AMERICAN DIGEST: Comment on The Banality of Sedition: The devil makes 'em do it the first time,
second time they do it on their own.
Lord put a handle on that Motorheaded man,
help him leave that treason alone.
Saturday, April 18, 2015
AMERICAN DIGEST Essays, News, Notes, and Quotes
AMERICAN DIGEST Essays, News, Notes, and Quotes: Iceland’s Volcanic Pollution Dwarfs All of Europe’s Human Emissions
To demonise element number six in the periodic table is amusing. Why not promethium? Carbon dioxide is an odourless, colourless, harmless natural gas. It is plant food. Without carbon, there would be no life on Earth.
The original source of atmospheric CO2 is volcanoes. The Earth's early atmosphere had a thousand times the CO2 of today's atmosphere. This CO2 was recycled through rocks, life and the oceans. Through time, this CO2 has been sequestered into plants, coal, petroleum, minerals and carbonate rocks, resulting in a decrease in atmospheric CO2.
The atmosphere now contains 800 billion tonnes of carbon as CO2. Soils and plants contain 2000 billion tonnes, oceans 39,000 billion tonnes and limestone 65,000,000 billion tonnes. The atmosphere contains only 0.001 per cent of the total carbon in the top few kilometres of the Earth. Deeper in Earth, there are huge volumes of CO2 yet to be leaked into the atmosphere. So depleted is the atmosphere in CO2, that horticulturalists pump warm CO2 into glasshouses to accelerate plant growth.
Our planet has about 1,000 volcanoes on land, such as Holuhraun and Bardarbunga, but most of our volcanoes are under the sea. “Some 85 per cent of volcanoes are unseen and unmeasured yet these heat the oceans and add monstrous amounts of CO2 to the oceans,” notes Dr. Plimer. “Why have these been ignored?,” he asks.
To demonise element number six in the periodic table is amusing. Why not promethium? Carbon dioxide is an odourless, colourless, harmless natural gas. It is plant food. Without carbon, there would be no life on Earth.
The original source of atmospheric CO2 is volcanoes. The Earth's early atmosphere had a thousand times the CO2 of today's atmosphere. This CO2 was recycled through rocks, life and the oceans. Through time, this CO2 has been sequestered into plants, coal, petroleum, minerals and carbonate rocks, resulting in a decrease in atmospheric CO2.
The atmosphere now contains 800 billion tonnes of carbon as CO2. Soils and plants contain 2000 billion tonnes, oceans 39,000 billion tonnes and limestone 65,000,000 billion tonnes. The atmosphere contains only 0.001 per cent of the total carbon in the top few kilometres of the Earth. Deeper in Earth, there are huge volumes of CO2 yet to be leaked into the atmosphere. So depleted is the atmosphere in CO2, that horticulturalists pump warm CO2 into glasshouses to accelerate plant growth.
Our planet has about 1,000 volcanoes on land, such as Holuhraun and Bardarbunga, but most of our volcanoes are under the sea. “Some 85 per cent of volcanoes are unseen and unmeasured yet these heat the oceans and add monstrous amounts of CO2 to the oceans,” notes Dr. Plimer. “Why have these been ignored?,” he asks.
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Grace in the Blue Ridge Mountains @ AMERICAN DIGEST
Grace in the Blue Ridge Mountains @ AMERICAN DIGEST
The check had come and I'd paid it. They'd filled the restaurant and turned it once since we'd been there. A popular place. A post-post- modern place, a place that was a sterling example of how we live now -- the real and the regional reduced to a remembrance, the communities gated, the homes "maintenance -free." History in a bottle, cleaned, pressed and with the trans-fats removed. Just the way we like it. Traditional in style but tradition-free in content. The experience without the meaning and not missing it.
As I got up to leave the family of six at the long table across from me was served with the quick flourish and satisfied air of presentation that is the style of serving these days. The was food steaming in front of them, but none of them made a move towards it. Instead, they talked quietly amongst themselves and seemed to come to a decision. They made their selection from among them. It was to be one of the daughters, a girl of about 17 I guessed. The din in the restaurant rose and fell, but the family of six sat quietly and then bowed their heads as one. Then they said grace.
I stood motionless at my table. I had, I thought, never seen this before in a restaurant. I'd seen it in private homes to be sure, but upon reflection I realized that I'd not seen it there in quite sometime. And I was quite sure this was, for me, a rare event. I'd probably not been paying attention since it no doubt went on all the time, but still it was a startling moment. Perhaps I'd just been too long in Seattle where the only manifestations of spirit are flimsy; where the invocations are raised to a watery Buddhism or bloodless Unitarianism where God is impossibly distant if at all extant. Be that as it may, this simple act of saying grace did not so much shock me as still me. I paused to listen in. And the daughter did not disappoint.
Her's was no gestural grace -- "Bless this food. Amen. Let's eat." -- but an extended meditation on the good fortune to find oneself among family and before a rich selection of food; an acknowledgment of an unusual level of being blessed by God, and a calling down of God's grace on members of the family present and not present, and ending with a wish that God continue to bless the family, the community, the state and the country. Then, and only then, was "Amen" spoken and the meal begun.
Outside along the Asheville streets, it was a balmy evening. Down the block another restaurant offered "Exceptional International Vegetarian Food," and a shop on the corner sold items imported from Africa whose purchase was purported to help suffering children here and there in that blighted continent. A local freebie paper picked off a stack had decided that a photo of a tribal protest in Santiago, Chile on the Dia de la Raza was important information for the citizens of this part of town. Down in the Asheville hipster-dopester-homeless gulch at a more cut-rate vegetarian restaurant, citizens with shaved heads, "message" t-shirts, multiple facial piercing and full-body tattoos were climbing the stairs in search of a bran muffin, bitching about George Bush, global warming, and their personal collection of STDs while complaining of residual racism in a city that seems more white than Seattle.
The road back to the house in the hills was dark and winding and you had to take it slow. Going back it was nice to know that somewhere, somehow, and for reasons that sometimes challenge all understanding, there were people still asking God to bless America.
AMERICAN DIGEST: Comment on The state of religious freedom in 2015
AMERICAN DIGEST: Comment on The state of religious freedom in 2015:
The Rank Stranger
I wandered again to my home in the mountain
Where in youths early dawn I was happy and free
I looked for my friends but I never could find them
I found they were all rank strangers to me
Everybody I met seemed to be a rank stranger
No mother no dad not a friend I could see
They knew not my name and I knew not their faces
I found they were all rank strangers to me
They've moved all away said the voice of a stranger
To a beautiful home by the bright crystal sea
Some beautiful day I'll meet them in Heaven
Where no one will be a stranger to me
Author: Albert E. Brumley
The Rank Stranger
I wandered again to my home in the mountain
Where in youths early dawn I was happy and free
I looked for my friends but I never could find them
I found they were all rank strangers to me
Everybody I met seemed to be a rank stranger
No mother no dad not a friend I could see
They knew not my name and I knew not their faces
I found they were all rank strangers to me
They've moved all away said the voice of a stranger
To a beautiful home by the bright crystal sea
Some beautiful day I'll meet them in Heaven
Where no one will be a stranger to me
Author: Albert E. Brumley
Monday, April 13, 2015
Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello
Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello: Long, long ago - An old Indiana geezer, who had been a retired farmer for a long time, became bored and decided to open a medical clinic based upon his vast knowledge of treating animals.
To stop the skeptics he put a sign up outside that said: "Dr.
Geezer’s clinic - Get your treatment for $5.00, if not cured get back $10.00."
Doctor Young, who was new to the community,and was a recent Eastern medical school graduate, was positive that this old geezer
didn't know beans about medicine and thought that this would be a great opportunity to enhance his reputation in the community and to get an easy $10.00 in the meantime. So he went to Dr. Geezer’s clinic.
This is what happened:
Dr. Young: "Dr. Geezer, I have lost all taste in my mouth, can you please help me?"
Dr. Geezer: "Nurse, please bring the medicine from box 22 and put 3 drops in Dr. Young's mouth."
Dr. Young: Aaagh! "This is nothing but coal oil!"
Dr. Geezer: "Congratulations! You've got your taste back. That will be $5.00."
Dr. Young gets annoyed and goes back after a couple of days figuring to recover his lost $5.00:
Dr. Young: "Doctor, I have lost my memory, I cannot remember anything."
Dr. Geezer: "Nurse, please bring the medicine from box 22 and put 3 drops in the patient's mouth."
Dr. Young: "Oh no you don't! I remember your "box 22" that's coal oil!"
Dr. Geezer: "Congratulations! You've got your memory back. That will be $5.00."
Dr. Young (After already having lost $10.00) leaves angrily and comes back after several more days.
Dr. Young: "Listen Doctor, my eyesight has suddenly become weak and I can hardly see!"
Dr. Geezer: "Well, I don't have any medicine for that so, here's your $10.00 back."
Dr. Young: "But this is only $5.00!"
Dr. Geezer: "Congratulations! You got your vision back! That will be another $5.00 please."
The moral of the story: Just because you're "Young" doesn't mean that you can out-smart an old "Indiana/Geezer"
# posted by �Anonymous : 4/11/15, 7:55 PM
To stop the skeptics he put a sign up outside that said: "Dr.
Geezer’s clinic - Get your treatment for $5.00, if not cured get back $10.00."
Doctor Young, who was new to the community,and was a recent Eastern medical school graduate, was positive that this old geezer
didn't know beans about medicine and thought that this would be a great opportunity to enhance his reputation in the community and to get an easy $10.00 in the meantime. So he went to Dr. Geezer’s clinic.
This is what happened:
Dr. Young: "Dr. Geezer, I have lost all taste in my mouth, can you please help me?"
Dr. Geezer: "Nurse, please bring the medicine from box 22 and put 3 drops in Dr. Young's mouth."
Dr. Young: Aaagh! "This is nothing but coal oil!"
Dr. Geezer: "Congratulations! You've got your taste back. That will be $5.00."
Dr. Young gets annoyed and goes back after a couple of days figuring to recover his lost $5.00:
Dr. Young: "Doctor, I have lost my memory, I cannot remember anything."
Dr. Geezer: "Nurse, please bring the medicine from box 22 and put 3 drops in the patient's mouth."
Dr. Young: "Oh no you don't! I remember your "box 22" that's coal oil!"
Dr. Geezer: "Congratulations! You've got your memory back. That will be $5.00."
Dr. Young (After already having lost $10.00) leaves angrily and comes back after several more days.
Dr. Young: "Listen Doctor, my eyesight has suddenly become weak and I can hardly see!"
Dr. Geezer: "Well, I don't have any medicine for that so, here's your $10.00 back."
Dr. Young: "But this is only $5.00!"
Dr. Geezer: "Congratulations! You got your vision back! That will be another $5.00 please."
The moral of the story: Just because you're "Young" doesn't mean that you can out-smart an old "Indiana/Geezer"
# posted by �Anonymous : 4/11/15, 7:55 PM
proof of christ's divinity
AMERICAN DIGEST Essays, News, Notes, and Quotes: What greater proof of His divinity could there be than the fact that He is still resisted, even hated, after 2,000 years?
Nobody hates Julius Caesar anymore; it’s pretty hard even to hate Attila the Hun, who left a lot of hard feelings in his day. But the world still hates Christ and his Church.
The usual form of this hatred is interesting in itself. For every outright persecutor, there are countless people who pretend not to hate Christ, but subtly demote him to the rank of a “great moral teacher,” or say they have nothing against Christianity as long as the “separation of church and state” is observed, or, under the guise of scholarship, affect to winnow out his “authentic” utterances from those falsely ascribed to him — as if the Apostles would have dared to put words in his mouth! And as if such fabricated words would have proved as durable as “authentic” ones! (Try writing a single sentence that anyone could mistake for a saying of Christ for even a century.) Sobran's --- The Words and Deeds of Christ
Nobody hates Julius Caesar anymore; it’s pretty hard even to hate Attila the Hun, who left a lot of hard feelings in his day. But the world still hates Christ and his Church.
The usual form of this hatred is interesting in itself. For every outright persecutor, there are countless people who pretend not to hate Christ, but subtly demote him to the rank of a “great moral teacher,” or say they have nothing against Christianity as long as the “separation of church and state” is observed, or, under the guise of scholarship, affect to winnow out his “authentic” utterances from those falsely ascribed to him — as if the Apostles would have dared to put words in his mouth! And as if such fabricated words would have proved as durable as “authentic” ones! (Try writing a single sentence that anyone could mistake for a saying of Christ for even a century.) Sobran's --- The Words and Deeds of Christ
proof of christ's divinity
AMERICAN DIGEST Essays, News, Notes, and Quotes: What greater proof of His divinity could there be than the fact that He is still resisted, even hated, after 2,000 years?
Nobody hates Julius Caesar anymore; it’s pretty hard even to hate Attila the Hun, who left a lot of hard feelings in his day. But the world still hates Christ and his Church.
The usual form of this hatred is interesting in itself. For every outright persecutor, there are countless people who pretend not to hate Christ, but subtly demote him to the rank of a “great moral teacher,” or say they have nothing against Christianity as long as the “separation of church and state” is observed, or, under the guise of scholarship, affect to winnow out his “authentic” utterances from those falsely ascribed to him — as if the Apostles would have dared to put words in his mouth! And as if such fabricated words would have proved as durable as “authentic” ones! (Try writing a single sentence that anyone could mistake for a saying of Christ for even a century.) Sobran's --- The Words and Deeds of Christ
Nobody hates Julius Caesar anymore; it’s pretty hard even to hate Attila the Hun, who left a lot of hard feelings in his day. But the world still hates Christ and his Church.
The usual form of this hatred is interesting in itself. For every outright persecutor, there are countless people who pretend not to hate Christ, but subtly demote him to the rank of a “great moral teacher,” or say they have nothing against Christianity as long as the “separation of church and state” is observed, or, under the guise of scholarship, affect to winnow out his “authentic” utterances from those falsely ascribed to him — as if the Apostles would have dared to put words in his mouth! And as if such fabricated words would have proved as durable as “authentic” ones! (Try writing a single sentence that anyone could mistake for a saying of Christ for even a century.) Sobran's --- The Words and Deeds of Christ
proof of christ's divinity
AMERICAN DIGEST Essays, News, Notes, and Quotes: What greater proof of His divinity could there be than the fact that He is still resisted, even hated, after 2,000 years?
Nobody hates Julius Caesar anymore; it’s pretty hard even to hate Attila the Hun, who left a lot of hard feelings in his day. But the world still hates Christ and his Church.
The usual form of this hatred is interesting in itself. For every outright persecutor, there are countless people who pretend not to hate Christ, but subtly demote him to the rank of a “great moral teacher,” or say they have nothing against Christianity as long as the “separation of church and state” is observed, or, under the guise of scholarship, affect to winnow out his “authentic” utterances from those falsely ascribed to him — as if the Apostles would have dared to put words in his mouth! And as if such fabricated words would have proved as durable as “authentic” ones! (Try writing a single sentence that anyone could mistake for a saying of Christ for even a century.) Sobran's --- The Words and Deeds of Christ
Nobody hates Julius Caesar anymore; it’s pretty hard even to hate Attila the Hun, who left a lot of hard feelings in his day. But the world still hates Christ and his Church.
The usual form of this hatred is interesting in itself. For every outright persecutor, there are countless people who pretend not to hate Christ, but subtly demote him to the rank of a “great moral teacher,” or say they have nothing against Christianity as long as the “separation of church and state” is observed, or, under the guise of scholarship, affect to winnow out his “authentic” utterances from those falsely ascribed to him — as if the Apostles would have dared to put words in his mouth! And as if such fabricated words would have proved as durable as “authentic” ones! (Try writing a single sentence that anyone could mistake for a saying of Christ for even a century.) Sobran's --- The Words and Deeds of Christ
Saturday, April 04, 2015
3 April 1945: Okinawa – grim reality in Japanese underground hospital
3 April 1945: Okinawa – grim reality in Japanese underground hospital: Enter your email address:
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Updated seventy years afte
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Updated seventy years afte
Friday, April 03, 2015
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Once By The Pacific - A poem by Robert Frost - American Poems
Once By The Pacific - A poem by Robert Frost - American Poems
Someone had better be prepared for rage. There would be more than ocean-water broken Before God's last Put out the Light was spoken.
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