Pope Benedict’s final words

“You know that today is different than previous ones. I’m no longer the Pope. Until 8:00 p.m. I am, but then afterwards I am no longer Pope of the Catholic Church,” he said.

Pope Benedict then offered a window into how he sees this stage of his life.

“I’m simply a pilgrim that is starting the last stage of his pilgrimage on Earth,” he remarked, “but I would still like with my heart, with my love, with my prayer, with my reflection, with all my inner strength to work for the common good of the Church and of humanity, and I feel very supported by your sympathy.
“Let’s go ahead together with the Lord for the good of the Church and of the world,”

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/popes-last-words-thank-you-for-your-friendship-and-love/

A kind of madness

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/27/us-usa-fiscal-woodward-idUSBRE91Q11620130227

I searched through 4 pages of Google trying to find this reported in the MSM.

How more money affects educational success

Or, not much.

Trayvon v. Olijawon

The media decided the death of Trayvon Martin, a black teen, a story worthy to be trumpeted across the nation as race hatred because the man who killed him in FL was, they thought, white (actually he was Hispanic).  But when black teen Olijawon Griffin was robbed of his jacket and phone by nine other black teens and then stabbed to death when he tried to get it back in DC, it only made a blip on the local news there.  Black on black crime just doesn't sell or get the journalism award. (He had a FB page—I looked at his football and h.s. graduation photos).

When his mom, Lunette Griffin, wept and went to court, it didn't make the news in Columbus or LA or the cable news channels like when Trayvon's parents did.  The president didn't expand on or stir up racial tensions with the story and say Olijawon could have been his son.  The one year anniversary of Olijawon's death in November will not be observed except by family and friends. Trayvon's mom is  interviewed on gun violence. No one will interview Lunette about knives or gangs of teens who roam the streets of DC.  Why?  It would meet no political agenda for the President or the media. Black teens robbing and killing a black teenager with a knife will not set any racial fires smoldering or pass any new gun laws. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/six-teens-indicted-on-murder-charges-in-stabbing-at-woodley-park-metro-station/2013/02/27/d9e20b5a-812d-11e2-b99e-6baf4ebe42df_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines

The decline of Rome

It’s been interesting to see Rome the last few days on TV via Vatican TV as the final 48 hours of Pope Benedict XVI have been broadcast.  But 700 years ago, things weren’t looking good for the mighty city.

"In the early 1400s the Eternal City must have been, in most respects, a wretchedly uninspiring sight, a parent that the Florentines may well have wished to disown. A million people had dwelled in Rome during the height of the Empire, but now the city's population was less than that of Florence. The Black Death of 1348 had reduced numbers to 20,000, from which, over the next fifty years, they rose only slightly. Rome had shrunk into a tiny area inside its ancient walls, retreating from the seven hills to huddle among a few streets on the bank of the Tiber across from St. Peter's, whose walls were in danger of collapse. Foxes and beggars roamed the filthy streets. Livestock grazed in the Forum now known as il Campo Vaccino, 'the Field of Cows.'

"Other monuments had suffered even worse fates. The Temple of Jupiter was a dunghill, and both the Theater of Pompey and the Mausoleum of Augustus had become quarries from which the ancient masonry was scavenged, some of it for buildings as far away as Westminster Abbey. Many ancient statues lay in shards, half buried, while others had been burned in kilns to make quicklime or else fertilizer for the feeble crops. Still others were mangers for asses and oxen. The funerary monument of Agrippina the Elder, the mother of Caligula, had been turned into a measure for grain and salt.

"Rome was a dangerous and unappealing place. There were earthquakes, fevers, and endless wars, the latest of which, the War of the Eight Saints, witnessed English mercenaries laying waste to the city. There was no trade or industry apart from the pilgrims who arrived from all over Europe, clutching copies of Mirabilia urbis romae (The Wonders of Rome), which told them which relics to see during their stay. This guidebook directed them to such holy sights as the finger bone of St. Thomas in Santa Croce, in Gerusalemme, the arm of St. Anne and the head of the Samaritan woman converted by Christ in San Paolo fuori le Mura, or the crib of the infant Savior in Santa Maria Maggiore. There was a hucksterish atmosphere to the city: pardoners sold indulgences from stalls in the street, and churches advertised confessions that were supposedly good for a remission of infernal torture for a grand total of 8,000 years.

"The Mirabilia urbis romae did not direct the attention of the pilgrims to the Roman remains that surrounded them. To such pious Christians these ancient ruins were so much heathen idolatry. Worse, they were stained with the blood of Christian martyrs. The Baths of Diocletian, for example, were built with the forced labor of early Christians, many of whom had died during the construction. Antique images that had survived a millennium of earthquakes, erosion, and neglect were therefore deliberately trampled underfoot, spat on, or thrown to the ground and smashed to pieces."

From Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture by Ross King, Penguin Books, 2000

Obamacare adds to restaurant costs

Thank God for the nanny state. I truly believed Death by Chocolate had fewer calories than mixed vegetables. Now that I know better, I'll never, never eat that bad stuff again.

http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2013/02/21/restaurants-prepare-cost-new-menus-mandated-obamacare

“Section 4205 of Obama’s law requires restaurants and similar retail food establishments with 20 or more locations to list calorie content information for standard menu items on all menus and menu boards, including drive-through boards. The law also requires vending machine operators who own or operate 20 or more vending machines to disclose calorie content for certain items.”

Notice how these regulations on size just keep businesses from expanding, denying jobs to people who need them?

A man for all flavors

It worked for Castro, Hussein and Ceausescu

So let’s try it in those states where he’d been defied.

From Jan Brewer, Governor of Arizona

She’s been in the President’s cross hairs for years.

"I’m appalled to learn the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has begun to release hundreds of illegal aliens from custody, the first of potentially thousands to soon be freed under the guise of federal budget cuts. This is pure political posturing and the height of absurdity given that the releases are being granted before the federal ‘sequestration’ cuts have even gone into effect.

This represents a return to exactly the kind of catch-and-release procedures that have long made a mockery of our country’s immigration system. The news is especially concerning when coupled with DHS’ acknowledgment that it may not be able to maintain operation of 34,000 immigration jail beds, as mandated by Congress.

Everyone knows the federal government must get a handle on spending, and it is well past time that the President begins working with Congress to find real budget solutions. But we cannot let public safety and the rule of law be collateral damage of the President’s failed leadership to pass a budget."

All of history in one package

Although the title of this article is called Why Jews are Better off in the Catholic Church than in the Jews for Jesus, it contains a lot of rather detailed history from how the Torah was made, what is tradition, the Crusades, Martin Luther, The inquisition, a sprinkle of Wicca and Scientology and the “way home” for Jews.  I came across it while looking for something else.

The Torah

Every Torah scroll is made from living creatures. The parchment is lambskin, ritually prescribed sinews hold the pages together, and plants provide the ink. Jewish tradition holds that God dictated Torah to Moses as a stream of Hebrew letters, one at a time. Jewish scribes who hand copy Torah scrolls are extremely careful to preserve the exact sequence, not adding or subtracting even a single letter. Jesus referred to that tradition when He said, "Till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished." (Mt 5:18) An iota is a yod, the smallest Hebrew letter. A dot is the smallest part of a Hebrew letter. The Torah in every synagogue is an exact copy of an exact copy of an exact copy of the Torah that God inspired Moses to write down by hand. . .

The Scriptural Cafeteria

All Christendom had accepted the Catholic Sacred Scriptures for 1,500 years when Luther altered Romans 3:28. But Luther altered a lot more Scripture than one word. He removed from his Scriptures the entire books of Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and 1 and 2 Maccabees as well as Esther 10:4-16:24 and Daniel 3:24-90 and chapters 13 and 14.

The Jews for Jesus respond that Luther chose only those Scriptures for the Old Testament that were recognized by the rabbis as the Tanach, the Palestinian canon, rather than those recognized by the Catholic Church, the Alexandrian canon.

For three centuries before Christ arrived, Judaism used two different versions of Scripture. Jews living in Palestine used the Hebrew Palestinian canon, which did not have these seven books, while Jews who lived outside Palestine used the Greek Septuagint version, called the Alexandrian canon, which did. When St. Jerome translated the Bible into Latin, he used the Greek Septuagint because it contained all of the books recognized by the Church as inspired. All Christendom had accepted the St. Jerome Bible for a thousand years when Luther suddenly decided to use the Palestinian canon because he did not accept the doctrine of purgatory implied in 2 Maccabees. Luther, in fact, wanted to delete as well the books of Hebrews, James, Jude, and the Revelation, but was persuaded by the other Reformers to leave them in place. Luther chose for his Old Testament only those books historically accepted by people who did not recognize Jesus, rather than those who did.

 

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Sequestration and alarming the public

Oh, but there’s more.  Obama's plans (actually Janet Napolitano) to be "fiscally responsible" includes releasing criminals ready for deportation--before sequestration (which he refuses to negotiate while he's on the campaign trail). Now this move, folks, is totally transparent--he's trying to scare people into accepting more tax increases with no cuts. Where is the savings as these really bad guys are released in the SW states (who then have to do the mop up on their dime). I wonder if while robbing or raping, these guys will be able to tell a Democrat from a Republican from an apolitical know-nothing who has never voted?

Napolitano whined: “Look, we’re doing our very best to minimize the impacts of sequester. But there’s only so much I can do.” Imagine that. Absolutely no fat in the ICE or Homeland Security to cut except to let criminals go loose to make more mayhem. This is blackmail.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-detained-immigrants-sequester-20130226,0,7739089.story

The President really likes to hit on Brewer, governor of Arizona. Look out Arizona supporters of Obama. The released criminals that Obama is setting free could be in your neighborhood, all in the name of blaming Republicans for budget cuts he agreed to when he got his tax increase.

Fidel Castro did this too. Opened the jails and mental hospitals and told them to go to the U.S. in 1980. Saddam Hussein did a similar thing in 2003 with his jailed criminals--just turned them loose to create panic.  When leaders don’t know how to lead, they just create panic.

Bread and Circuses

Mona Charen writes:

"Mrs. Obama has been all over pop culture. Her Oscar outing followed hard on the heels of a mean “mom dance” on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Her husband, meanwhile, has been golfing with Tiger Woods. Some members of what used to be (long ago, boys and girls, when non-cool presidents were in office) the adversarial press corps joined forces to chant a question at the returning President Obama after his golf outing. They had lodged complaints with the press secretary about lack of access, apparently crestfallen that the White House refused to permit pictures of Obama and Woods on the course. Their shouted question wasn’t about the sequester, or Benghazi, or Syria, or Hagel; no, the pressies chanted in unison (Occupy-style) “Did you beat Tiger?” Their crush on Dear Leader is undiminished.

The president makes himself available to friendly questions from the press — see the latest 60 Minutes interview — and is always available to chat about his basketball final-four picks or what’s on his iPod. In short, both he and his wife have mastered the art of being celebrities-in-chief. The man who wrote two autobiographies before he was 45 (earning a tidy fortune in the process) is a genius at marketing himself. Together, the Obamas provide “circuses” aplenty for the masses. As for bread, that’s another matter."

Did you know that in order to coerce the Republicans into higher taxes and no cuts, they are releasing criminal illegal immigrants due for deportation as an early sequestration move?  But dance on Bo.

The History Channel will air The Bible

The Bible will air on the History Channel beginning March 3, with the last episode in the series airing on Easter Sunday. I've been a bit suspicious about how TV treats the Bible, but this one started with prayer, according to Roma Downey (Touched by an Angel) one of the producers of the 10 hour mini-series.

Even if it doesn't fit your denomination's interpretation, if it follows the basics, it can't go wrong.

Man disobeys,

God forgives;

Man disobeys again,

God forgives;

Repeat as needed.

If Christians support this, perhaps we can get better quality TV.

Christians quibble the Bible to death—the number of sacraments; whether there even are sacraments; divorce and remarriage; do miracles still happen in the 21st century; who needs to interpret  speaking in tongues; does the gift of tongues exist; which is better happy clappy songs or hymns; what is Mary’s role; were prophecies of the O.T. fulfilled in Christ; dip, dunk or sprinkle; and on and on.

Bud the Cowboy

I may have posted this before—but I enjoy it each time I read it.

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in Montana when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni® suit, Gucci® shoes, Ray Ban® sunglasses and YSL® tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"

Bud looks at the man, who obviously is a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell® notebook computer, connects it to his AT&T iPhone® cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop® and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany ...

Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot® that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL® database through an ODBC connected Excel® spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry® and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet® printer, turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're a Congressman for the U.S. Government", says Bud.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about how working people make a living - or about cows, for that matter. This is a herd of sheep.”

“Now give me back my dog.”

Translation Key

Passed along from 98.9 F. The Answer in central Ohio.  New station as of last fall (November?), and some great conservative talkers like Medved, Prager, Bennett. The news and interviews you’d never get from commercial, liberal media.

Call Boxes, Whistles and vomit don’t help during a rape

Tonight Glenn Beck interviewed five women who had been raped.

**One was in a church parking lot at noon putting her two children in their car seats; he hit her with a brick and raped her in front of her children. 

**One was in a parking garage and had walked there with friends in a group.  She said if a call box had been above her head, it wouldn’t have helped.  The campus was a  “safe zone.”  She could see the campus police station—it was closed.

**One was in her own home, in bed asleep with a roommate in the next room who didn’t hear it.

**One experienced date rape after her drink was drugged. 

**One was jogging and was attacked from behind and dragged into a woods. She was raped for six hours, and afterwards he carefully cleaned her up to destroy any evidence.

Only one of the five actually had a concealed carry permit, but she was in a gun free zone (she was law abiding) and didn’t have the gun; but the rapist had a gun and raped her. Maybe she couldn’t have stopped it, but he went on to rape other women and even murdered one.  One woman said she was within 50 ft. of a police car.  Another said she could smell bacon frying in a near by house.  There was no one to call; no one to help.

These were the lucky ones—they weren’t killed. All own guns now. Four of the five rapists are in jail—one isn’t.  He’s out there.  Rape is not about sex, it’s about power, and it’s about evil.  The mother with 2 children said only 3% of rapists ever go to jail—and they know it.  Twenty years ago a woman was raped every 6 minutes said the jogger about her experience; now it’s every 2 minutes.

Call boxes don’t work. Closed police stations can’t help.  They are no match for a knife or gun. All the women thought Democratic Senator Salazar was a sexist who ridiculed women’s ability to protect themselves ( “if you feel like someone’s been following you around or if you feel like you’re in trouble and when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop — pop a round at somebody”) and denied the reality of the dangers rapists present for women.

Why is it a War on Women if taxpayers don’t want to pay for free contraception,  but not a War against Women to deny them the right to protect themselves? How does making one woman defenseless protect another woman against a violent crime?

Libs, be honest, don’t you feel like you’re being played?

The country didn’t collapse in 2009, why will it in 2013.  This is not CUTS, it’s a reduction in the increase.  Why doesn’t he stay in Washington and do his job.  He’s campaigning for 2016!

The Bad-Choice Movement is pushing them

Today in Columbus at this moment 3 young women are making decisions about the lives of their unborn children. One is pregnant by her married boyfriend; one doesn't believe in abortion but hasn't even examined the alternatives or people willing to help her; another is in an abusive relationship. Pray they will decide to let the children live. Yes, six people have made bad choices; let the next step be wiser. (Stories from PDHC newsletter)

She refused to say that

When the Catholics were faced with an updated English version of the Mass in 2011, one woman responded to the new wording, “I was offended at the insertion of "I have sinned greatly" into the Introductory Rite. "I don't go around sinning greatly," she said. "I am not going to say this."

Of course, we Lutherans don’t get big and little, grievous and ordinary.  We just sin constantly by violating all commandments as summarized into two by Jesus.  In the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) we say,

Most merciful God, we confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves. We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us. Forgive us, renew us, and lead us, so that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways, to the glory of your holy name. Amen. ( Lutheran Book of Worship, p. 56,  based on 1 John 1:8)

Thought, word, and deed.  That about covers it.  And that’s sinning greatly. 

Happy Birthday, Fats Domino

The B side of Red Sails in the Sunset (1963) was Song for Rosemary. He married Rosemary in 1948; they were married for 60 years (I think she died in 2008). Also to my knowledge he never grabbed his crotch to sell a song.

The YouTube of Song for Rosemary (instrumental) shows it's on Philips Record. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL3dmEec6ww