Blog Heap of Links for the day 12 May 2015

…in 1968 the KGB-created Christian Peace Conference, supported by the world-wide World Peace Council, was able to maneuver a group of leftist South American bishops into holding a Conference of Latin American Bishops at Medellin, Colombia. The Conference’s official task was to ameliorate poverty. Its undeclared goal was to recognize a new religious movement encouraging the poor to rebel against the “institutionalized violence of poverty,” and to recommend the new movement to the World Council of Churches for official approval.

The Medellin Conference achieved both goals. It also bought the KGB-born name “Liberation Theology.”…

"It's a mistake to confuse Islam with Islam" [poster series by Big Fur Hat]

An Amtrak passenger train crashed in Philadelphia tonight. Several people are reportedly trapped in Amtrak 188. …

…Days after at least a dozen crosses were forcibly removed from churches, China formally protested a United States report on its lack of religious freedom. Now a proposal has surfaced to ban crosses entirely from the rooftops of churches in Zhejiang, one of China's most Christian provinces. … "A draft of rules on religious structures released by government agencies this week says the crosses should be wholly affixed to a building facade and be no more than one-tenth of the facade's height. The symbol also must fit with the facade and the surroundings…"

At least 42 people were killed Tuesday and 1,117 have been injured after a major earthquake struck Nepal, triggering landslides and toppling buildings less than three weeks after the Himalayan nation was ravaged by its worst quake in decades.

Tuesday's magnitude-7.3 earthquake was centered near the Chinese border between Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, and Mt. Everest. It was followed closely by at least five aftershocks measuring from magnitude-5.6 to magnitude-6.3. …

…this week all the dates of the week are a palindrome! Same forwards an back.

…With a unique, magnificent exception, much of the Middle East is running out of water due to such maladies as population growth, short-sighted dictators, distorted economic incentives, and infrastructure-destroying warfare.…

…There can be no better time to reflect on all of this than National Police Week, when we solemnly remember the many who have died in the line of duty to keep us safe.

Hope n' Change thanks all of those who serve in uniform for the public good. And we stand in awe of their professionalism and dedication - continuing to do their exceptionally difficult and dangerous jobs when under attack not just from felons, but from opportunistic race hustlers and politicians whose ultimate goal is social discord rather than public safety.

[Alaska house looks like the Weasleys' house in Harry Potter]

Saturn's icy moon Enceladus is looking better and better as a potential abode for alien life.

Chemical reactions that free up energy that could potentially support a biosphere have occurred — and perhaps still are occurring — deep within Enceladus' salty subsurface ocean, a new study suggests.…

This animation shows a sequence of images taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on May 4, 2015, from a distance of 8,400 miles (13,600 kilometers), in its RC3 mapping orbit. …The mysterious bright spots on the dwarf planet Ceres are better resolved in a new sequence of images taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on May 3 and 4, 2015.…

…Worried astronomers warned 1999 FN53, which is an eighth of the size of Mount Everest, will skim the Earth in TWO DAYS.

A collision would be nothing short of catastrophic triggering mass destruction, earthquakes and global extinction.

The monster is more than TEN TIMES bigger than other meteorites currently visible on NASA’s Near Earth Object radar.…

…U.S. Marine Corps helicopter providing assistance in the wake of the Nepal earthquake is missing. … near Charikot, Nepal, on Tuesday. … part of Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 469.…

I damn sure didn’t go to war for this country twice to come home and be told by a bunch of homely chicks with daddy issues, effete literary fops scandalized by the notion of resistance to Third World pathologies, and nimrod sons of politicians playing at journalism what I can and can’t say.…

"…before somebody hits back. …"

Pete's round-up and square shootin'.

Macedonia has charged thirty people with terrorism offenses after last weekend’s attacks, which left eight policemen and fourteen terrorists dead. Experts warn that the country’s political stability is at stake, and may deteriorate to the point of civil war.

In other news, the European Union is planning to implement a policy of mandatory refugee quotas for member states in order to reduce some of the migration burden on Italy. Meanwhile, the European high representative for foreign policy, Federica Mogherini, says that no migrant will be forcibly repatriated against his will.

[more]

…Watching Mark Halperin of Bloomberg Politics interview Cruz recently, I wasn’t just uncomfortable. I was actually nauseated.…