Support Family, buy Barilla!

This week the CEO of the Barilla pasta factory made a valorous remark in defense of the traditional family, saying that him would not star a gay couple in his products commercials. saying that, quoting from Huff post:

"We have a slightly different culture," Barilla said, per a Huffington Post translation of the interview. "For us, the 'sacral family' remains one of the company’s core values. Our family is a traditional family. If gays like our pasta and our advertisings, they will eat our pasta; if they don’t like that, they will eat someone else’s pasta. You can’t always please everyone not to displease anyone. I would not do a commercial with a homosexual family, not for lack of respect toward homosexuals – who have the right to do whatever they want without disturbing others – but because I don’t agree with them, and I think we want to talk to traditional families. The women are crucial in this."

So let's support Barilla, let's make then see the power of the conservatives, buy Barilla, let's make the gay boycott useless.

some products of Barilla that you can buy in this links:

Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk about European Union, abortion and Same-sex unions

Another interview: abortion, same-sex unions "diseases", represent "pseudo-values" of a "teenage" world

Ex Oriente Lux

The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, had strong words in an interview granted in the Lviv Regional Council:

“Harmonizing Ukrainian legislation with the European one, we quickly adopt the diseases of the Western society. In European legislation I see no mention of the Christian roots of the culture. We are mistaken if we think that in order to have European prosperity we need to come down with these illnesses,”

He said that in today's society, which does not live according to God's commandments, there are different ideas of morality and values. Often in the name of so-called tolerance, says the head of the church, life is destroyed, which, conversely, must be protected.

“Among the requirements of the European community are pseudo-values. The EU looks like a teenager who is testing the limits of morality and needs a Christian education. Europe was built not on same-sex marriages, but on the respect for human dignity, the protection of human rights and freedoms, on honesty in politics and business. On these foundations Europe arose, but it has forgotten about it. These are the values ​​which today the church defends in our society. When it comes to the protection of life from its natural beginning to natural end, then it is the basis for the opposition to euthanasia, abortion, and other acts that violate the dignity of life”

...

He refutes the assertion that if Ukraine adopts the law on gay marriage, then it will join the European community. “I can affirm that it is not so. Sometimes our legislators, so as to not implement other bills, implement ones like this. It is much easier for them in Europe and in Ukraine to vote against the traditional family than against corruption, the unfair judicial system that tolerates selective justice. They focus on minor issues so as to not solve the main ones.”

[Source. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is by far the largest of the Eastern Catholic Churches.]

http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2013/09/another-interview-abortion-same-sex.html

Putin's Strategy ~ A Romanov Restoration

November 7, 2007 Ninety years since the end of the 300+ year long reign of the Imperial Romanov dynasty. With Presidential elections looming in March the "outgoing" President Putin continues to act very much as one not about to leave power, but what is he really up to?

The world was mystified, a couple of months ago, when Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed the Prime Minister and replaced him with the little known Viktor Zubkov instead of the "expected" Sergei Ivanov (current Deputy Prime Minister and "leading candidate" to replace Putin as President in 2008). The Toronto Star newspaper, in an article titled "PUTIN'S MYSTERIOUS MANEUVERS" , asks if the President of Russia has "abandoned the scripted succession , embarking on a new scheme altogether".

The current Russian Constitution forbids a President from more than two successive terms as President. There was no doubt that Putin had the political power to amend the Constitution to change this. He simply decided not to do so and a normal change to the Constitution is not possible in the remaining time before Presidential elections next Spring. The thing is, Putin does not act like a man willing to leave the most powerful office in his nation. There is much speculation that he is appointing the 66 year old financial regulator as Prime Minister with the intention of running him as President as an interim place holder for Putin (with Putin returning to the Presidency in four years) , as he seems to have "no apparent political ambition". Funny, that is similar to what was said of Putin himself, when Yeltsin appointed him Prime Minister and effectively turned over the Presidency itself to him later. Vladimir Putin is well aware that he cannot hold onto the reins of real power, and be sure of maintaining that power, if he leaves office.

So just what is he up to? To understand his strategy we need to look at the man and his long term intentions for his beloved Russia. He is Russian to his very bones; and Russians are very "Russian" and suspicious of all foreigners. Public museums that charge admission in Russia, have two prices, one for foreigners and another for Russians. As someone who had a Russian girlfriend for a while, and got to see a personal side of Russia I can tell you that I have never been in a nation that was so focused on its identify and one that views all non-citizens as suspicious outsiders. To Russians, the world is divided up between Russians and "foreigners".

Putin has made it very clear that in his opinion the brake-up of the Soviet Union was a very great historical tragedy. The twin centers of the Russian soul throughout many hundreds years of its history was Orthodoxy and the Tsars. The Soviet Revolution overthrew the Romanov Dynasty and as much as possible, sought to destroy the ancient Orthodox faith of the Russian people. Vladimir Putin has been a very strong supporter of the Russian Orthodox Church, and any traveling in Russia will show one just how significant the re-flowering of the ancient faith is. The old Imperial Family is well respected in Russia, and the Russian Orthodox Church has made saints out of the last Tsar and his murdered family. However, there is no great demand for an Imperial Restoration. Putin himself is the one most admired in polls of the Russian people.

So why would Vladimir Putin want to bring back the Romanovs, if only in a ceremonial Head of State role? Belarus and the Ukraine are two reasons, as are various other now separated republics of the former Soviet Union. When Yeltsin buried the Soviet Union, the leaders of the various major republics in the old USSR took the opportunities presented to them and took full power for themselves within their republics. It is easy to turn a aquarium into fish soup but very hard to turn that fish soup back into an aquarium. Putin seeks to restore Russia to its proper power and place among nations. One of the central problems in doing this is to get the various former parts of the old Russian Empire/USSR to agree to come back fully into Russia's tent. Even Belarus, the republic closest to Mother Russia has failed to merge itself back into Russia. It has, however, formed a very close union with Russia.

By replacing the current Russian Constitution with one that restores the Romanov Dynasty as Emperors/Tsars Putin can in one action, both continue the restoration of traditional Russian culture and pride AND establish a transnational Empire to gather Russia's former nations together, limitedly at first but more intensively as time goes on. The Russia-Belarus Union could become the reborn Russian Empire with HIH Grand Duchess Maria Vladimorovna as the new Empress over both nations. Of course, she (as Empress and Head of State) would have limited power and that would be largely dictated by the Russian Head of Government. The Belarus political class would still have their independence ~ more or less, certainly less over time ~ and Russia would have a powerful tool to begin the reuniting of the Russian Empire/USSR, which was broken apart only a few years ago. The Ukraine will be an early target, as well several other former republics. At first the new Empress Maria will simply be a tool for a more in-depth union of Russia and Belarus but the strategy will be to expand the renewed Russian Empire and to expand Russian central governmental influence over the various national parts of the Empire including greater military "cooperation". Russia's new wealth, based on its oil and natural gas holdings, will be utilized to grease the way for putting back together most of the land mass that the Tsars and Soviets ruled.

Look for Vladimir Putin to fill the role of Head of Government in the Kemlin and the new Empress to reign in the old Imperial capitol of St. Petersburg bringing new life to Putin's favorite Russian city (his hometown) and the fantastic Russian showcase Winter Palace, as well as the palaces in Tsarskoe Selo. This will allow him to remain as leader of Russia, while allowing a new ceremonial Head of State in order to continue his strategy of both restoring historic Russia, and to ensuring its status as a leading great power in the Twenty-First Century.

http://europebusines.blogspot.com.br/2007/11/putins-strategy-romanov-restoration.html

Italian Army Rations of the Regio Esercito and RSI

As with much of Italy’s equipment, rations and their development, issue and availability went through stages. Prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, Italy was a nation deeply occupied with military armaments, research and development.

This stemmed in no small measure from Italy’s de-facto ruler Benito Mussolini, who was convinced that to retain a strong nation, and reclaim the greatness of the Roman Empire, military buildup was a vital necessity. Even though King Victor Emmanuel co-ruled with Mussolini, military buildup was solely Mussolini’s bailiwick.

As part of this arms build-up, a modernization of forces was conducted, which led to development of new weapons systems, aircraft, specialty naval vessels and expansion of Special Forces, such as the traditional Alpini and new units such as  Paracadutisti (Airborne Forces) and Reggimento Carri Armati (Tank Regiments).

Even though not all developments would keep up with the rush of new weaponry soon to hit the rest of Europe, Italian kit and weaponry designed during the 1930’s was top-notch for its main purpose: Expansion of empire in areas where modern equipment was opposed by ill-organized and equipped traditional ground forces. A prime example of this was the Italian attack on Abyssinia (Ethiopia) on October 2^nd, 1935.

Africanina--The song of the Abyssinian war-Get the Lyrics HERE.

While weapons and transport developments were the highest priority, the Italian Army (Regio Esercito) had learned during the First World War that supplies and foodstuffs were what kept an Army in the field and fit to fight. Along with developments and research in the area of arms, Italian science was pressed into designing suitable food stuffs that not only were durable and easily transported, stored and air dropped in all climates, but were also designed to provide highest nutrition while building troops morale. By this process, it was decided that rations should be broken down into daily issued standard rations, field rations and specialty/emergency rations.

A Plea for Caution From Russia

What Putin Has to Say to Americans About Syria

By VLADIMIR V. PUTIN

Published: September 11, 2013

MOSCOW — RECENT events surrounding Syria have prompted me to speak directly to the American people and their political leaders. It is important to do so at a time of insufficient communication between our societies.

Relations between us have passed through different stages. We stood against each other during the cold war. But we were also allies once, and defeated the Nazis together. The universal international organization — the United Nations — was then established to prevent such devastation from ever happening again.

The United Nations’ founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus, and with America’s consent the veto by Security Council permanent members was enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The profound wisdom of this has underpinned the stability of international relations for decades.

No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage. This is possible if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization.

The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria’s borders. A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance.

Syria is not witnessing a battle for democracy, but an armed conflict between government and opposition in a multireligious country. There are few champions of democracy in Syria. But there are more than enough Qaeda fighters and extremists of all stripes battling the government. The United States State Department has designated Al Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, fighting with the opposition, as terrorist organizations. This internal conflict, fueled by foreign weapons supplied to the opposition, is one of the bloodiest in the world.

Mercenaries from Arab countries fighting there, and hundreds of militants from Western countries and even Russia, are an issue of our deep concern. Might they not return to our countries with experience acquired in Syria? After all, after fighting in Libya, extremists moved on to Mali. This threatens us all.

4 reasons why a catholic must support the Confederacy, and i am not talking about state rights.

By Chevalier

Most of the people today have an unbiased hatred aganist the confederacy, mostly because of the post-war propaganda of the union of the north, but, we catholics should not have those hatred and bad links with the confederate cause, and i will show why:

4 - The Southern States fought for a ruralist traditional lifestyle.

The rural South had a lot of advantages over the Industrial North if we think about lifestyle. The slow, calm, aristocratic, rural-based lifestyle of the southern people was a lifestyle that reflect the ideas of life that the Church always defended. I know, some will talk 'but slavery is bad" yes it is, it is not a good thing (not a bad one though) and the Pope said it cant come back, but the main reason of the southern lifestyle was a nice catholic one was not the slavery, but the ruralism of it, the contact with the land, with the production, the owning of the production means.
This mindset was too deeply rooted in Christian values, even thought protestant, and those values where frontally aganist the northern liberal values, who was a Liberal mindset.
And, even if we look at the southern slaves, we see that their treatment was in general better than the northern industrialist gave to their "free" proletariate, who received a starvation wage for a worker harder than the black slaves had in the south.
And they fought aganist this liberal northern industrial culture, industry by itself is not bad, but the northern industry came with banking, exploration, and the liberal "profit is our god" mindset, who was aganist the southern views of life.
Another point was that the southern people valued the chivalry, customs, to be caring and hospitable.

Os Cristãos na Síria de Bashar Al-Assad

Por um Anonimo

Meus amigos, eu não quero parecer um profundo admirador de Bashar al-Assad ou tiete do governo sírio, no entanto é necessário que conheçamos um pouco da situação dos cristãos na Síria durante as últimas décadas, para realmente analisarmos se os revoltosos rebeldes que almejam o poder seriam tão tolerantes com os cristãos como o atual regime. Vejamos:

Na Síria de Assad o islamismo não é a religião oficial, inclusive o próprio governo reconhece e legitima a presença de cristãos no país, tendo ele o dever de oferecer segurança e outros serviços públicos para estas comunidades. Cristãos podem ser encontrados em todos os níveis sociais, incluindo no governo. Comércios cristãos podem fechar aos domingos e dias santos, e os cristãos estão sujeitos às suas próprias leis religiosas, seja sobre casamento, ou divórcio, ou custódia de crianças, ou herança etc. E mais – pasmem – o governo federal reconhece oficialmente como feriados nacionais a Páscoa Católica e a Páscoa “ortodoxa”. Livros religiosos cristãos são livremente vendidos e distribuídos sem nenhuma proibição governamental.

Às igrejas é permitido não apenas o toque de sinos para chamar os fiéis, como também é autorizado o uso de caixas de som e megafone para que as celebrações possam ser ouvidas nas ruas. As paróquias são livres para construir, reformar ou estender suas edificações – coisa impossível de se imaginar em uma nação islâmica do Oriente Médio –, e ainda goza de isenção nos impostos imobiliários.

Todas as escolas são estatais, e o ensino é obrigatório, o que inclui a instrução religiosa, no entanto, para estas matérias as classes são divididas pela religião, e as crianças cristãs recebem catequeses cristãs, sendo inclusive muitas escolas administradas por cristãos e mesmo judeus.

Não há também lei nenhuma que proíba o proselitismo, ou puna a conversão de islâmicos ao cristianismo, embora, é claro, em um país de ampla maioria muçulmana isso não seja bem visto, cause escândalo e possa gerar atritos e pressões sociais contra o convertido, o que é algo, até certo ponto, natural em uma sociedade religiosa.

É claro que nem tudo são flores, o governo monitora as finanças das igrejas, além disso, qualquer reunião ou encontro marcado por uma comunidade deve ser autorizado pelo governo, ainda assim, cultos estão livres de autorizações, e ocorrem normalmente. Claro que os serviços religiosos nas igrejas estão sujeitos à vigilância das autoridades, mas a mesma vigilância também é obrigatória em mesquitas, sendo que isso decorre mais do estado de sítio prolongado da Síria do que uma perseguição sistemática aos cristãos.

Agora pensem, será mesmo que os rebeldes garantirão aos cristãos um terço da liberdade que eles têm hoje?

Syrian Air Force capabilities of defense and fight.

Since the start of the Syrian Civil War, the Syrian Air Force had an vital role to keep goverment forces fighting, probably, after near 3 years of war, the SAF must have lost a lot of airplanes and personal, so, their readiness must not be good now.
But even now the SAF still conducts some missions, like the following:

- Air Strikes. Syrian Air Force is effective at conducting aerial bombardment and close air
support against opposition forces on the ground, as demonstrated by an apparent rise
in air-to-ground attacks since January 2013. The regime began to employ air assets in
the Summer of 2012 in order to repel rebel advance upon urban centers.
- Aerial Resupply. The Syrian regime is able to receive Iranian resupply by air, most likely
through the ad-Dumayr airfield East of Damascus and to Mazzeh military airfield near
the Lebanese border. Aerial resupply within Syria varies, though it has been the primary
mechanism for resupply to outposts that cannot be resupplied by ground
transportation.
- Aerial Delivery of CW. Air-dropped bombs are a traditional method to conduct
chemical attacks. The regime has the capacity to deliver chemical weapons inside
Syrian airspace. It is likely that they also have the requisite delivery mechanism.
- Air Defense. Syrian IADS is well-equipped, but it is old and poorly maintained. Against
close-range targets, Syrian IADS is still effective, as demonstrated by the shootdown of
Turkish reconnaissance aircraft in July 2012. Against long-range targets, Syrian IADS is
ineffective, as demonstrated by recent Israeli airstrikes near Damascus.

Stating that the SAF still have military capabilities and can wage war.
Since 2013 the number of air strikes have grown, as the following chart shows:

We can see a big increasing of the number of air strikes, one of the reasons was the lost of ground supply lines with the north in january, but in march and april this was retaken so the air strikes have gone down a little.

The Christian reality in Assad's Syria

by an anonymous friend

My friends, I don’t want to look like a deep admirer of Bashar al-Assad or a groupie of the Syrian government, but it is necessary that we know a little about the situation of the Christians in Syria during the last decades, to really analyze if the revolting rebels who aspire the power would be tolerant with the Christians as the current regime. Let’s see:

In Assad’s Syria Islamism is not the official religion, indeed, the government itself recognizes and legitimates the Christian presence in the country, taking the duty to offer security and public services to these communities. Christians can be found in every social levels, including the government. Christian-owned markets can close on Sundays and holy days, and Christians are subjects to their on religious laws, be it about marriage, or divorce, or child custody, or inheritance etc. And more –amazingly – the federal government recognizes officially as public holidays the catholic Easter and the orthodox Easter. Christian Religious books are freely sold and distributed without governmental prohibition.

To the churches it is permitted not only the ringing of bells to call the faithful, but it is also authorized the use of sound equipment and megaphones to the celebrations be listened in the streets. The parishes are free to build, reform or extend their edifications – something impossible to be thought in any Islamic nation in the middle east -, and they also have real state tax exemption.

All the schools are state-owned, and the education obligatory, which includes religious education, but, for those subjects the classrooms are parted by their religion, and the Christian children receive Christian catechism, including a lot of schools being administrated by Christians or Jews.

And there is no law against proselytism, or that punish the conversion of muslins to the Christianity, although, of course, in a country of wide Muslim majority it is not well seen, cause scandal and can generate attritions and social pressures against the convert, what is something, to a certain extent, natural in a religious society.

Of course not all are flowers, the government monitory the churches finances, moreover, any meeting or encounter marked by a community must be authorized by the government, nevertheless, the worship are free from authorizations and occur normally. Of course that the religious services in the churches are subject to governmental vigilance, but the same vigilance applies to the mosques, and that being more because of the long state of siege in Syria than because of a systematic Christian persecution 

Now think, will the rebels assure one third of the freedom they have today?