Apr 27 2009
Someone sent me a link to an article about President Obama with the title ‘100 days in office, coronated Messiah‘. I wasn’t sure that ‘coronated’ was proper usage, so I looked it up. Sure enough, it means “encircled by a row of spines or prominent nodes, especially at the shoulder of the last whorl in gastropods.”
It’s probably a defense mechanism, so maybe it’s a good thing our president is coronated.
Apr 27 2009
ROME (Fox News) – An Italian cruise ship with 1,500 people on board fended off a pirate attack far off the coast of Somalia when its Israeli private security forces exchanged fire with the bandits and drove them away, the commander said Sunday.
Cmdr. Ciro Pinto told Italian state radio that six men in a small white speed boat approached the Msc Melody and opened fire Saturday night, but retreated after the Israeli security officers aboard the cruise ship returned fire.
“It felt like we were in war,” Pinto said.
None of the roughly 1,000 passengers and 500 crew members were hurt, Melody owner Msc Cruises said in a statement issued by its German branch.
Domenico Pellegrino, head of the Italian cruise line, said Msc Cruises hired the Israelis because they were the best trained security agents, the ANSA news agency reported.
Funny how countries with no use for the military – or for Israel – suddenly come begging when there’s a security issue to be handled. Rudyard Kipling called it this way over 100 years ago in Tommy Atkins:
Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap;
An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit.Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy how’s yer soul?”
But it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll.We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints:
Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints;While it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, fall be’ind,”
But it’s “Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind,
There’s trouble in the wind, my boys, there’s trouble in the wind,
O it’s “Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind.
Apr 25 2009
In honor of Lenin’s Birthday/Earth Day:
“When it is broken down, the philosophy of environmentalism is the philosophy of life on earth without humanity at all. Green becomes the color of a forest that grows over unmarked graves.”
(HT: OpenMarket.org via IMAO)
Read the full article at OpenMarket.
This bit is pretty indicative of the warped nature of the modern – should I say postmodern? – environmental movement.
When environmentalists see a beautiful beach, a forest, or a desert, they don’t see environments for humans to live in, they see a world that has value and rights regardless of how humans can use it. When they see a tiger in the jungle or a deer in a forest they don’t see a life threatening danger or a potential source of food, they see citizens of the world who should be left alone; they see a world that has value regardless of whether or not people exist.
Really, what environmentalists usually think of when they look on the world is how humanity has sullied its pristine beauty. And they invented earth day to remind us all of what a blight we are on the planet. Don’t be fooled by their use of words like “balance” and “living in harmony”. In nature balance is the constant struggle between life and death, creation and destruction. Animals eat and kill, fires burn, waters flood; that is the nature of things. What environmentalists want humanity to do is give up the struggle, to die, and to leave the earth in peace. They won’t even extend the same courtesy they give to animals like wolves that eat other animals or beavers that cut down trees to build dams.
Apr 23 2009
Happy Earth Day, boys!
Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet Premier after Joseph Stalin, decided in 1955 that the country should celebrate their national political philosophy, communism. He chose as the day, April 22, Vladimir Lenin’s birthday, a tribute to the founder of the Soviet Union. When environmentalists decided that the Earth deserved a day of celebration in 1970, they could have picked any day of the year, as no one knows the exact day date of the Earth’s birthday. They chose Lenin’s birthday, just as Khrushchev had done. Was this just a coincidence? I think not.
Think of the parallels between Lenin and environmentalists. Lenin once said that, “It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully rationed.” Environmentalists second this wholeheartedly when they restrict the ownership and control of private property through the guise of saving the environment. The Endangered Species Act is used voluminously to take the property of anyone if an endangered species is living on it. President Clinton cordoned off thousands upon thousands of acres of land in the form of national parks with the alleged concern of saving the natural resources thereon from development. The federal government now controls nearly forty percent of all land in the continental United States. Lenin’s goal was to destroy private property and this goal is obviously shared by environmentalists.
Lenin’s political philosophy knew nothing of morality, he once said that, “There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel.” Some environmentalists take this to heart as well, placing metal spikes in trees so that when these trees get to lumber mills the spike will ruin the saws and have in some cases injured or even killed mill workers. (Capitalism Magazine)
Are all environmentalists the modern-day spawn of communists? Obviously not, but the enviro ethos is definitely collectivist, anti-individualist, anti-property, and anti-achievement. Rest easy, Vladimir Illyich, your boys are on the job.
Apr 19 2009
Grease Fire: Pure oxygen flows from a metal pipe through a core of baked prosciutto, generating a grease fire hot enough to ignite steel and burn a hole clear through this pan. A wrapping of less-flammable uncooked prosciutto focuses the flame into an intense bacon-plasma torch (Mike Walker)
Why didn’t I think of this before? The good folks at PopSci.com have harnessed the power of bacon. I’m in awe.
I recently committed myself to the goal, before the weekend was out, of creating a device entirely from bacon and using it to cut a steel pan in half. My initial attempts were failures, but I knew success was within reach when I was able to ignite and melt the pan using seven beef sticks and a cucumber.
No, seriously. The device I built was a form of thermal lance. A thermal lance, typically made of iron instead of bacon, is used to cut up scrap metal and rescue people from collapsed buildings. It works by blowing pure oxygen gas through a pipe packed with iron and magnesium rods. These metals are surprisingly flammable in pure oxygen, releasing a huge amount of heat as they are consumed. The result is a jet of superheated iron plasma coming out of the end of the pipe. For sheer destructive force, few tools match a thermal lance. But iron isn’t the only thing that’s flammable in a stream of pure oxygen.
Bacon is fattening because it contains a lot of chemical energy tied up in its proteins, and especially in its fat. You can release that energy either by digesting it or by burning it with a healthy supply of oxygen. The challenge isn’t creating the heat; it’s engineering a bacon structure strong enough to withstand the stress of a 5,000°F bacon plasma flame.
I used prosciutto (Italian for “expensive bacon”) because it is a superior engineering grade of meat. I wrapped slices of it into thin tubes and baked them overnight in a warm oven to drive off all the water. Then I bundled seven of those together, wrapped them in additional slices, and baked the bundle again until it was hard and dry.
Who’s going to argue with ‘a 5,000°F bacon plasma flame’?
Apr 18 2009
I feel so radical. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued its report on the dreadful danger represented by, uh, Republicans. The cheery report is titled Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment. As my buddy Greg points out,
“Rightwing extremists = terrorists, and among other things, the DHS report warns about people who are: against abortion, end times believers, Christians, people who own guns, and even our military veterans returning from Iraq. I qualify under numerous categories…”
Me, too. Not that we need still more reasons to fear our current government, but categorizing your political opponents as extremists and terrorists does not bode well for our once-great republic.
Secretary Napolitano has since apologized to veterans, but has yet to apologize to everyone else on the right she dissed.
Here’s a link to a pdf (1.95 MB) version of the DHS report: Homeland Security Report on Rightwing Extremism. The opening paragraph is pretty telling:
The DHS/Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) has no specific information that domestic rightwing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence, but rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues. The economic downturn and the election of the first African American president present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment.
So there’s no real identified threat, but we have to stir the pot anyway, just to keep up proper levels of paranoia against the right.
Apr 18 2009
Yawn. Another report contradicting the global warmenists perpetual fear-mongering.
Report: Antarctic Ice Growing, Not Shrinking
Ice is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap.
The results of ice-core drilling and sea ice monitoring indicate there is no large-scale melting of ice over most of Antarctica, although experts are concerned at ice losses on the continent’s western coast.
Antarctica has 90 percent of the Earth’s ice and 80 percent of its fresh water, The Australian reports. Extensive melting of Antarctic ice sheets would be required to raise sea levels substantially, and ice is melting in parts of west Antarctica. The destabilization of the Wilkins ice shelf generated international headlines this month.
However, the picture is very different in east Antarctica, which includes the territory claimed by Australia.
East Antarctica is four times the size of west Antarctica and parts of it are cooling. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research report prepared for last week’s meeting of Antarctic Treaty nations in Washington noted the South Pole had shown “significant cooling in recent decades.”
Apr 18 2009
Have you ever been challenged on what you believe? Or that what you believe is not sufficient to get you into heaven? In the past year, I’ve been told by different people that because I don’t speak in tongues, belong to the Roman Catholic Church, or believe in the right creation model I’m not guaranteed to be saved.
Even Scripture can be confusing on this:
“Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.” (1 John 3:7-10, NIV)
Okay, since the day I gave my heart to the Lord, I have considered myself to be saved. I know that I am a work in progress and that I am being sanctified (i.e., purified, made holy) by the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in me.
But I still sin. By a strict reading of John’s passage above, I am ‘of the Devil’, I am not ‘born of God,’ I am not ‘a child of God.’ Add to that I don’t speak in tongues, I’m not Catholic, and I believe the earth is more than 6000 years old. I’m doomed.
Here’s what I do believe:
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
I will start with what’s contained in this creed and trust that God is continuing to work in me. It doesn’t answer all my questions, but it is an excellent summary of the doctrines of the Christian faith.
Apr 11 2009
Pope Benedict
If I were King of the Calendar, the year would begin with the celebration of the incarnation of Christ at Christmas and end with celebration of His resurrection at Easter. (I haven’t worked out rest of the details of the new Stevian Calendar. I’ll have to commission a study to flesh it out. It would have certainly have a Bacon Day, though. And I don’t mean Francis Bacon or Roger Bacon or even Edna Bacon.)
I grew up in a Roman Catholic home, but I don’t have warm spot in my heart for popes and popishness in general. That said, Pope Benedict does have the ear of much of the planet. The UK Daily Mail has excerpts from Benedict’s Good Friday address to the faithful. Denominational differences aside, he speaks the truth about the growing secularization of what we loosely call ‘culture’ and increased ridicule of the things of God.
‘Jesus is humiliated in new ways even today – when things that are most holy and profound in the faith are being trivialised, the sense of the sacred is allowed to erode,’ he will say.
‘Everything in public life risks being desacralised – persons, places, pledges, prayers, practices, words, sacred writings, religious formulae, symbols, ceremonies. Our life together is being increasingly secularised.
‘Religious life grows diffident. Thus we see the most momentous matters placed among trifles, and trivialities glorified. Values and norms that held societies together and drew people to higher ideals are laughed at and thrown overboard. Jesus continues to be ridiculed.’
Amen and amen. Click the link to read the rest of the article.
Apr 08 2009
Don’t forget the Mother’s Day is coming up. (Video may require Silverlight install. Sorry Mac dudes.)
