Catholic Pacifists

 In the early days of the Church the Christians (Catholics) were total pacifists. Martyrdom was thought to be an ultimate goal guaranteeing eternal salvation. It becam so extreme that martyrdom qua martyrdom was banned. It became a sort of suicide, facilitated by Rome.

Then in the second century as Christians multiplied, Rome needed troops, they had not yet convinced those they conquered to join in and thus Christians became Roman soldiers, and the view of total pacifism disappeared. The ultimate test was with Constantine, who made Christianity the religion of the land. It would be honorable for Christians to join in with Constantine and his defense of the Empire.

As tribes descended upon the Empire, defense and war was pandemic. As Rome collapsed, Christianity spread to the invaders. The Merovingians became Christian and from then until the French Revolution France was both Christian and war like. 

The construct of Just War was formalized by Aquinas, and even supported by Augustine. 

In today's world  where the United States has been attacked, threatened and overtly called out for total annihilation by nuclear weapons, defense of its population is a sine qua non.

Yet along come quasi first century Christians as in the NY Times. They note:

It isn’t every day that a pope calls for an overhaul of a more than 1,000-year-old teaching of the Catholic Church, but that’s exactly what Pope Leo XIV did last month. In his inaugural encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” which was mainly an exploration of how to protect human dignity in the age of artificial intelligence, Leo devoted a brief but critical passage to just war theory. In a break with a foundational principle of Catholic thought on conflict, Leo called the theory “outdated” and made it clear that the teaching has been twisted to justify wars for decades, most recently the war in Iran. It is about time for the change. Just war theory holds that wars must meet strict conditions: They should be in self-defense, and only if alternatives have been exhausted; the use of force should be proportional; there should be a likelihood of success and the threat should be imminent. Since World War II at least, several popes have criticized world leaders for using the theory as a fig leaf. While Leo did not cite any specific war in the encyclical, he clearly had President Trump’s war on Iran in mind. On June 6, in remarks en route to Madrid for a visit, he was asked if a “just war” was being waged in Iran. The pontiff replied: “I believe this has already been made very clear: In Iran, the criteria for a just war are not present.” Leo wasn’t done. “The theory of the just war dates back to centuries when it was impossible to imagine the weapons and the destructive capacity available to humanity today,” he added.

 As I have noted earlier, Leo appears to have a massive dislike of the current President. He also, in my opinion, has a gross lack of understanding of Church policy in this area. Perhaps martyrdom in an arena, readily done in the threatening nation discussed, would be his moral solution. 

D Day

 

D Day, September 13th 2001. Two days after 9-11 I was staying in Normandy, out of Paris until the flights to North America resumed. I visited the Normandy beaches. Each year we remember Normandy, and we should equally remember Saipan, where my father and thousands of others attacked and stormed the beaches, allowing the annexing of Tinian, the airfield for B-29s and Hiroshima. 

Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant

The gladiators fought with their gladius, the mid sized sword used in the Roman legions. The gladius was often chipped from battle, made of a Roman steel blend, iron with a charcoal mix of carbon, then heated and sharpened.

I gather the White House has installed a Roman like gathering with brutal fighters. Gold fixtures, all we are missing is golden leaf crowns! 

Never Thought of This One

 Going to the moon and staying there has its hazards. But NASA presents a new one.

A mobile wastewater treatment system built at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida that can help prepare for long-duration missions on the Moon and Mars departed the spaceport and arrived at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. Graduate students at the university will test the technology under conditions designed to closely mimic the challenges of operating on another planetary surface. The Divergent Deployable Wastewater Treatment Facility is designed to turn crew wastewater into useful resources, which future explorers will need every day. At the University of North Dakota, teams will integrate this new wastewater system with the university’s Integrated Lunar/Martian Analog Habitat. Student operators and NASA researchers will study how the facility performs when connected to a habitat-like environment and exposed to the kinds of operational limits crews could face on another planet.

 Imagine human waste, with both human and other DNA, floating around the universe, landing on different planets, finding new homes, creating new aliens! 

Never thought of this in old days, just brought it back with you! 

 

An Interesting Geography Problem

 DHS has proposed removing ICE from airports in regions where sanctuary cities/states are. That would be Newark here in NJ.

Now the geography of Newark is below:

 Note Terminal A is NOT in Newark, Terminal C and Terminal B is kind of. So all international flights could be shuttled to Terminal A, recently upgraded and the rest would be domestic. 

Guess that would work. Not any good for New York however.  

Oncolytic Viruses

 

Viruses have the ability to enter cells and kill them. Oncolytic viruses are a class of modified viruses which attack only, actually "for the most part", cancer cells, do not harm benign cells, and can go after a large cancer growth.

We have just posted a Technical Report analyzing them and we believe that they may have some merit but are not as effective as antibody drug conjugates.

It may be worth a read.