Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Now that we know that Edward Snowden has blown the NSA's cover on its secret operations, the thoughts of some of us turn back to the days of Daniel Ellsberg, the victim of some of Richard Nixon's dirty tricks after he outed the Pentagon Papers over the Vietnam War. Like our current security apparatus isn't …
Continue reading "The New Daniel Ellsberg Will Have It Much Rougher Than The Old One"
Tom Engelhardt has obviously been reading this blog, as he too is composing graduation speeches he won't deliver in person. In his case, it isn't just popularity lack: he addressed his own Class of 1966: The answer, class of 1966, is: just begin. Just believe that for every measure, there is still a potential countermeasure. …
Continue reading "Response to Tom Engelhardt and the Class of '66: Just Retire, Please"
I've run a good number of "I told you so" pieces on this blog. This time, however, it's more like "It used to be this way, but..." and the subject is national security. Barack Obama has, at least, cut the left's Gordian Knot on the issue. Let me go back to 2006 with this pre-election …
Continue reading "Barack Obama: Finding His Inner Lenin, Finding His Inner Dzerzhinskii"
Every now and then I will do a series about a theological topic or work. One of those series was on the Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. It turned into an interesting exploration of Patristic doctrine and practice as opposed to what we have today in all parts of Christianity. Following are the …
Continue reading "Series on the Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem"
I think we've finally pulled one liberal's chain hard enough so he screams: Here it is. The NRA advocates armed rebellion against the duly elected government of the United States of America. That's treason, and it's worthy of the firing squad. The B.S. needs a serious gut check. We are not a tin pot banana …
Continue reading "An Insane Rant Gets to the Bottom of Gun Control"
New concept? Hardly, New York City allowed it in the late 1940's: Many objected to the rich subsidies offered Metropolitan Life, then the largest private corporation in the nation, as well as the firm’s refusal to rent to minorities. Others criticized the complex’s design and layout. Metropolitan Life wouldn’t allow schools, churches, libraries, or other …
Continue reading "Keeping the Riff-Raff Out by Keeping Churches Out"
One thing I have discovered in being both a follower and a participant of the church world is that there are many meetings. This isn't to say that the church world has a corner on meetings (yes, I'm aware of Hebrews 10:25) but I'm specifically thinking on those gatherings beyond the parish setting. I'm coming …
Continue reading "What Anglicans Should Call Their Gatherings"
That's an understatement, as China's Shuanghui acquires Smithfield Foods: Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd., China’s biggest pork producer, agreed to acquire Smithfield Foods Inc. (SFD) for about $4.72 billion to boost supplies for the nation that’s the biggest consumer of the meat. Closely held Shuanghui, parent of Henan Shuanghui Investment & Development Co. (000895), will pay …
Les Reflets was one of the premier Christian folk groups out there during the Jesus Music era, period, as they demonstrated in De l'abondance du coeur, la bouche parle. Here are a couple of more albums (?). Villanelle/Pour emmanuel (J 410 502) Not really an album, but they "speed things up" by issuing a 45 …
Continue reading "Les Reflets: Villanelle/Pour emmanuel, and Et Ils Suivirent Jésus"
We've had another bridge collapse, this time on the I-5 in Washington State. So we can, for the moment, get away from debating natural disasters and discuss something we just might be able to do something about: fix our deteriorating transportation infrastructure. I'll repeat what I said about this six years ago, after the I-35 …
Continue reading "Dealing With What We Can: What the I-5 Collapse Reminds Us Of"
Positive Infinity 