David Warren on the EU

I'm with Mr. Warren on everything he says - especially on Jarosław Kaczyński. Pan Kaczyński does cause "trouble for people I dislike" and "is among the few European politicians willing to mention the two things you never mention in the company of European politicians: the War, and Europe’s Christian heritage." That totally puts him in my good books. If only he could kick the LPN out of his coalition - anti-Semitism is not nice, to say the least.

(H/t Mark Steyn)

Constituting EU

Gee, finally a British Conservative says something I can agree with

From the Telegraph (CHT Jimmy Akin):

Let the children play, or 'they will never learn'

Children are so cocooned by their parents that they rarely venture far from home and have little concept of space, volume and how the world actually works, David Willetts, the shadow education secretary, said yesterday.

The area in which children were allowed to range freely by their parents was a ninth of what it was a generation ago, he said. He also referred to "most worrying" research which showed children could not grasp basic maths.

Not surprising. And, I should think, no different in North America.

Bush's Moment of Zen

If only GWB took his own counsel more often!

A Chinese Cardinal Meets the Real Bush
By Robert D. Novak

On May 31, President Bush met for 35 minutes in the private living quarters of the White House with Cardinal Joseph Zen, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Hong Kong, in an event that was not announced and did not appear on his official schedule. Their meeting did not please the State Department, elements of the Catholic hierarchy and certainly not the Chinese government. But it signifies what George W. Bush is really about.

H/t Catholic World News.

Why do I feel like I've heard this liturgy before???

Fr. Z notes that one of Gerald's readers has obtained a copy of "a Trautman draft of the Mass" (scroll down to the bottom of the post). Somehow it seems familiar . . . (h/t Diogenes at CWN)

Further update: From Fr. Z's comments, one "Le Renard" posts:

Ordo Missae Cum Populo – 2007 Edition

Priest: My peeps, let’s roll with the Lord, givin’ Him props and love

Congregation:
Yo, Bid Daddy upstairs (Our Father, who art in heaven)
You be chillin (Hallowed be thy name)
So be yo hood (Thy Kingdom come)
You be sayin’ it, I be doin’ it (Thy will be done)
In this here hood and yo’s (On earth as it is in heaven)
Gimme some eats (Give us this day our daily bread)
And cut me some slack, (And forgive us our trespasses)
Sos I be doin’ it to dem dat diss me (As we forgive those who trespass against us)
don’t be pushing me into no jive (And lead us not into temptation)
and keep dem Crips away (But deliver us from evil)
‘Cause you always be da Man (For thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever.)
Aaa-men (Amen)

Kennedy Annulment (or, rather, Non-Annulment) Confirmation

Wow. Just, wow.

He's big in . . . Albania?

I have to admit that, having read about Albania as the example of "Bad Capitalism" in P. J. O'Rourke's "Eat the Rich" (which, granted, is 10 years old now), it's not a country I can quite take seriously. Still, it's nice for the president that people somewhere like him. Actually, I believe he also had a positive reception in Poland and a downright old-home day in Bulgaria, and there's even talk that he did some good work at the G-8 all by hisself and had a good chat with Vlad, so, who knows? In that case, I guess he'd be more popular in Europe than he is at home, where he's finally finished the job of blowing up his base. (I haven't blogged in the last month because I've just been too, too depressed over this whole immigration thing. And the Iraq fumbling. Get it together, man! Oh, this whole presidency is just lost opportunities and insane policy.) Anyway, Bush is big in Albania. So he's got that going for him.

Mr. Bush Goes to Albania