There’s a couple of interesting films in theaters right now (for my money, at least). SDG has reviews of both of them. If you’re looking for a movie to go to this weekend, you might check out
or
WALLACE & GROMIT: CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT
Be sure to check out Steve’s reviews of them.
The religion correspondent for the Time of London–Ruth "I’m Too Dangerously Unqualified To Keep My Job" Gledhill–has given vent to her spleen again in another tantrum disguised as a news story.
Be warned! She has an excessively large spleen!
That spleen is on display in previous thinly-disguised crypto-tantrums such as THIS and THIS, as well as in comments recorded HERE.
It’s no surprise, then, that Gledhill would try to gin up more controversy with a story such as her new one, which she or her editor eggregiously and INACCURATELY titled
Catholic Church no longer swears by truth of the Bible
With a provocation like that, I’ve received links to the story from loads of folks looking for comment.
So let’s get to it.
Continue reading “Times Religion Correspondent Can Barely Keep From Swearing”
Python Eats Aligator, Explodes . . . 
EXCERPTS:
Alligators have clashed with nonnative pythons before in Everglades National Park. But when a 6-foot gator tangled with a 13-foot python recently, the result wasn’t pretty.
The snake apparently tried to swallow the gator whole _ and then exploded. Scientists stumbled upon the gory remains last week.
The species have battled with increasing frequency _ scientists have documented four encounters in the last three years.
The gators have had to share their territory with a python population that has swelled over the past 20 years after owners dropped off pythons they no longer wanted in the Everglades. The Asian snakes have thrived in the wet, hot climate.
"Encounters like that are almost never seen in the wild. … And we here are, it’s happened for the fourth time," Mazzotti said. In the other cases, the alligator won or the battle was an apparent draw.
"They were probably evenly matched in size," Mazzotti said of the latest battle. "If the python got a good grip on the alligator before the alligator got a good grip on him, he could win."
While the gator may have been injured before the battle began _ wounds were found on it that apparently were not caused by python bites _ Mazzotti believes it was alive when the battle began. And it may have clawed at the python’s stomach as the snake tried to digest it, leading to the blow up.
GET THE STORY.
(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)
I can’t help but thinking that Toho Studios is going to be coming out with a Pynthona Vs. Gatora film sometime soon.
There is almost no comment that can be made on THIS ARTICLE (from Catholic Exchange, originally from Catholic World News) that could adequately express the contemptible and farcical absurdity of the "demands" made by the folks at We Are Church to the current Synod in Rome. I literally laughed out loud.
Consider this paragraph from the article:
"At an October 4 press conference in Rome, the dissident group called
for reconsideration of the key Catholic doctrine on the
transubstantiation, an end to the "hierarchical monopoly" on the
sacraments, and approval of shared communion with other Christian
denominations."
Never mind that the dissidents seem to be demanding that the Catholic Church simply cease to exist.
What struck me is how much really hangs on the Real Presence. Look at their three main complaints and how they hang together. If Jesus is not really present in the Eucharist, then it doesn’t much matter who administers the Sacrament, and so there is no need for a "hierarchical monopoly" (the priesthood).
It follows also that, if the Eucharist is just a symbolic remembrance, it doesn’t much matter who is allowed to receive it. Sure, open it up to everyone, even non-Christians. After all, wouldn’t it be petty and mean to exclude anyone?
What, are these people just too fond of drink to become Baptists?
Oh, I forgot, that would involve believing in an inerrant and inspired scripture, and you know these folks’ brains are too highly evolved for that.
What they are asking, in a nutshell, is that we give up every distinguishing feature of the Catholic faith. I have no doubt that they, or those of their ilk, will eventually demand this of all religions. We will be allowed to keep everything except our most deeply held beliefs; after all, those are "divisive".
Well, this makes me especially happy that my last painting (above) honors the Eucharist. Anybody know how to say "This is my body" in Latin? That is how I would like to name the piece.
Recently I was telling you about my trip to the Salton Sea. I wanted to show you some pictures from it, but it proved harder than I anticipated to get the pictures out of my camera phone.
As I was saying, the trip over the inland mountains in San Diego County is a WILD ride!
You go from basically sea level up to 4200 feet (just a thousand feet shy of a MILE UP!) and then plunge SUDDENLY back down to sea level again when you hit the Imperial Valley (which is Imperial County rather than San Diego County).
The ride is beautiful.
As I made it, I wished I could take all y’all along with me (though my pickup would never hold that many) just so you could see the GORGEOUS mountain scenery.
Photos never really capture the beauty fully, and you always drive past the most interesting things before you can get a picture of them, but . . .
WAIT! WHAT AM I SAYING???
Taking pictures of passing scenery with a camera phone as you’re driving a pickup in 70-80 mph traffic on curvy mountain roads???
That’d be incredibly reckless!!!
But then . . .
That Y-chromosome I’m packin’ gives me a license to do reckless things from time to time.
So here goes . . .
That’s what my 86-year old grandmother said when I spoke to her recently.
She lives on the family ranch in Deep East Texas, about 20 miles from the Lousiana border.
We wpoke in the wake of Hurricane Rita, which made landfall at Sabine Pass, Texas, more than 120 miles to the south.
When Rita reached my family ranch, it was still a Category 1 hurricane–120 MILES INLAND!
The wind blew and blew for hours, and my grandmother described for
me how the thought that the tall pine trees around the house would
crash over, but they didn’t.
One of my cousins shows up to help her during the storm.
The next day revealed that Deep East Texas is tore up BAD.
Grandmother described for me how there are branches down all over the place, power lines swinging, and virtually all normal services shut off.
The power is down, which means (among other things) that there is no radio, TV, or Internet, no clean water (everyone’s wells run on power), no gasoline (can’t pump it out of the tanks at filling stations), and worst of all–NO AIR CONDITIONING in the muggy heat of Indian Summer.
That’s not good for the elderly.
And the authorities estimate that it’s going to STAY that way (i.e., no power and no anything else) for TWO WEEKS TO A MONTH!
But my grandmother is determined to stick it out.
She’s got her dogs.
She’s got her gun.
And she’s got my relatives.
Like my six aunts and uncles who live in Houston, not to mention cousins.
The storm’s fury didn’t strike their areas near as bad, so they’re all fine.
My relatives have her set up with a small, portable generator that provides enough electricity to let her keep her phone and freezer working–and maybe an electric fan.
The relatives also bring her fresh water in jugs and gasoline (brought in from other counties) to keep the generator going).
So a big YEE-HAW!!! for my Tough-As-Texas grandmother!
And prayers for all the other HALF-MILLION folks in Texas who are without power due to Rita.
Thanks much, y’all!
British police who launched an offensive to crack down on seasonal crime have been pressured into renaming their operation. After protests from a pagan group, the name Operation Pagan was scrapped:
"It had seemed a good idea for Kent police to name the six-week campaign Operation Pagan because it coincided with Hallowe’en. However, the force had not reckoned with the Pagan Federation, which said the name of the operation, to tackle vandalism and violence linked to longer autumn nights, was offensive.
"Brian Botham, a spokesman for the federation, said: ‘They wouldn’t have called it Operation Christian, Operation Jew or Operation Muslim. So why Operation Pagan?’"
Perhaps because the word pagan has traditionally had a wider usage as a synonym for hedonist before it was constricted by the resurgence of people who consider the term a badge of honor. In any event, the police have rolled their eyes, made the change, and could not resist poking a bit of fun at the hyper-sensitive climate of contemporary society:
"A police spokesman said: ‘We’re sorry if the name caused distress.’ The operation has been renamed Excalibur. ‘We’re waiting for some Arthurian society to complain that we’re besmirching Camelot,’ said one officer."
I gotta question for y’all!
My current laptop is WiFi enabled, which allowes me to connect to take it to a large number of places and connect it to a large number of wireless networks. (Meaning: I don’t have to plug it into an ordinary modem in order to connect to the Internet. I can just sit in a Starbucks–or wherever–and blog or check my e-mail from there.)
When I’ve used this feature, however, I have often gotten messages telling me that the WiFi networks that are in range are "unsecured," and warnings appear telling me that data I send over the networks may be observed by others.
But I get similar warnings when I use normal, modem-based networks. (These are also generally observable except for unique, encoded transactions where I submit my passwords. Thus a snooper may observe what I am buying from Amazon.Com, but my password *itself* is in a uniquely encrypted bit of the transaction.)
So my question is: WHAT LEVEL OF SECURITY IS PROVIDED BY SUCH WIFI NETWORKS?
FOR EXAMPLE: If I type in my password for my e-mail account on a WiFi network, can other folks see that? Or is it like a normal web-based account where snoopers could see my e-mail but not the password I send?
Or can *anything* (password or not) be seen by a snooper. (In which case, why would ANYONE use an unsecured network to do ANYTHING?).
I’d appreciate whatever light on this question folks can shed.
If possible, PLEASE INCLUDE LINKS to where I can read more about the security processes in question!
Thanks much, folks!
EXERPTS:
A day after Bush publicly beseeched skeptical supporters to trust his judgment on Miers, a succession of prominent conservative leaders told his representatives that they did not. Over the course of several hours of sometimes testy exchanges, the dissenters complained that Miers was an unknown quantity with a thin résumé and that her selection — Bush called her "the best person I could find" — was a betrayal of years of struggle to move the court to the right.
At one point in the first of the two off-the-record sessions, according to several people in the room, White House adviser Ed Gillespie suggested that some of the unease about Miers "has a whiff of sexism and a whiff of elitism." Irate participants erupted and demanded that he take it back. Gillespie later said he did not mean to accuse anyone in the room but "was talking more broadly" about criticism of Miers.
[NOTE FROM JIMMY: The charge of sexism is INSANE. If the president had nominated a KNOWN ORIGINALIST who happened to be a woman there would be ZERO complaints. Gillespie DESERVED to be shouted down for such an insult.]
The tenor of the two meetings suggested that Bush has yet to rally his own party behind Miers and underscores that he risks the biggest rupture with the Republican base of his presidency. While conservatives at times have assailed some Bush policy decisions, rarely have they been so openly distrustful of the president himself.
The 90-minute Norquist session where Gillespie appeared before 100 activists was the more fiery encounter, according to participants. Among those speaking out was Jessica Echard, executive director of the Eagle Forum, founded by Phyllis Schlafly. While she declined to give a full account later because of the meeting ground rules, Echard said in an interview that her group could not for now support Miers: "We feel this is a disappointment in President Bush. If it’s going to be a woman, we expected an equal heavyweight to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her liberal stance, and we did not get that in Miss Miers."
Another conservative captured the mood, according to a witness, by scorning Miers. "She’s the president’s nominee," he said. "She’s not ours."
At Weyrich’s two-hour luncheon featuring Mehlman and Goeglein addressing 85 activists, the host opened the discussion by rejecting Bush’s call to trust him. "I told Mehlman that I had had five ‘trust-mes’ in my long history here . . . and I said, ‘I’m sorry but the president saying he knows her heart is insufficient," Weyrich said, referring to Republican court appointments that resulted in disappointment for conservatives.