Muslim Invasion of Europe; Big in Iceland: Paganism...more

Muslim Invasion of Europe ...Those who enter Europe are almost all Muslims, and behave as some Muslims often do in the Muslim world: they harass Christians and attack women. In reception centers, harassing Christians and attacking women are workaday incidents. European women and girls who live near reception centers are advised to take care and cover up. Rapes, assaults, stabbings and other crimes are on the rise.

Western European political leaders could tell the truth and act accordingly. They do not. They talk of "solidarity," "humanitarian duty," "compassion." From the beginning, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said that illegal migrants were welcome: she seemed to change her mind for a moment, but quickly slid back. In France, President François Hollande says the same things as Angela Merkel...

Big in Iceland: Paganism
Next year, for the first time in a millennium, a pagan temple will wel-come Reykjavik’s faithful. The heathen house of worship, vaguely resembling a misshapen meringue, will be aligned with the sun’s path and burrowed into a hill near the city’s airport. There, like the Vikings of old, members of Iceland’s neo-pagan Ásatrú movement will be able to feast on horse meat, swig from goblets of mead, and praise deities such as Thor, the god of thunder, and Freyja, the goddess of love.

At first glance, the scene might appear bizarrely anachronistic. But although Iceland officially adopted Christianity around a.d. 1000, paganism never really disappeared from the Nordic island. The religious traditions of the Norsemen lived on—in mythology and poetry, in popular Icelandic names like Thorstein, in widespread belief in invisible elves and nature spirits. Eygló Svala Arnarsdóttir, an Icelandic journalist and a self-described atheist who has attended Ásatrú ceremonies, told me, “Icelanders have never really been strictly Christian,” noting that when they accepted Christianity, they did so under the condition that they be permitted to quietly practice paganism. “It’s not that people necessarily believe in the old Norse gods or have secret ceremonies in their basement,” she said. Instead, she explained, pagan values are “ingrained into our culture.”...

Former Defense Secretary Gates Describes Obama-Era Morale Problem in Military ...Gates replied: "I don't have any statistics, but I do have the sense that there is a morale problem, and I think it's due to several things.

"First of all, I think it is due to the substantial and growing cutbacks in the number of men and women in the military, so people in the military now are less confident that they will be allowed to remain in the military -- that in the force reductions, they will be turned out, in essence, be fired, particularly for those who have some years in and probably have families -- concerns about what they will do, if because of force downsizing they end up out in the civilian world again.

"I think there is a morale problem that derives from a lot of the budgetary uncertainty in the sense that, as I suggested earlier, people who joined the military to fly airplanes, sail on ships or drive tanks are finding they don't have the same opportunities to do that anymore. That's the stuff that made it fun, and that was one of the things that encouraged them to stay...

7 St. Louis churches set on fire in 2 weeks ...A fire started at a St. Louis area church Thursday became the seventh church to be torched in a two-week period.

The front door of the Shrine of St. Joseph was set ablaze with a small amount of accelerant early Thursday morning...

Masked swordsman attacks children in Swedish school   One male teacher has died and two students and another teacher are in a serious condition after being stabbed by a sword -wielding masked man in Trollhattan, Sweden...