught,
As when we crept to stay the fatal breath
Come with the world’s new breaking heaven wrought,
And fled for one last moment withering Death.

The dusk fell on my soul and turned to naught
The golden hour that shone upon my Shire;
It lingered there, uncertain, by the Fire
                        And was consumed.

Thus gone from me was that which was most fair,
That, step by step, unknowing, I had sold;
And, breath by labored breath, I, unaware,
Had spent my shining coin for darker gold.

Now gone from me is that which is most fair,
And all I might have seen is lost to me,
Save for the starlight on the Sundering Sea
                        That westward gleams.

But Frodo-lad will come with sight undimmed
As mine that saw the Shire in brighter days,
And all I might have seen is left to him,
To light his Road amongst the winding ways.

Sweet Frodo-lad will come with light undimmed,
Youth-eager, chasing paths of light reborn,
For all the Shire he sees will be of morn
                        And golden dreams.

The Schiavo Effect

Cheney was asked about the issue on Friday by the editorial board of the New York Post. He said twice that he had not seen DeLay's remarks, but the vice president said he would "have problems" with the idea of retribution against the courts. "I don't think that's appropriate," he said. "I may disagree with decisions made by judges in any one particular case. But I don't think there would be much support for the proposition that because a judge hands down a decision we don't like, that somehow we ought to go out -- there's a reason why judges get lifetime appointments."

These Cardinals will have to be wondering about, and praying about, what the Holy Spirit intends them to do in conclave and why the pope has died at precisely this moment. The anti-Christians will scoff at the idea of God's timing, but not the Cardinals, for whom God's timing is a given. They will be fully informed of the circumstances of Terri Schiavo's death, of the advance of the Groningen Protocol, the pressure under which many of the doctrines of Christianity find themselves, and of a variety of developments that are directly opposed to the Church's doctrines on the sanctity of life.”

…It is an old story in Christianity --in fact the oldest-- that apparent disasters and outrageous injustices lead in fact to the brightest displays of grace.

Evangelical Christians should honor the courage of this man and his historic role in bringing Communist tyranny to an end--at least within the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe. Added to this, we should honor his defense of human dignity and his eloquent and influential witness against abortion and the Culture of Death.

Even so, we must also recognize that John Paul II also represented the most troubling aspects of Roman Catholicism. He defended and continued the theological directions set loose at the Second Vatican Council. Even as he consolidated authority in the Vatican and disciplined wayward priests and theologians, he never confronted the most pressing issues of evangelical concern.

“The rule of no realm is mine, neither of Gondor nor any other, great or small. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, these are my care. And for my part, I shall not wholly fail of my task, though Gondor should perish, if anything passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit and flower again in days to come. For I also am a steward. Did you not know?”

Guest-blogging by Caspian

What Would Our World War II Veterans Think?

With the death of Terri Schiavo, the United States has taken a turn for the worse. “Why?” you ask. The courts now have the ability to starve an incapacitated person without due process. If someone starved his animals, they would be arrested. If the judiciary decided to starve death row convicts, appeals to the US Supreme Court would overturn the verdict because it is “cruel and unusual punishment.” But a person who is incapacitated, on the hearsay of her adulterous husband and her in-laws can be starved to death. What if it was your child? What is if it was you? Would you want to be starved to death? Although it is supposed to be a “painless” death, why would morphine administered to “ease her pain?”

In the early twentieth century, a group of people wanted to ensure the survival of their country and created a series of laws to allow first the forced sterilization of minorities, criminals, and the handicapped. Eventually they created laws for the euthanization of those handicapped individuals considered “life unworthy of life.” Criteria for those “unworthy of life” included anyone permanently disabled physically or mentally. A tribunal of doctors and judges oversaw the process and selected those for “special treatment.” Eventually a war was fought and those involved in the program were tried, convicted , and executed or served prison sentences. Anyone who knows history will know that the people wanting to ensure the survival of Germany were the racial hygienists of the Nazi Party, After World War II, Allied forces brought those people to trial. What would our fathers and grandfathers think about their country, that they defended against the tyrannies of fascism and imperialism, adopting the practices of their enemies?

In teaching world history, I find that my students are stunned at times by practices such as India’s sati in which a widow is encouraged to jump on her husband’s funeral pyre or a father denying paternity and allowing an infant to be exposed to the elements to die. But they cannot equate these practices to the Terri Schiavo situation or to abortion and the destruction of innocent life. Maybe it is true that history is a repeating pattern with humanity ignoring the lessons of the past.

John Paul II