Matrix of Rackets - Clusterfuck Nation Statin
side effect of
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Monday, April 09, 2012
Deuteronomy 32:35 It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them."
Deuteronomy 32:35 It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them.": King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.
To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.
Tuesday, April 03, 2012
The Oil Drum | From SEMP to SEMS: Industry’s Response to the Deepwater Horizon / Macondo disaster
The Oil Drum | From SEMP to SEMS: Industry’s Response to the Deepwater Horizon / Macondo disaster
There are TODsters who know about the mechanical side of ops, such as BOP design, then I’ll ever know. Ditto for cement specs and their testing procedures. But I do understand the basic method for preventing a well from blowing out. This may sound stupidly simple to many and they may think I’m leaving something out. I’m not.
Reservoirs, regardless of where they are and at what depth, exist at a certain pressure. The column of fluid in the well bore, whether cased or open hole, has to exert a pressure greater than the reservoir pressure. Basic and undeniable physics: fluid will flow from high pressure to low pressure. It didn’t matter if Halliburton had pumped the best/worst cement on the planet. It didn’t matter if BP had the best/worst cmt testing procedures in the industry. It wouldn’t even matter if BP had pumped no cmt at all. It would not have mattered if BP had the best designed BOP one can imagine or none at all. If BP had left a mud column in the well of sufficient weight to prevent the reservoir from flowing the blowout would not have happened.
Last week I began completing a well I drilled and cased a month ago. Cement was pumped and the drilling rig moved off. I didn’t run a cmt bond log or test neither the cement nor any of the potential annular failures before doing so. There was no need to: I left the mud in the casing that I drilled the reservoir with…the mud weight that prevented the reservoir from blowing out in the first place. I could have left the well with no casing, no cement, no BOP, etc. etc, etc for a 100 years and it would not have blown out.
With the more expensive drilling rig gone I move in a small completion rig. The cement has now had weeks to cure unlike the mere hours the Macondo cmt had. Not only do I run a cmt bond log I test all the cement (in the annulus as well as the bottom cmt plug) to a level exceeding the reservoir pressure. I install a BOP that exceeds the reservoir pressure and actually pressure up on it to make sure it holds that pressure. Then, and only then, do I displace the heavier drilling mud with a lighter weight completion fluid. Then I shoot holes in the casing through the reservoir and since its pressure is now greater than the back pressure exerted by the completion fluid the well begins to flow.
That, boys and girls, is how I’ve completed every well in the last 36 years. Not once have I ever seen an operator temporarily abandon a well without leaving a sufficient mud weight in the hole to prevent a blow out. And that includes offshore wells. I haven’t focused on the offshore for a while, especially Deep Water. I was shocked to discover that the feds allowed this procedure on the Macondo well. I can understand why BP did it. There are no cheap DW completion rigs: they use the same very expensive rig used to drill the well. BP wanted to leave the Macondo well ready to perforate and flow before they moved the rig off location. And that’s exactly what happened…the well flowed. Just a little sooner than they had planned.
Folks can discuss all the things that went wrong in the process: bad cmt, bad testing procedures, management pressure, malfunctioning BOP, drilling hands not monitoring the well properly, etc. But it doesn’t change the fact that had BP left the heavier mud in the hole or had placed packers in the hole isolating the reservoir from the surface before displacing with a lighter fluid the well would not have blown out. Never.
So how do you prevent another Macondo well from blowing out? Just as the doctor said when you told him it hurts when you do this: “Don’t do that”. LOL. There could be a blow out develop during the original drilling phase. That’s a different scenario we can discuss later. But a Macondo type failure need never happen again: just take 15 minutes to rewrite the regs regarding how a well is left temporarily abandoned.
It really is that stupidly simple
There are TODsters who know about the mechanical side of ops, such as BOP design, then I’ll ever know. Ditto for cement specs and their testing procedures. But I do understand the basic method for preventing a well from blowing out. This may sound stupidly simple to many and they may think I’m leaving something out. I’m not.
Reservoirs, regardless of where they are and at what depth, exist at a certain pressure. The column of fluid in the well bore, whether cased or open hole, has to exert a pressure greater than the reservoir pressure. Basic and undeniable physics: fluid will flow from high pressure to low pressure. It didn’t matter if Halliburton had pumped the best/worst cement on the planet. It didn’t matter if BP had the best/worst cmt testing procedures in the industry. It wouldn’t even matter if BP had pumped no cmt at all. It would not have mattered if BP had the best designed BOP one can imagine or none at all. If BP had left a mud column in the well of sufficient weight to prevent the reservoir from flowing the blowout would not have happened.
Last week I began completing a well I drilled and cased a month ago. Cement was pumped and the drilling rig moved off. I didn’t run a cmt bond log or test neither the cement nor any of the potential annular failures before doing so. There was no need to: I left the mud in the casing that I drilled the reservoir with…the mud weight that prevented the reservoir from blowing out in the first place. I could have left the well with no casing, no cement, no BOP, etc. etc, etc for a 100 years and it would not have blown out.
With the more expensive drilling rig gone I move in a small completion rig. The cement has now had weeks to cure unlike the mere hours the Macondo cmt had. Not only do I run a cmt bond log I test all the cement (in the annulus as well as the bottom cmt plug) to a level exceeding the reservoir pressure. I install a BOP that exceeds the reservoir pressure and actually pressure up on it to make sure it holds that pressure. Then, and only then, do I displace the heavier drilling mud with a lighter weight completion fluid. Then I shoot holes in the casing through the reservoir and since its pressure is now greater than the back pressure exerted by the completion fluid the well begins to flow.
That, boys and girls, is how I’ve completed every well in the last 36 years. Not once have I ever seen an operator temporarily abandon a well without leaving a sufficient mud weight in the hole to prevent a blow out. And that includes offshore wells. I haven’t focused on the offshore for a while, especially Deep Water. I was shocked to discover that the feds allowed this procedure on the Macondo well. I can understand why BP did it. There are no cheap DW completion rigs: they use the same very expensive rig used to drill the well. BP wanted to leave the Macondo well ready to perforate and flow before they moved the rig off location. And that’s exactly what happened…the well flowed. Just a little sooner than they had planned.
Folks can discuss all the things that went wrong in the process: bad cmt, bad testing procedures, management pressure, malfunctioning BOP, drilling hands not monitoring the well properly, etc. But it doesn’t change the fact that had BP left the heavier mud in the hole or had placed packers in the hole isolating the reservoir from the surface before displacing with a lighter fluid the well would not have blown out. Never.
So how do you prevent another Macondo well from blowing out? Just as the doctor said when you told him it hurts when you do this: “Don’t do that”. LOL. There could be a blow out develop during the original drilling phase. That’s a different scenario we can discuss later. But a Macondo type failure need never happen again: just take 15 minutes to rewrite the regs regarding how a well is left temporarily abandoned.
It really is that stupidly simple
Monday, April 02, 2012
Darryl E. Owens: Here's why people are so angry over Trayvon Martin's death - Orlando Sentinel
Darryl E. Owens: Here's why people are so angry over Trayvon Martin's death - Orlando Sentinel
Emmett Till was dead. And despite damning evidence, Bryant and Milam were acquitted -- after the all-white jury deliberated a mere 67 minutes. (Later, they'd cash in by selling Look magazine the blow-by-blow of how they lynched Till for allegedly whistling at a white woman).
Nearly 57 years later, and some 800 miles from the delta town where Emmett Till met his doom, another young black kid's death has revived the suspicion that a black life doesn't have all that much value.
Sure, few of the nearly 400 righteously indignant people who flocked Allen Chapel AME Church this week, demanding that police lock up George Zimmerman, probably know the details about Emmett Till's death.
But the black folk among them know all too well the deep, abiding sense that, in a country where segregation, Jim Crow and prejudice have created unequal footing, African-Americans also too often endure separate and but unequal justice.
That's why it's not surprising so many blacks packed in Sanford church in protest. And why blacks in Central Florida (and elsewhere) have reacted so viscerally to the death of Trayvon Martin, 17, who was gunned down last month.
He was shot to death while visiting his family at a gated neighborhood in Sanford. Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who isn't black, admits pulling the trigger. Self-defense, he says. And he walked out the Sanford Police headquarters, with police saying there wasn't enough evidence for an arrest.
The state attorney's office now wrestles with whether to file charges.
"We come together today in the name of justice," Allen Chapel pastor Valerie Henry told justice-seekers this week. "We stand as [Trayvon's] voice."
A ritual that's sadly become reflex.
More than a century ago, W.E.B. Dubois observed: "Daily the Negro is coming more and more to look upon law and justice, not as protecting safeguards, but as sources of humiliation and oppression. The laws are made by men who have little interest in him; they are executed by men who have absolutely no motive for treating the black people with courtesy or consideration; and, finally, the accused law-breaker is tried, not by his peers, but too often by men who would rather punish ten innocent Negroes than let one guilty one escape."
An observation borne out by lynch mobs that killed with impunity and mass tragedies such as a 1920 riot in Ocoee and the 1923 burning by a white mob of Rosewood, an all-black Levy County town, for which no arrests were made. And more recently, with the notorious 1992 acquittal by an all-white jury of four white Los Angeles cops involved in the brutal beating of Rodney King.
The message: black lives have little worth.
It's why so many blacks cynically cheered the O.J. Simpson murder verdict -- even though the Juice was guilty as sin.
Emmett Till was dead. And despite damning evidence, Bryant and Milam were acquitted -- after the all-white jury deliberated a mere 67 minutes. (Later, they'd cash in by selling Look magazine the blow-by-blow of how they lynched Till for allegedly whistling at a white woman).
Nearly 57 years later, and some 800 miles from the delta town where Emmett Till met his doom, another young black kid's death has revived the suspicion that a black life doesn't have all that much value.
Sure, few of the nearly 400 righteously indignant people who flocked Allen Chapel AME Church this week, demanding that police lock up George Zimmerman, probably know the details about Emmett Till's death.
But the black folk among them know all too well the deep, abiding sense that, in a country where segregation, Jim Crow and prejudice have created unequal footing, African-Americans also too often endure separate and but unequal justice.
That's why it's not surprising so many blacks packed in Sanford church in protest. And why blacks in Central Florida (and elsewhere) have reacted so viscerally to the death of Trayvon Martin, 17, who was gunned down last month.
He was shot to death while visiting his family at a gated neighborhood in Sanford. Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who isn't black, admits pulling the trigger. Self-defense, he says. And he walked out the Sanford Police headquarters, with police saying there wasn't enough evidence for an arrest.
The state attorney's office now wrestles with whether to file charges.
"We come together today in the name of justice," Allen Chapel pastor Valerie Henry told justice-seekers this week. "We stand as [Trayvon's] voice."
A ritual that's sadly become reflex.
More than a century ago, W.E.B. Dubois observed: "Daily the Negro is coming more and more to look upon law and justice, not as protecting safeguards, but as sources of humiliation and oppression. The laws are made by men who have little interest in him; they are executed by men who have absolutely no motive for treating the black people with courtesy or consideration; and, finally, the accused law-breaker is tried, not by his peers, but too often by men who would rather punish ten innocent Negroes than let one guilty one escape."
An observation borne out by lynch mobs that killed with impunity and mass tragedies such as a 1920 riot in Ocoee and the 1923 burning by a white mob of Rosewood, an all-black Levy County town, for which no arrests were made. And more recently, with the notorious 1992 acquittal by an all-white jury of four white Los Angeles cops involved in the brutal beating of Rodney King.
The message: black lives have little worth.
It's why so many blacks cynically cheered the O.J. Simpson murder verdict -- even though the Juice was guilty as sin.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
This Video Will Shock South African people... wmv - YouTube
This Video Will Shock South African people... wmv - YouTube
Rev Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=17m8OnHC7dQ#!
Rev Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=17m8OnHC7dQ#!
It's all about race now - HUMAN EVENTS
It's all about race now - HUMAN EVENTS: There are two Black Americas in this country. One is comprised of hard working, decent, hospitable, laid back, wonderful people of faith and the other is the product of broken homes and single parent families, entitled, secular, a feral pack. Obviously we need to encourage one over the other but welfare state liberalism and the culture, which is controlled by the left, feed and encourage the dysfunctional one.
It's all about race now - HUMAN EVENTS
It's all about race now - HUMAN EVENTS
If it had been a white teenager who was shot, and a 28-year-old black guy who shot him, the black guy would have been arrested.
So assert those demanding the arrest of George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Trayvon Martin.
And they may be right.
Yet if Trayvon had been shot dead by a black neighborhood watch volunteer, Jesse Jackson would not have been in a pulpit in Sanford, Fla., howling that he had been "murdered and martyred."
Maxine Waters would not be screaming "hate crime."
Rep. Hank Johnson would not be raging that Trayvon had been "executed." And ex-Black Panther Bobby Rush would not have been wearing a hoodie in the well of the House.
Which tells you what this whipped-up hysteria is all about.
It is not about finding the truth about what happened that night in Sanford when Zimmerman followed Trayvon in his SUV, and the two wound up in a fight, with Trayvon dead.
It is about the exacerbation of and the exploitation of racial conflict.
And it is about an irreconcilable conflict of visions about what the real America is in the year 2012.
Zimmerman "profiled" Trayvon, we are told. And perhaps he did.
But why? What did George Zimmerman, self-styled protector of his gated community, see that night from the wheel of his SUV?
He saw a male. And males are 90 percent of prison inmates. He saw a stranger over 6 feet tall. And he saw a black man or youth with a hood over his head.
Why would this raise Zimmerman's antennae?
Perhaps because black males between 16 and 36, though only 2 to 3 percent of the population, are responsible for a third of all our crimes.
In some cities, 40 percent of all black males are in jail or prison, on probation or parole, or have criminal records. This is not a product of white racism but of prosecutions and convictions of criminal acts.
Had Zimmerman seen a black woman or older man in his neighborhood, he likely would never have tensed up or called in.
For all the abuse he has received, Geraldo Rivera had a point.
Whenever cable TV runs hidden-camera footage of a liquor or convenience store being held up and someone behind the counter being shot, the perp is often a black male wearing a hoodie.
So assert those demanding the arrest of George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Trayvon Martin.
And they may be right.
Yet if Trayvon had been shot dead by a black neighborhood watch volunteer, Jesse Jackson would not have been in a pulpit in Sanford, Fla., howling that he had been "murdered and martyred."
Maxine Waters would not be screaming "hate crime."
Rep. Hank Johnson would not be raging that Trayvon had been "executed." And ex-Black Panther Bobby Rush would not have been wearing a hoodie in the well of the House.
Which tells you what this whipped-up hysteria is all about.
It is not about finding the truth about what happened that night in Sanford when Zimmerman followed Trayvon in his SUV, and the two wound up in a fight, with Trayvon dead.
It is about the exacerbation of and the exploitation of racial conflict.
And it is about an irreconcilable conflict of visions about what the real America is in the year 2012.
Zimmerman "profiled" Trayvon, we are told. And perhaps he did.
But why? What did George Zimmerman, self-styled protector of his gated community, see that night from the wheel of his SUV?
He saw a male. And males are 90 percent of prison inmates. He saw a stranger over 6 feet tall. And he saw a black man or youth with a hood over his head.
Why would this raise Zimmerman's antennae?
Perhaps because black males between 16 and 36, though only 2 to 3 percent of the population, are responsible for a third of all our crimes.
In some cities, 40 percent of all black males are in jail or prison, on probation or parole, or have criminal records. This is not a product of white racism but of prosecutions and convictions of criminal acts.
Had Zimmerman seen a black woman or older man in his neighborhood, he likely would never have tensed up or called in.
For all the abuse he has received, Geraldo Rivera had a point.
Whenever cable TV runs hidden-camera footage of a liquor or convenience store being held up and someone behind the counter being shot, the perp is often a black male wearing a hoodie.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
An Unfortunate T-Shirt Hits Florida Streets In Wake Of Trayvon Martin Killing | The Smoking Gun
An Unfortunate T-Shirt Hits Florida Streets In Wake Of Trayvon Martin Killing | The Smoking Gun
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
-M K Gandhi
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
-M K Gandhi
Monday, March 26, 2012
The Oil Drum | Global Oil Risks in the Early 21st Century
The Oil Drum | Global Oil Risks in the Early 21st Century: Today, over 60% of the world production originates from a few hundred giant fields. The number of giant oil field discoveries peaked in the early 60s and has been dwindling since then (H�k et al., 2009). This is similar to picking strawberries in a field. We picked the biggest and best strawberries first (just like big oil fields they are easier to find) and left the small ones for later. Only 25 fields account for one quarter of global production and 100 fields account for half of production. Just 500 fields account for two-thirds of all the production (Sorrell et al., 2009a). As the IEA (2008) points out, it is far from certain that the oil industry will be able to muster the capital to tap enough of the remaining, low-return fields fast enough to make up for the decline in production from current fields.
3 @ @
The EROEI of US domestic oil production (chiefly originating from giant oil fields) has declined from 100:1 in 1930 to less than 20:1 for developments in the 2000s, e.g. Gulf of Mexico,(Gately, 2007; Hall et al., 2008; Murphy and Hall, 2010). Since giant and super giant oil fields dominate current production, they are good indicators for the point of peak production (Robelius, 2007; Höök et al., 2009). There is now broad agreement among analysts that the decline in existing production is between 4-8% annually (Höök et al., 2009). In terms of capacity, this means that roughly a new North Sea (~5 Mb/d) has to come on stream every year just to keep the present output constant.
3 @ @
The EROEI of US domestic oil production (chiefly originating from giant oil fields) has declined from 100:1 in 1930 to less than 20:1 for developments in the 2000s, e.g. Gulf of Mexico,(Gately, 2007; Hall et al., 2008; Murphy and Hall, 2010). Since giant and super giant oil fields dominate current production, they are good indicators for the point of peak production (Robelius, 2007; Höök et al., 2009). There is now broad agreement among analysts that the decline in existing production is between 4-8% annually (Höök et al., 2009). In terms of capacity, this means that roughly a new North Sea (~5 Mb/d) has to come on stream every year just to keep the present output constant.
No justice, no agitation | Power Line
No justice, no agitation | Power Line
Forbidden Facts: You can know the facts about "race and crime before too long, but you better be careful not to talk about them in polite society."
Murder is largely an intraracial crime. Almost all murders of blacks
Forbidden Facts: You can know the facts about "race and crime before too long, but you better be careful not to talk about them in polite society."
Murder is largely an intraracial crime. Almost all murders of blacks
are committed by other blacks. Blacks as a group commit murder at a rate astronomically higher than other groups. The rate of murder committed by blacks exceeds that committed by whites by approximately seven times. -- No justice, no agitation | Power Line
Thursday, March 22, 2012
I Miss Iraq. I Miss My Gun. I Miss My War. - Esquire
I Miss Iraq. I Miss My Gun. I Miss My War. - Esquire
A few months ago, I found a Web site loaded with pictures and videos from Iraq, the sort that usually aren't seen on the news. I watched insurgent snipers shoot American soldiers and car bombs disintegrate markets, accompanied by tinny music and loud, rhythmic chanting, the soundtrack of the propaganda campaigns. Video cameras focused on empty stretches of road, building anticipation. Humvees rolled into view and the explosions brought mushroom clouds of dirt and smoke and chunks of metal spinning through the air. Other videos and pictures showed insurgents shot dead while planting roadside bombs or killed in firefights and the remains of suicide bombers, people how they're not meant to be seen, no longer whole. The images sickened me, but their familiarity pulled me in, giving comfort, and I couldn't stop. I clicked through more frames, hungry for it. This must be what a shot of dope feels like after a long stretch of sobriety. Soothing and nauseating and colored by everything that has come before. My body tingled and my stomach ached, hollow. I stood on weak legs and walked into the kitchen to make dinner. I sliced half an onion before putting the knife down and watching slight tremors run through my hand. The shakiness lingered. I drank a beer. And as I leaned against this kitchen counter, in this house, in America, my life felt very foreign. I've been home from Iraq for more than a year, long enough for my time there to become a memory best forgotten for those who worried every day that I was gone. I could see their relief when I returned. Life could continue, with futures not so uncertain. But in quiet moments, their relief brought me guilt. Maybe they assume I was as overjoyed to be home as they were to have me home. Maybe they assume if I could do it over, I never would have gone. And maybe I wouldn't have. But I miss Iraq. I miss the war. I miss war. And I have a very hard time understanding why.
I'm glad to be home, to have put away my uniforms, to wake up next to my wife each morning. I worry about my friends who are in Iraq now, and I wish they weren't. Often I hated being there, when the frustrations and lack of control over my life were complete and mind-bending. I questioned my role in the occupation and whether good could come of it. I wondered if it was worth dying or killing for. The suffering and ugliness I saw disgusted me. But war twists and shifts the landmarks by which we navigate our lives, casting light on darkened areas that for many people remain forever unexplored. And once those darkened spaces are lit, they become part of us. At a party several years ago, long before the Army, I listened to a friend who had served several years in the Marines tell a woman that if she carried a pistol for a day, just tucked in her waistband and out of sight, she would feel different. She would see the world differently, for better or worse. Guns empower. She disagreed and he shrugged. No use arguing the point; he was just offering a little piece of truth. He was right, of course. And that's just the beginning.
I've spent hours taking in the world through a rifle scope, watching life unfold. Women hanging laundry on a rooftop. Men haggling over a hindquarter of lamb in the market. Children walking to school. I've watched this and hoped that someday I would see that my presence had made their lives better, a redemption of sorts. But I also peered through the scope waiting for someone to do something wrong, so I could shoot him. When you pick up a weapon with the intent of killing, you step onto a very strange and serious playing field. Every morning someone wakes wanting to kill you. When you walk down the street, they are waiting, and you want to kill them, too. That's not bloodthirsty; that's just the trade you've learned. And as an American soldier, you have a very impressive toolbox. You can fire your rifle or lob a grenade, and if that's not enough, call in the tanks, or helicopters, or jets. The insurgents have their skill sets, too, turning mornings at the market into chaos, crowds into scattered flesh, Humvees into charred scrap. You're all part of the terrible magic show, both powerful and helpless.
That men are drawn to war is no surprise. How old are boys before they turn a finger and thumb into a pistol? Long before they love girls, they love war, at least everything they imagine war to be: guns and explosions and manliness and courage. When my neighbors and I played war as kids, there was no fear or sorrow or cowardice. Death was temporary, usually as fast as you could count to sixty and jump back into the game. We didn't know yet about the darkness. And young men are just slightly older versions of those boys, still loving the unknown, perhaps pumped up on dreams of duty and heroism and the intoxicating power of weapons. In time, war dispels many such notions, and more than a few men find that being freed from society's professed revulsion to killing is really no freedom at all, but a lonely burden. Yet even at its lowest points, war is like nothing else. Our culture craves experience, and that is war's strong suit. War peels back the skin, and you live with a layer of nerves exposed, overdosing on your surroundings, when everything seems all wrong and just right, in a way that makes perfect sense. And then you almost die but don't, and are born again, stoned on life and mocking death. The explosions and gunfire fry your nerves, but you want to hear them all the same. Something's going down.
For those who know, this is the open secret: War is exciting. Sometimes I was in awe of this, and sometimes I felt low and mean for loving it, but I loved it still. Even in its quiet moments, war is brighter, louder, brasher, more fun, more tragic, more wasteful. More. More of everything. And even then I knew I would someday miss it, this life so strange. Today the war has distilled to moments and feelings, and somewhere in these memories is the reason for the wistfulness.
On one mission we slip away from our trucks and into the night. I lead the patrol through the darkness, along canals and fields and into the town, down narrow, hard-packed dirt streets. Everyone has gone to bed, or is at least inside. We peer through gates and over walls into courtyards and into homes. In a few rooms TVs flicker. A woman washes dishes in a tub. Dogs bark several streets away. No one knows we are in the street, creeping. We stop at intersections, peek around corners, training guns on parked cars, balconies, and storefronts. All empty. We move on. From a small shop up ahead, we hear men's voices and laughter. Maybe they used to sit outside at night, but now they are indoors, where it's safe. Safer. The sheet-metal door opens and a man steps out, cigarette and lighter in hand. He still wears a smile, takes in the cool night air, and then nearly falls backward through the doorway in a panic. I'm a few feet from him now and his eyes are wide. I mutter a greeting and we walk on, back into the darkness.
http://www.esquire.com/features/essay/ESQ0307ESSAY
I Miss Iraq. I Miss My Gun. I Miss My War.
A year after coming home from a tour in Iraq, a soldier returns home to find out he left something behind.
By Brian Mockenhaupt
I'm glad to be home, to have put away my uniforms, to wake up next to my wife each morning. I worry about my friends who are in Iraq now, and I wish they weren't. Often I hated being there, when the frustrations and lack of control over my life were complete and mind-bending. I questioned my role in the occupation and whether good could come of it. I wondered if it was worth dying or killing for. The suffering and ugliness I saw disgusted me. But war twists and shifts the landmarks by which we navigate our lives, casting light on darkened areas that for many people remain forever unexplored. And once those darkened spaces are lit, they become part of us. At a party several years ago, long before the Army, I listened to a friend who had served several years in the Marines tell a woman that if she carried a pistol for a day, just tucked in her waistband and out of sight, she would feel different. She would see the world differently, for better or worse. Guns empower. She disagreed and he shrugged. No use arguing the point; he was just offering a little piece of truth. He was right, of course. And that's just the beginning.
I've spent hours taking in the world through a rifle scope, watching life unfold. Women hanging laundry on a rooftop. Men haggling over a hindquarter of lamb in the market. Children walking to school. I've watched this and hoped that someday I would see that my presence had made their lives better, a redemption of sorts. But I also peered through the scope waiting for someone to do something wrong, so I could shoot him. When you pick up a weapon with the intent of killing, you step onto a very strange and serious playing field. Every morning someone wakes wanting to kill you. When you walk down the street, they are waiting, and you want to kill them, too. That's not bloodthirsty; that's just the trade you've learned. And as an American soldier, you have a very impressive toolbox. You can fire your rifle or lob a grenade, and if that's not enough, call in the tanks, or helicopters, or jets. The insurgents have their skill sets, too, turning mornings at the market into chaos, crowds into scattered flesh, Humvees into charred scrap. You're all part of the terrible magic show, both powerful and helpless.
That men are drawn to war is no surprise. How old are boys before they turn a finger and thumb into a pistol? Long before they love girls, they love war, at least everything they imagine war to be: guns and explosions and manliness and courage. When my neighbors and I played war as kids, there was no fear or sorrow or cowardice. Death was temporary, usually as fast as you could count to sixty and jump back into the game. We didn't know yet about the darkness. And young men are just slightly older versions of those boys, still loving the unknown, perhaps pumped up on dreams of duty and heroism and the intoxicating power of weapons. In time, war dispels many such notions, and more than a few men find that being freed from society's professed revulsion to killing is really no freedom at all, but a lonely burden. Yet even at its lowest points, war is like nothing else. Our culture craves experience, and that is war's strong suit. War peels back the skin, and you live with a layer of nerves exposed, overdosing on your surroundings, when everything seems all wrong and just right, in a way that makes perfect sense. And then you almost die but don't, and are born again, stoned on life and mocking death. The explosions and gunfire fry your nerves, but you want to hear them all the same. Something's going down.
For those who know, this is the open secret: War is exciting. Sometimes I was in awe of this, and sometimes I felt low and mean for loving it, but I loved it still. Even in its quiet moments, war is brighter, louder, brasher, more fun, more tragic, more wasteful. More. More of everything. And even then I knew I would someday miss it, this life so strange. Today the war has distilled to moments and feelings, and somewhere in these memories is the reason for the wistfulness.
On one mission we slip away from our trucks and into the night. I lead the patrol through the darkness, along canals and fields and into the town, down narrow, hard-packed dirt streets. Everyone has gone to bed, or is at least inside. We peer through gates and over walls into courtyards and into homes. In a few rooms TVs flicker. A woman washes dishes in a tub. Dogs bark several streets away. No one knows we are in the street, creeping. We stop at intersections, peek around corners, training guns on parked cars, balconies, and storefronts. All empty. We move on. From a small shop up ahead, we hear men's voices and laughter. Maybe they used to sit outside at night, but now they are indoors, where it's safe. Safer. The sheet-metal door opens and a man steps out, cigarette and lighter in hand. He still wears a smile, takes in the cool night air, and then nearly falls backward through the doorway in a panic. I'm a few feet from him now and his eyes are wide. I mutter a greeting and we walk on, back into the darkness.
http://www.esquire.com/features/essay/ESQ0307ESSAY
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Reflejos
Reflejos: "Do not assume that he who seeks to comfort you now, lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life may also have much sadness and difficulty, that remains far beyond yours. Were it otherwise, he would never have been able to find these words”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
― Rainer Maria Rilke
Reflejos
Reflejos: "America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature. It enunciates that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just. It certainly does condemn anarchism, and it does also by inference condemn atheism, since it clearly names the Creator as the ultimate authority from whom these equal rights are derived."
—
G.K. Chesterton
—
G.K. Chesterton
Monday, March 19, 2012
Quotatious Quotations
Quotatious Quotations: “It’s not an optical illusion; it just looks that way.”
— Anonymous
— Anonymous
Quotatious Quotations
Quotatious Quotations: “Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed.”
— Michael Pritchard
— Michael Pritchard
Quotatious Quotations
Quotatious Quotations: “He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.”
— Chinese Proverb
— Chinese Proverb
Quotatious Quotations
Quotatious Quotations: “Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.”
— Italian Proverb
— Italian Proverb
On Healing Wings
On Healing Wings: Each of us, face to face with other men, is clothed with some sort of dignity, but we know only too well all the unspeakable things that go on in the heart.
—Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936)
—Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936)
On Healing Wings
On Healing Wings: I know not how I may seem to others, but to myself I am but a small child wandering upon the vast shores of knowledge, every now and then finding a small bright pebble to content myself with.
—Plato
—Plato
Sunday, March 18, 2012
AMERICAN DIGEST Essays, News, Notes, and Quotes
AMERICAN DIGEST Essays, News, Notes, and Quotes: "If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me."
-- Psalm 139
Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me."
-- Psalm 139
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Thursday, March 15, 2012
AMERICAN DIGEST Essays, News, Notes, and Quotes
AMERICAN DIGEST Essays, News, Notes, and Quotes: "Build a man a fire and you warm him for a day. Set a man on fire and he shall be warm the rest of his life." [Via commenter "twolaneflash"]
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Jesse's Caf�Am�ricain
Jesse's Caf�Am�ricain: Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Bonus Army and Business Plot
Another bear raid.
As a reminder this is the big 'triple witching' option expiration for stocks this week. The miners are fair game.
As you may recall, there was a significant amount of civil unrest in 1932, which was a presidential election year.
The Bonus Army of WW I veterans occupied Washington until they were forcibly dispersed by the US military led by Douglas MacArthur. The veterans had been encouraged in their peaceful occupation by Smedley Butler, Major General of the US Marine Corp.
Butler later testified in 1934 that he had been approached by several powerful industrialists who asked him to bring the Bonus Army back to Washington and take the government by force of numbers from then President Franklin Roosevelt, in a scheme that was known as The Business Plot.
This reminds me of the co-opting of the Tea Party, which started as a protest against TARP and the bank bailouts, by today's monied interests.
Fortunately our modern day Herbert Hoover is not so much the liquidationist as his business friendly predecessor.
Obama understands the need for bread, and Wall Street supplies the circuses.
But if history rhymes once again, this could be a long, hot summer.
Another bear raid.
As a reminder this is the big 'triple witching' option expiration for stocks this week. The miners are fair game.
As you may recall, there was a significant amount of civil unrest in 1932, which was a presidential election year.
The Bonus Army of WW I veterans occupied Washington until they were forcibly dispersed by the US military led by Douglas MacArthur. The veterans had been encouraged in their peaceful occupation by Smedley Butler, Major General of the US Marine Corp.
Butler later testified in 1934 that he had been approached by several powerful industrialists who asked him to bring the Bonus Army back to Washington and take the government by force of numbers from then President Franklin Roosevelt, in a scheme that was known as The Business Plot.
This reminds me of the co-opting of the Tea Party, which started as a protest against TARP and the bank bailouts, by today's monied interests.
Fortunately our modern day Herbert Hoover is not so much the liquidationist as his business friendly predecessor.
Obama understands the need for bread, and Wall Street supplies the circuses.
But if history rhymes once again, this could be a long, hot summer.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Reflejos
Reflejos: "Disturb us, O Lord when we are too well-pleased with ourselves when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little, because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, O Lord when with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the water of life when, having fallen in love with time, we have ceased to dream of eternity and in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of Heaven to grow dim. Stir us, O Lord to dare more boldly, to venture into wider seas where storms show Thy mastery, where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. In the name of Him who pushed back the horizons of our hopes and invited the brave to follow. Amen."
Desmond TuTu
Desmond TuTu
AMERICAN DIGEST Essays, News, Notes, and Quotes
AMERICAN DIGEST Essays, News, Notes, and Quotes: Burt Prelutsky's "Just sayin'..."
"I really am sick and tired of hearing Mitch McConnell referring to “Our friends on the other side of the aisle.”
Harry Reid is not your friend. Charles Schumer, Patrick Leahy and Dick Durbin, are not your friends. What’s more, Barbara Boxer, Patty Murray and Dianne Feinstein, are not going to the prom with you. Get over it."
"I really am sick and tired of hearing Mitch McConnell referring to “Our friends on the other side of the aisle.”
Harry Reid is not your friend. Charles Schumer, Patrick Leahy and Dick Durbin, are not your friends. What’s more, Barbara Boxer, Patty Murray and Dianne Feinstein, are not going to the prom with you. Get over it."
AMERICAN DIGEST Essays, News, Notes, and Quotes
AMERICAN DIGEST Essays, News, Notes, and Quotes: The Blood Price of Afghanistan
The alleged attack on Afghans by an American soldier in Kandahar, where 91 soldiers have been murdered last year alone,
is already receiving the full outrage treatment. Any outrage over the deaths of those 91 soldiers in the province will be completely absent. There will be no mention of how many of them died because the Obama Administration decided that the lives of Afghan civilians counted for more than the lives of soldiers. No talk of what it is like to walk past houses with gunmen dressed in civilian clothing inside and if you are fired at from those houses, your orders are to retreat. -- Sultan Knish a blog by Daniel Greenfield
The alleged attack on Afghans by an American soldier in Kandahar, where 91 soldiers have been murdered last year alone,
is already receiving the full outrage treatment. Any outrage over the deaths of those 91 soldiers in the province will be completely absent. There will be no mention of how many of them died because the Obama Administration decided that the lives of Afghan civilians counted for more than the lives of soldiers. No talk of what it is like to walk past houses with gunmen dressed in civilian clothing inside and if you are fired at from those houses, your orders are to retreat. -- Sultan Knish a blog by Daniel Greenfield
Sunday, March 11, 2012
AMERICAN DIGEST Essays, News, Notes, and Quotes
AMERICAN DIGEST Essays, News, Notes, and Quotes: The Left has enjoyed easy victory by peddling their nonsense to the moderates I mentioned above — the charitable, kind-hearted, hardworking moderates. Who are suckers. Because those suckers cannot tell the widow apart from the town drunk, and make no effort or achievement toward understanding there are people walking around determined to live off of the sweat of others. People who think only idiots work hard. And why shouldn’t those town-drunks think such a thing, if their lives have been devoted to suckering the sucker moderates — and it has always worked?
Saturday, March 10, 2012
On Healing Wings
On Healing Wings: I cannot believe — and I say this with all the emphasis of which I am capable — that there can ever be any good excuse for refusing to face the evidence in favour of something unwelcome. It is not by delusion, however exalted, that mankind can prosper, but only by unswerving courage in the pursuit of truth.
—Bertrand Russell
—Bertrand Russell
Let us pray | Power Line
Let us pray | Power Line: On Wednesday, White House officials summoned dozens of leaders of nonprofit organizations that strongly back the health law to help them coordinate plans for a prayer vigil, press conferences and other events outside the court when justices hear arguments for three days beginning March 26.
I see that according to the New York Times (link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/09/us/politics/white-house-works-to-shape-debate-over-health-law.html?_r=3&ref=todayspaper ) that “On Wednesday, White House officials summoned dozens of leaders of nonprofit organizations that strongly back the health law to help them coordinate plans for a prayer vigil, press conferences and other events outside the court when justices hear arguments for three days beginning March 26.” Hmmmm. Remember, of course, that is White House officials and not the President.
See the comments in article
s
Friday, March 09, 2012
Mme Scherzo - Some notes on fasting
Mme Scherzo - Some notes on fasting
Fasting must be undertaken willingly and not by compulsion. God doesn’t need our fasting. We don’t fast as a kind of personal punishment for our sins. We cannot pay God back for sins but we can only confess them to Him to receive forgiveness. Fasting with a willing spirit and not just with an attitude of fulfilling a religious obligation means that we keep the purposes of fasting always before us which is to develop self control and to remember God and His Kingdom. That way we fast not only in what we eat but also in how much we eat. Fasting is simplicity of eating. We leave the table not with loaded stomachs. Being a little hungry during the day becomes a constant reminder of God, of our dependence on Him, and of the fact that the Lord alone can give us “food that lasts for eternal life” (Jn 6:27). In fasting and prayer, he reveals Himself to us as our true food and drink.
(Source: home.wavecable.com)
Fasting must be undertaken willingly and not by compulsion. God doesn’t need our fasting. We don’t fast as a kind of personal punishment for our sins. We cannot pay God back for sins but we can only confess them to Him to receive forgiveness. Fasting with a willing spirit and not just with an attitude of fulfilling a religious obligation means that we keep the purposes of fasting always before us which is to develop self control and to remember God and His Kingdom. That way we fast not only in what we eat but also in how much we eat. Fasting is simplicity of eating. We leave the table not with loaded stomachs. Being a little hungry during the day becomes a constant reminder of God, of our dependence on Him, and of the fact that the Lord alone can give us “food that lasts for eternal life” (Jn 6:27). In fasting and prayer, he reveals Himself to us as our true food and drink.
(Source: home.wavecable.com)
Monday, March 05, 2012
tumblr_ltdis53K8n1qbogplo1_1280.png (PNG Image, 582�נ485 pixels)
tumblr_ltdis53K8n1qbogplo1_1280.png (PNG Image, 582�נ485 pixels): http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltdis53K8n1qbogplo1_1280.png?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ6IHWSU3BX3X7X3Q&Expires=1331058654&Signature=Mu8565PcHW3xg4M6sDSlliYbptc=
http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltdis53K8n1qbogplo1_1280.png?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ6IHWSU3BX3X7X3Q&Expires=1331058654&Signature=Mu8565PcHW3xg4M6sDSlliYbptc=
http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltdis53K8n1qbogplo1_1280.png?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ6IHWSU3BX3X7X3Q&Expires=1331058654&Signature=Mu8565PcHW3xg4M6sDSlliYbptc=
Sunday, March 04, 2012
Saturday, March 03, 2012
Friday, March 02, 2012
TOC 2012: Clay Johnson, "Is SEO Killing America?" - YouTube
TOC 2012: Clay Johnson, "Is SEO Killing America?" - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhFSxycMJCA&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhFSxycMJCA&feature=youtu.be
AMERICAN DIGEST Essays, News, Notes, and Quotes
AMERICAN DIGEST Essays, News, Notes, and Quotes: Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.
Thursday, March 01, 2012
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Reflejos
Reflejos: "We sit by and watch the Barbarian, we tolerate him; in the long stretches of peace we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence, his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creeds refreshes us; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond: and on these faces there is no smile."
—
Hilaire Belloc, The Barbarians
—
Hilaire Belloc, The Barbarians
Side-Lines: February 2012 Archives
Side-Lines: February 2012 Archives
"It is now time for Western Christians and non-Christians alike ..."
to acknowledge that men such as Alexis de Tocqueville were correct
and various concepts such as free expression, freedom of association, and other hallowed concepts of Western civilization simply do not translate outside of Western Christian culture. What was once theoretical is now empirical thanks to more than sixty years of evidence that strongly suggests that human liberty is simply not compatible with non-Christian, non-Western culture. -- Vox Popoli: The chickens begin to roost
"It is now time for Western Christians and non-Christians alike ..."
to acknowledge that men such as Alexis de Tocqueville were correct
and various concepts such as free expression, freedom of association, and other hallowed concepts of Western civilization simply do not translate outside of Western Christian culture. What was once theoretical is now empirical thanks to more than sixty years of evidence that strongly suggests that human liberty is simply not compatible with non-Christian, non-Western culture. -- Vox Popoli: The chickens begin to roost
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Mme Scherzo
Mme Scherzo:
" Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size.
Virginia Woolf,
" Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size.
Virginia Woolf,
Monday, February 20, 2012
Sore-Throated Sonnets of Regurgitated Reasoning | Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on...
Sore-Throated Sonnets of Regurgitated Reasoning | Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on...:
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich – yes, richer than a king –
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
-by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich – yes, richer than a king –
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
-by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Inspirational Adversity Quotes, Sayings about Problems and Hardship
Inspirational Adversity Quotes, Sayings about Problems and Hardship:
My strength is made perfect in weakness. ~II Corinthians
My strength is made perfect in weakness. ~II Corinthians
Strength quotes
Strength quotes:
“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”
“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”
Strength quotes
Strength quotes:
“Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. Love still stands when all else has fallen.”
“Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. Love still stands when all else has fallen.”
William Black on Financial Fraud | EconTalk | Library of Economics and Liberty
William Black on Financial Fraud | EconTalk | Library of Economics and Liberty
Really important report on banking fraud
Really important report on banking fraud
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Light Is More Important Than The Lantern - Poem by Nizar Qabbani
Light Is More Important Than The Lantern - Poem by Nizar Qabbani:
Light Is More Important Than The Lantern by Nizar Qabbani
Light is more important than the lantern,
The poem more important than the notebook,
And the kiss more important than the lips.
My letters to you
Are greater and more important than both of us.
The are the only documents
Where people will discover
Your beauty
And my madness.
Light Is More Important Than The Lantern by Nizar Qabbani
Light is more important than the lantern,
The poem more important than the notebook,
And the kiss more important than the lips.
My letters to you
Are greater and more important than both of us.
The are the only documents
Where people will discover
Your beauty
And my madness.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Reflejos
Reflejos: Ernest Tubb & His Texas Troubadours:
Waltz Across Texas, 1965
http://myjambox.tumblr.com/post/12803478447/ernest-tubb-waltz-across-texas
Waltz Across Texas, 1965
http://myjambox.tumblr.com/post/12803478447/ernest-tubb-waltz-across-texas
Thursday, February 09, 2012
On Healing Wings
On Healing Wings: "For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from Him; But when He cried to Him, He heard."
—Psalm 22:24
—Psalm 22:24
On Healing Wings
On Healing Wings:
" Men are undoubtedly more in danger from prosperity than from adversity, for when matters go smoothly, they flatter themselves, and are intoxicated by their success."
—John Calvin
" Men are undoubtedly more in danger from prosperity than from adversity, for when matters go smoothly, they flatter themselves, and are intoxicated by their success."
—John Calvin
Sunday, February 05, 2012
Mme Scherzo - The phrase, “Defining deviancy downward, ” has...
Mme Scherzo - The phrase, “Defining deviancy downward, ” has...
The phrase, “Defining deviancy downward, ” has always left me unsettled.
Isn’t deviancy a downward spiral from proper behavior, anyway?
More correctly, deviancy has been redefined upward, and with Sisyphean effort on the part of intellectuals, the press, and entertainment culture of the west, deviancy has not only been pushed up the hill against howling protest, but has been exalted to the highest pinnacle and placed upon an altar to be worshiped.
It is the new secular religion, which is actually the oldest religion of humanity. - the religion of Satan, of Cain, of Sodom and Gomorrah, of Baal and Beelzebub, of Molech and Mohammed.
It is the opiate of the mass media.
The First Person in the unholy trinity of Me, Myself and I.
It is the Religion of Tolerance.
Mme Scherzo
The phrase, “Defining deviancy downward, ” has always left me unsettled.
Isn’t deviancy a downward spiral from proper behavior, anyway?
More correctly, deviancy has been redefined upward, and with Sisyphean effort on the part of intellectuals, the press, and entertainment culture of the west, deviancy has not only been pushed up the hill against howling protest, but has been exalted to the highest pinnacle and placed upon an altar to be worshiped.
It is the new secular religion, which is actually the oldest religion of humanity. - the religion of Satan, of Cain, of Sodom and Gomorrah, of Baal and Beelzebub, of Molech and Mohammed.
It is the opiate of the mass media.
The First Person in the unholy trinity of Me, Myself and I.
It is the Religion of Tolerance.
Mme Scherzo
Saturday, February 04, 2012
Mme Scherzo - Conf�teor Deo omnipot�nti et vobis, fratres, quia...
Mme Scherzo - Conf�teor Deo omnipot�nti et vobis, fratres, quia...
Confíteor Deo omnipoténti et vobis, fratres,
quia peccávi nimis cogitatióne, verbo, ópere et omissióne:
mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa.
Ideo precor beátam Maríam semper Vírginem,
omnes Angelos et Sanctos, et vos, fratres,
oráre pro me ad Dóminum Deum nostrum.
English translation:
I confess to almighty God
and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have greatly sinned,
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done and in what I have failed to do,
through my fault, through my own fault,
through my own most grievous fault;
therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin,
all the Angels and Saints,
and you, my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me to the Lord our God.
For you who believe that there is a reality called White Privilege, and that only whites can be racists, I urge you to think through to the ends of such beliefs, and see how people, perpetually infantilized as victims of racism, never able to achieve their full status as grown men and women, never able to fulfill their life’s goals are actually robbed of their humanity by this belief, because they aren’t held to the same standards of behavior.
If only one group of people is responsible for the misery of everyone else, then those people are never responsible for their own actions, for their own failures, and will handily find anyone whiter, richer, more educated than themselves to blame.
If you must learn one thing about this doctrine it is this. It is completely at odds with Catholic, Protestant and Jewish teaching.
Group identification robs a man of his identity, of who he is as a creation of God, unique from others, while still being like them, under God.
When you say, in the comfort of your universities, where reality has only theories, that only white people can be racists, that only whites are privileged, you are stoking the fires of Hell against yourselves, and everyone else.
Do we need another holocaust to remind us that Jew-hatred was based upon this same satanic teaching? 6 million Jews died in the quest for a Jew-free world, and yet, all that Jew-hatred ended up costing the Germans and the rest of the world far more lives than the Jews they wished to eliminate.
Racism, as it has been redefined, is a meaningless term used to invoke rage and anger, and to shut down any form of debate and analysis of social policies.
Hatred, on the other hand, is as old as time. And that is something that divides us all, down to a brother, a sister, a mother and father. It is color blind.
The teaching of Christ is this: All those who are in Him, are neither male, nor female, nor slave nor free, nor Jew nor Gentile, but equals.
And that is what I believe.
Confíteor Deo omnipoténti et vobis, fratres,
quia peccávi nimis cogitatióne, verbo, ópere et omissióne:
mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa.
Ideo precor beátam Maríam semper Vírginem,
omnes Angelos et Sanctos, et vos, fratres,
oráre pro me ad Dóminum Deum nostrum.
English translation:
I confess to almighty God
and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have greatly sinned,
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done and in what I have failed to do,
through my fault, through my own fault,
through my own most grievous fault;
therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin,
all the Angels and Saints,
and you, my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me to the Lord our God.
For you who believe that there is a reality called White Privilege, and that only whites can be racists, I urge you to think through to the ends of such beliefs, and see how people, perpetually infantilized as victims of racism, never able to achieve their full status as grown men and women, never able to fulfill their life’s goals are actually robbed of their humanity by this belief, because they aren’t held to the same standards of behavior.
If only one group of people is responsible for the misery of everyone else, then those people are never responsible for their own actions, for their own failures, and will handily find anyone whiter, richer, more educated than themselves to blame.
If you must learn one thing about this doctrine it is this. It is completely at odds with Catholic, Protestant and Jewish teaching.
Group identification robs a man of his identity, of who he is as a creation of God, unique from others, while still being like them, under God.
When you say, in the comfort of your universities, where reality has only theories, that only white people can be racists, that only whites are privileged, you are stoking the fires of Hell against yourselves, and everyone else.
Do we need another holocaust to remind us that Jew-hatred was based upon this same satanic teaching? 6 million Jews died in the quest for a Jew-free world, and yet, all that Jew-hatred ended up costing the Germans and the rest of the world far more lives than the Jews they wished to eliminate.
Racism, as it has been redefined, is a meaningless term used to invoke rage and anger, and to shut down any form of debate and analysis of social policies.
Hatred, on the other hand, is as old as time. And that is something that divides us all, down to a brother, a sister, a mother and father. It is color blind.
The teaching of Christ is this: All those who are in Him, are neither male, nor female, nor slave nor free, nor Jew nor Gentile, but equals.
And that is what I believe.
Friday, February 03, 2012
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Quote | Goodmorning & Goodnight - Page 10
Quote | Goodmorning & Goodnight - Page 10: “Everyone has a secret they haven’t shared. Everyone has a past no one’s heard about. Everyone has talents that people don’t notice. Everyone has weaknesses hidden inside. Everyone has a story left untold, so never start judging someone thinking you know them back to front. Because the truth is, you probably don’t.”
Quote | Goodmorning & Goodnight - Page 9
Quote | Goodmorning & Goodnight - Page 9: “It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.” ~Mark Twain
Quote | Goodmorning & Goodnight - Page 8
Quote | Goodmorning & Goodnight - Page 8: “It Takes as Much Energy to Wish as it Does to Plan.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt
Quote | Goodmorning & Goodnight - Page 7
Quote | Goodmorning & Goodnight - Page 7: “When we hold each other, in the darkness, it doesn’t make the darkness go away. The bad things are still out there. The nightmares still walking. When we hold each other we feel not safe, but better. “It’s all right” we whisper, “I’m here, I love you.” and we lie: “I’ll never leave you.” For just a moment or two the darkness doesn’t seem so bad.” ~Neil Gaiman
Quote | Goodmorning & Goodnight - Page 6
Quote | Goodmorning & Goodnight - Page 6: “Imagine there is a bank account that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course? Each of us has such a bank. Its name is time. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to a good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no over draft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours. There is no drawing against “tomorrow”. You must live in the present on today’s deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness and success. The clock is running. Make the most of today.”
Quote | Goodmorning & Goodnight - Page 5
Quote | Goodmorning & Goodnight - Page 5: “May I see the things in front of me as they are, not as I think them to be.
May I walk the steps ahead of me one at a time, not wondering if there’s a map.
May I say the things that fix things, not break them further apart.
May I do what I need to do, not be distracted by what I can’t.
May I dream of what I hope for, not of what I fear.
May I love you like I love you, not as any other, me.”
May I walk the steps ahead of me one at a time, not wondering if there’s a map.
May I say the things that fix things, not break them further apart.
May I do what I need to do, not be distracted by what I can’t.
May I dream of what I hope for, not of what I fear.
May I love you like I love you, not as any other, me.”
Quote | Goodmorning & Goodnight - Page 4
Quote | Goodmorning & Goodnight - Page 4: “I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.”
~Variation On The Word Sleep by Margret Atwood
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.”
~Variation On The Word Sleep by Margret Atwood
Quote | Goodmorning & Goodnight - Page 4
Quote | Goodmorning & Goodnight - Page 4: “But I love your feet
only because they walked
upon the earth and upon
the wind and upon the waters,
until they found me.”
~Pablo Neruda
only because they walked
upon the earth and upon
the wind and upon the waters,
until they found me.”
~Pablo Neruda
Quote | Goodmorning & Goodnight - Page 3
Quote | Goodmorning & Goodnight - Page 3: “I’m not the silly romantic you think. I don’t want the heavens or the shooting stars. I don’t want gemstones or gold. I have those things already. I want…a steady hand. A kind soul. I want to fall asleep, and wake, knowing my heart is safe. I want to love, and be loved.”
shana abe
shana abe
Saturday, January 07, 2012
FORGOTTEN PROPHETS
FORGOTTEN PROPHETS My Dick
It occurs to me that I have not been speaking enough in recent days about my dick. My dick is powerful. It loves oatmeal and has a cholesterol level of 7. My dick is ambidextrous. It can do backflips and can deadlift 115 pounds. It can tell the difference between every type of American southwest elm trees with 100% accuracy. It was once runner up on a Jeopardy! celebrity edition, and shook Alex Trebek's hand. It tastes like a gingerbread man, with a hint of cinnamon. My dick can drive a motorcycle. It once dug a hole through 3 feet of river ice so it could go fishing. It is vegetarian. My dick can type 87 words per minute. It is an expert in Bulgarian pop culture. In a fight with a hammerhead shark, my dick won. People claim that they have seen it breathe fire. It would be on Mount Rushmore, but there wasn't enough room. Everyone respects and is in awe of my dick, especially women and gays. It is the best dick that has ever lived.
It occurs to me that I have not been speaking enough in recent days about my dick. My dick is powerful. It loves oatmeal and has a cholesterol level of 7. My dick is ambidextrous. It can do backflips and can deadlift 115 pounds. It can tell the difference between every type of American southwest elm trees with 100% accuracy. It was once runner up on a Jeopardy! celebrity edition, and shook Alex Trebek's hand. It tastes like a gingerbread man, with a hint of cinnamon. My dick can drive a motorcycle. It once dug a hole through 3 feet of river ice so it could go fishing. It is vegetarian. My dick can type 87 words per minute. It is an expert in Bulgarian pop culture. In a fight with a hammerhead shark, my dick won. People claim that they have seen it breathe fire. It would be on Mount Rushmore, but there wasn't enough room. Everyone respects and is in awe of my dick, especially women and gays. It is the best dick that has ever lived.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Saturday, December 03, 2011
Mme Scherzo
Mme Scherzo:
Watch your tongue---------Keep silence
For when the reason’s dull, the mind depressed,
He best doth speak who keeps his silence best.
Pedro Calder�n de la Barca, Life is a Dream (via vandegraaff)
Watch your tongue---------Keep silence
For when the reason’s dull, the mind depressed,
He best doth speak who keeps his silence best.
Pedro Calder�n de la Barca, Life is a Dream (via vandegraaff)
Mme Scherzo
Mme Scherzo
Description of ISLAM
“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.
A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.
No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”
Sir Winston Churchill, The River War, 1899 - first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50
Description of ISLAM
“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.
A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.
No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”
Sir Winston Churchill, The River War, 1899 - first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50
Thursday, December 01, 2011
On Healing Wings
On Healing Wings: Does God want us to suffer? What if the answer to that question is ‘yes’?
You see, I don’t think that God particularly wants us to be happy. I think He wants us to love and be loved. He wants us to grow up. You see, we are like children who think that our toys bring us all the happiness there is, and that our nursery is the whole wide world. But something has to drive us out into the world of others, and that thing is suffering. Put simply, pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. We are like blocks of stone from which the Sculptor carves a form.
The blows of His chisel which hurt us so much are what make us perfect.
—C.S. Lewis, Shadowlands
You see, I don’t think that God particularly wants us to be happy. I think He wants us to love and be loved. He wants us to grow up. You see, we are like children who think that our toys bring us all the happiness there is, and that our nursery is the whole wide world. But something has to drive us out into the world of others, and that thing is suffering. Put simply, pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. We are like blocks of stone from which the Sculptor carves a form.
The blows of His chisel which hurt us so much are what make us perfect.
—C.S. Lewis, Shadowlands
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Mme Scherzo - There are three classes of people: those who see,...
Mme Scherzo - There are three classes of people: those who see,...:
There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.
Leonardo da Vinci
There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.
Leonardo da Vinci
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