Unimportant Stuff below the fold

the next course at Mythgard will be a discussion of the Princess bride.

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MomJones discusses scientific ways to get your kids to eat veggies.

Well, my kids would eat broccoli if I put Cheezwhiz on it, or stir fried it with lots of soy sauce.

But healthier ways to pressure them are discussed at the link.


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The next big prize fight: It's Romney vs Holyfield...



Instapundit quips: It can't be duller than Paquiao vs Mayweather...

actually they are raising money for a charity that does eye surgery in poor countries.
When I was in Africa, a similar charity flew out an eye surgeon twice a year, and hundreds came in. Many of them just needed glasses, which were given out for free, but the opthalmologist did about 20 cataract surgeries and her nurses did about 50 glaucoma surgeries, and she referred about three for corneal transplants to the big city. We took care of them pre and post op in our hospital, and they used our operating rooms and examining rooms for the clinic.

Here in the Philippines, there are regular free clinics, some funded and run by our OFW physicians. some from the FilAm military exercizes, and one from a Japanese foundation. And local docs like Dr Angie do a free clinic day each month.

The latest one I saw advertized was a "tuli" clinic. Here, boys get circumcized at puberty (I presume a left over from the Muslim times) and often they are done by untrained traditional folks (in the same way that Hilots deliver babies and do massage therapy). So right now, if you see 12 year old boys wearing hip hop type shorts that sag, you know why.

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Also from Instapundit:

Ovid is now too upsetting to use in teaching at a college level. It apparently upsets some of the more delicate students.

Well, maybe they need to try Percy Jackson's Greek Gods. I gave it to Ruby since it's funnier than the Bullfinch's mythology that we were forced to read in highschool, and yes, she was shocked at the shennanigans of the gods, but I told her that it was only the PG version...she asked what was the R rated one, and I told her Ovid's Metamorphosis.

The interesting part of the Percy Jackson series is that you can enjoy the kids saving the world while learning about mythology and if you get through the entire series, you even learn about the differences between Greek and Roman culture (something I hadn't thought about...in Camp HalfBlood, Percy keeps getting told one of his main faults is caring too much for his friends, whereas Jason keeps thinking for himself so doesn't quite fit with the Roman camp that stresses cooperation and self sacrifice for Rome...at the end of the series, they switch camps...)

One interesting part of the series is that most of the kids might be half bloods, believe in the gods, etc. but the good kids THINK like someone brought up in an American form of Christian society as lived by mainline Christians and most Catholics...friendly to everyone, moderately honest, self sacrificing, and figuring one's actions are more important than what formula you spout... and yes, I include Nico in that thought...

still to come: the Thor version of the series. Presumably, like Tolkien or Augustine of Canterbury, these "gods" will fit in better to modern society, once you get rid of their bloodthirsty sides.

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the animal lovers first insisted that cat mummies proved that Egyptians loved cats...but then they found millions of healthy young cats had been killed to mummify as gift offerings to the goddess...

but now the good news: Lots of them were fake.

The BBC reports, “some experts suggest animal mummies were being made to be sold to Egyptian pilgrims and so the ancient embalmers could make more profit by selling ‘fake’ mummies

so, like selling indulgences, religious fakery goes way back...

But that won't stop the true believers that animals were beloved in those days:

... others like (Dr) Lidija (McKnight) believe its evidence the ancient embalmers considered even the smallest parts of the animals to be sacred [and] went to just as much efforts to mummify them correctly.” 

yes, and if you believe that, I know a nice bridge in Brooklyn that is for sale.

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the history of the Swastika.

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Astrology in Tudor Times was part of ordinary medicine.

which is why even the Pope had an official astrologer in those days.

War on religion

With little fanfare, the Obama administration provided new rules demanding all insurers give out free birth control.

this is, of course, a direct reply to the Catholics and others who don't want to pay for birth control, and early abortion medicines, but never mind. It won't get a lot of press, and if it does, it will spin it as this story does in the WATimes, meaning that the opposition will be in paragraph 14, if you bother to read that much since most of the first 13 paragraphs are the pro Obama spin (and this is a conservative paper).
the problem?

The contraceptive mandate has been controversial from the start, though most of the attention has gone to the marathon court battle between the administration and employers who have religious objections to contraceptives, and who say forcing them to pay for employees’ coverage violates their own rights. The Supreme Court last year ruled closely held corporations do not have to insure types of birth control that violate their moral beliefs, and the Obama administration is expected to update its rules soon. Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/11/obama-admin-orders-insurers-to-provide-birth-contr/#ixzz3a3loRLaL Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

this expands the coverage.

David Warren's long essay covers a parallel problem that occured when James 1 demanded all take a loyalty oath:

There was a great controversy between them, over the Oath of Allegiance (1606) that King James put before those of his subjects still Catholic, and which in good conscience many found impossible to take. Published in the backwash from the “Gunpowder Plot,” it appeared to offer English Catholics tolerance and safety, on the condition that they would recognize the Protestant King’s high authority, and abjure violence, insurrection, or tumult. To more modern eyes, this seems a real deal: “Let us live and let live. … Swear that you won’t try to overthrow me, and I swear that I won’t try to kill you.”But it was not so simple as post-modern eyes see. In the course of the seven affirmations demanded of his subjects, King James was laying down the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings (since mutated into the Divine Right of Elected Politicians). No Catholic can accept that; many dissenting Protestants were uncomfortable with it, too; and the controversy over this English Oath of Allegiance was joined across Europe, for many years

hmm...wasn't the overthrow of the king a couple years later over that part about Divine Rights? Indeed, further down the article, he points out that this was one of the points taken by America's founding fathers.

But the same argument is found in today's world, and not just in places like China where the gov't wants to control the church.

That a King, or other secular ruler, has an authority or legitimacy that is in some sense divinely sanctioned, Catholics would have to agree. This is affirmed even within Christ’s “give unto Caesar,” when properly understood. But it is affirmed, throughout Catholic teaching — ancient, mediaeval, and modern — with a very important qualification. When the State claims an authority even over conscience; and more particularly, when it claims the right to form that conscience in defiance of Holy Church; and even more particularly, when it establishes an alternative religion (whether that be “Anglican” as then or, as today, “Secular Humanist”) — it has lost its legitimacy, its right to be obeyed. For the demand now is no longer “give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” rather, “give unto Caesar what is God’s.” This becomes a martyrdom issue.

 That the US gov't will prosecute people of faith for not providing medicines that are contraceptive is only the start, for anyone reading the fine print of the thinkers in charge know that the next step is refusing to give medicine to prolong the life of the old/handicapped/inconvenient if it costs too much while offering self immolation as the alternative....and it will require cooperation by physicians, nurses and pharmacists...

And the "gay marriage" debate, which is usually phrased as letting Heather's two mommies a piece of paper to affirm they are a real family, will be used  as a bludgeon to emphasize these nice people only want to be given their rights, which sounds fine for those who really don't care about the issue (and prefer to ignore what is going on in the trenches of the gay lifestyle. I mean, when articles complain gay marriage will discourage "flashy" open perversions, you don't have to be a weatherman to see which way the wind is blowing).

But once that "right" is entrenched, churches and individuals who don't agree will be pressured and sued to go along with it.

Alas, this is not the full issue: the real issue is the idea that to make men and women equal, women have to be the same as men in the workplace...and soon that idea, with all it's implications, will  become the norm. Yet biology says there is a difference, and the new Gallileos will have to conform to the new inquisitions, whispering "but it does move biologically it's not true" will be ostracized from universities and places of authority.

yet making laws based on utopian ideas, whether it be socialism's new man, or the sharia loving mullahs, doesn't work in the long run, but their overthrow can be quite bloody.

Nor is Warren the only one who is prophecizing that this might indeed become a "martyrdom issue".

Many Catholic s are quoting the late Cardinal George in this

"I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history."

(the NCR clarifies the quote by printing the entire column HERE. )

this subtle war against believers might be why all the papers are trumpeting in headlines about the fall in the numbers of Christians. Given that "atheism" is now en vogue, and given the fact that good Catholics have been discouraged from being Catholic by their own bishops and leaders,  I am surprised it's not worse.
 but as the link at Getreligionblog notes: yes, 20 percent are "none" but you missed something:

It's crucial for journalists to realize that there is more to the 20-plus percent crowd that's strongly affiliated with faith than the evangelicals. There are daily and weekly Mass Catholics, and Orthodox Jews, and conservative mainliners, and Eastern Orthodox Christians and others. The Mormons are over there, too. So we can't really call them the "creedals," even if that's with a small "c." There are, of course, people who would want to jump straight to calling them "bigots," and that would fit well in a headline, but I don't think most journalists are ready to go that far – at this point.
So journalists out there, especially copy editors: What would be a good, punchy, headline-friendly term for this other key group that keeps showing up in the Pew numbers?

Podcast of the week

there are a lot of good courses on itunesU, but they take forever to download so I prefer to go to Youtube or the university sites to download directly. Alas, some of the lecturers block the program to the public, but I was pleased that this term, Professor TeofiloRuiz didn't block his two history courses as he usually has done in the past.

So for your perusal: Bruincast (check spring quarter) for rss or itunes links.

History 1b:
Today's podcast

History 129A is there too.

Nope?

when I use Chrome, and it asks me if I want to save my password, one of my options is "NOPE".

Guess they don't notice where I blog from: The correct answer is "ayaw".

Stuff around the net

I was on line early this morning but now in the afternoon it is hot and the internet is slow.

Several things I read but don't have a lot of the links.

Father Z discusses mass on ships, and one comment notes that there was actually a priest who traveled on the maiden flight of the Hindenburg (not the one that crashed).... and was given permission to say mass...his name was Fr. Paul Schulte and not only was a pilot in WWI but an Alaska Bush pilot. (scroll down to the Aug4 entry which describes his flying a dangerous air evac of a sick priest)..he also raised money to send vehicles to the mission field.

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Joe Biden praies the hard work and courage of policemen.
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a train derailed in Philadelphia...in our prayers since I have relatives living in the area.

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Austin Bay predicts either a big terrorist attack in Asia or Africa before the next election, and that Putin will cause trouble.

Just so it's not China deciding to invade Palawan...
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Dr. Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon who is a dark horse candidate for the President as a Republican, is apparently a Seventh Day Adventist.

As I noted a couple days ago: Like the Mennonites, they tend to pull over their weight in serving the sick with their hospitals.

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for later reading: An article on the Inklings.

and Gordon Seminary has a course on Lewis and Tolkien HERE. Quite basic, and he gets a few minor things wrong, but a good introduction to their writings from an Evangelical point of view.

and if you want a ROTFL video check out this one by Tom Shippey.

Manolo unmasked

Manolo the ShoeBlogger (and writer of a column about shoes in the WAPO) has been unmasked:

Manolo, the world’s first superstar shoeblogger finally comes clean as H.D. Miller, chair of the Department of History, Politics and Philosophy at Lipscomb University in Nashville:

Stories behind the stories

StrategyPage writes about the problem of Islamic terrorism in that religion.

and eventually normal Muslims get so disgusted they throw the SOB's out. Much of the terror is spread via radical Islamic mosques via Saudi, but often the press swallows the anti American propaganda of the west and pretends it is Bush's fault, but the article gives a historical perspective on the matter.

and if you know history, the real story is about the King of Saudi Arabia ignoring Obama's latest meeting....if Iran gets the bomb, they will buy one from Pakistan, and voila another Sunni Shiite war....which is why the war in Yemen (and in Syria) are important.

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Killing babies who don't meet the standards of life and we shouldn't spend money treating them is now getting more press.

yes and soon expect an onslaught about not treating grandmom  or encouraging her to kill herself to save taxpayer money.

Since the constitution doesn't allow government death panels to decide if you live or die, if Europe is an example, killing grandmom, even if she is senile and incompetent, will be pushed as "voluntary", or even rogue killing by eager doctors with or without the permission of the family.

The usual joke is "women and minorities most affected" but here that is alas true, which is why minorities in the US usually refuse to sign living wills.

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"Researchers" warn that the world population is getting too large for the food supply and we will all starve.

This is a redux of the Ehrlich's "population bomb" theory, and the "green revolution" stopped their predictions. Today, GM food will continue to increase the food supply if the "greens" don't stop it (as they have done here in the Philippines in favor of "organic" food).

The Green revolution never hit Africa, partly due to the poor soil but partly because "developmental workers" including the churches never pushed advanced farming techniques. Too many church and NGO workers only tried to improve indigenous farming techniques without changing the way food was grown, ignoring that most of the productive men had emigrated to work in mines etc. to try to improve their family's opportunities. Alas, too many "greens" want to see  traditional life as ecofriendly...just ignore those red headed big bellied babies in the corner.... (remember this if the Pope releases a global warming encyclical: many of the "greens" in the church used to be liberation theology commies...who see the church as an institution for political change, not as an institution for salvation, which is why so many here are turning Protestant to worship God).

Luckily, China is ignoring the greens (yes, they have a pollution problem, but what do you want: massive famines or smog?). And China is busy teaching Africa to grow food.

China's engagement with African agriculture, like China's engagement with the rest of Africa, represents perhaps Africa's biggest opportunity in history. China has done more to alleviate poverty in Africa than anything ever attempted by western colonialism or the initiatives of traditional partners. 

this article discusses how all the western green and anti colonial critics are frothing at the mouth against Chinese imperialism, but does note how they are modifying rice, peanuts etc to improve crops and feed the locals. And ignore that part about "non rice eating" nations: West Africans do eat rice, and East/South Africans eat Maize, which was introduced by the Portuguese and quickly spread via trade to become the staple crop in non Portuguese areas a couple hundred years ago.

A recent report commissioned by the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) highlights China's successful use of genetically modified rice to feed its population, and indicates that Africa has much to learn from China's domestic agricultural investment. Thus, China's push to introduce rice in non-rice-consuming African nations could be understood as part of a larger strategy to introduce durable, productive and nutritious staples into the Africa diet, and not as evidence of suspicious motives as discussed above. 

and if they get rid of the tsetse fly, Africa could have a lot more land to farm...link
which is why I wince when Lolo would watch all those nice films about African animals...who thrive mostly because of the tse tse fly. The implication is that too many people are destroying these animal's habitat, but where they see open land as good, I see a potential Kansas to feed the world...

USWar College lecture on this can be watched HERE.

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the disease of the month that you didn't read about: Drug resistant Typhoid.

the "greens" will (correctly) blame the use of antibiotics in factory farms/henhouses, but a lot of the resistance is from treatment with counterfeit/substandard drugs, another story that doesn't get into the headlines.

luckily there are vaccines to stop the disease, but we didn't give them out routinely in Africa because typhoid is a water borne disease from fecal contamination, and the strategy was to dig wells and get a clean water supply instead...

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heh. GetReligionBlog note that the MSM in the US just discovered that Catholics still have confession.

related item: many 22 week infants can survive outside the womb...

 Those born at 23 weeks are even more likely to live with half doing so without significant problems. This is good news for families but as even the New York Times tacitly admitted in its story about the report, it is bad news for those on the left who have been fighting efforts in state legislatures to ban late term abortions.

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yes, I know: I have posted about these topics before, but when the US headlines are full of stories about the Kardashians and their ex deciding to become a woman, or asking Presidential candidates if their American mom cooked them Cuban food, then maybe it is because I feel the real stories are being ignored.

Haircombs and Vikings

Viking history is being rewritten to emphasize they liked to trade along with fighting, rape, rampage and murder.

Deer antlers were central to one of the key industries of the Viking Age: the manufacture of hair combs. Access to antler was fundamental to this specialist craft, and it may have been difficult for a professional combmaker to find sufficient quantities locally, so some form of organised supply network is likely.

yes, and the amber trade dates back to the bronze age.

this article notes they imported glass beads from ancient Eygpt too...

but this ignores the actual reason that the locals took up "viking". In the sagas, the men just up and decided to raid/pillage/work for another pirate sea king to get rich.

So there was apparently a change in culture that not only made such activity acceptable, but a change in the culture of Europe that led to weakened states where the locals were vulnerable to being taken over and used as slaves/ workers/obedient serfs.

Alfred the Great stopped them for awhile by fighting back and by making "burgs" or forts that let the locals sit out the attacks until the army could come and save them. And what finally slowed them down was that the locals got too good at fighting back, so they settled down and married local girls, got too old to fight, and turned Christian.

Until, of course, the next generation, but that is another story.

Lots of Vikings links here at (not work friendly) FR.

and remember: chose your weapons wisely.

Stories you might have missed

It is now not PC to name diseases after people, places or things, says the WHO who is too busy being PC to admit they botched the many epidemics in Africa, including ebola (the reason I say many epidemics is because malaria kills more than Ebola, and it kills partly because of the DDT ban but also because when people take medications for malaria, often the medicines are counterfeit and substandard or completely fake).

but of course, this is not a new problem:

Charles VIII of France invaded Italy. Within months, his army collapsed and fled. It was routed not by the Italian army but by a microbe. A mysterious new disease spread through sex killed many of Charles’s soldiers and left survivors weak and disfigured. French soldiers spread the disease across much of Europe, and then it moved into Africa and Asia. Many called it the French disease. The French called it the Italian disease. Arabs called it the Christian disease. Today, it is called syphilis.

supposedly, some of Columbus' sailors gave it to the lovely ladies of Naples, who spread it to the French, but no one wants to admit that those good catholic sailors caroused with the lovely ladies of the West Indies who were, after all, pagans and taboo...presumably they baptized the lovely ladies first, as Magellan's sailors did here in the Philippines.

Diseases are named all sorts of ways: After the discoverer, after the place of origin, after the symptoms. And often they have several names, including the "official" name.

So German Measles is also Rubella, i.e. red rash, and syphilis got it's name from a poem about a shepherd who suffered from the disease. In other words, the WHO can rant all it wants to, but ordinary folks will use the words they remember easier.

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The "EMP", the electronic pulse from a nuclear weapon that wipes out electronic circuits, has been a worry since the 1970's...but why is the US Military moving their headquarters back into Cheyenne Mountain?

Because you don't need a nuke to wipe out everyone's computer/pacemaker/car.

but now there are ways to do this using microwaves.

 Since the 1990s devices using high-powered microwave (HPM) devices have been developed to create focused EMP on demand without all the nuclear blast and radioactivity.  The most commonly mentioned devise to generate HPM is the AESA (Active Electronically Scanned Array) radars that are becoming standard equipment in modern warplanes. AESA is more reliable and, increasingly, no more expensive than the older mechanical (a small dish that moves around inside a dome) radar. AESA is also easier and cheaper to maintain, which makes a more expensive AESA cheaper, over its lifetime, than a cheaper (to buy) mechanically scanned radar. More and more nations (including China and Russia) are manufacturing AESA radars and equipping their ships and aircraft with this stuff. All these nations are also manufacturing or developing EMP “bombs” that could be used to sabotage military bases or civilian facilities. For a long time EMP was believed to be an unlikely threat because you needed a nuclear war to create EMP. Naturally the blast and radiation damage from the nukes was seen as more of a threat than EMP. But now that has changed.

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there is also an absurd story that a big shot in the MSM tried to see if a Republican named Cruz was "authentically" Hispanic by asking him about what food he ate.

Uh, I don't know much about the guy, but I understand although his father was Cuban, his mom was American, so presumably she did the cooking. One wonders if the interviewer expected him to say he loved burritos (my sons were often assumed to love them, even though they came from the potato growing area of Colombia, and they didn't eat tortillas or other Mexican foods).

the dirty little secret is that there is not one "Hispanic" identity.

When we lived in Oklahoma, I would get phone calls from the Democrats asking me to vote for them, speaking in Spanish. The problem? The phone calls were to our unlisted number which was under my Filipino husband's "hispanic" name, and he was a Republican. Hello! Not everyone with a Hispanic name is Mexican American: some are Filipino, others are Native Americans (e.g. Geronimo was an Apache)... some are even from Spain...

Even "hispanics" of Mexican descent may not have the same social background: there are rich Mexican families who settled in Norte America when it was still Mexico, legal Mexican immigrants, who often intermarried and have lived in the US for several generations, the more recent surge of illegal Mexican immigrants, then you have the Central Americans, Cubans, and Colombians.  There is a lot of racism here: Most of the later immigrants are metziso or mainly Indians, ( which is why a recent CDC report listed diabetes as a major health threat for "Hispanics" in the USA...diabetes is epidemic among Native Americans as any IHS doc can tell you)....

Because of the high intermarriage rate, many Hispanics in the USA have "Anglo" names: Gov Richardson and George Zimmerman come to mind. And speaking of Zimmerman: Many "hispanics" from South America have black ancestry too, and don't forget that there are large Italian, German, Jewish, Arab, Iranian and Japanese communities in some south American countries.

Is Bernardo O'Higgins "hispanic"? How about Alberto Fujimora? The Pope?

Another problem with "hispanic"? does this include Brazilians or Portuguese (Sarah Hoyt of Sad Puppies fame is from that country)?

So I have a problem with "identity" politics.

And wait til the PC establishment finds about the large and growing African and West Indian populations, who are demographically changing the statistics about "Black" families.

You know, when one meat packing factory in Iowa had to let their illegal workers go, they recruited Somalians from Minnesota, not inner city welfare recipients (which in Minnesota could be black, Hmong, Indian or Anglo) it says something about the work ethic....yes there are culture clashes, but my point is that they hired immigrants... this is not a racial thing, since my Hispanic son had no problem finding work in Appalachia with it's 20 percent unemployment rate (because most of those who wanted to work had jobs or had moved away, and many of those left behind preferred welfare and often drug use to work).

And few Democrats notice that welcoming a large unregulated influx of immigrants over the southern border will lead to higher inner city black unemployment not to mention higher unemployment among blue collar Anglos and blue collar ethnics for the same reason.

so the Democratic plan is to divert black attention away from one major cause of unemployment by shouting "racism", and to ignore the large blue collar and ethnic voters and hope they vote for Hillary because they loved her husband.

And of course, the other major problem is the export of blue collar jobs overseas or to robot factories. But that is not a political problem, and rarely discussed, since opposing it doesn't work (see Luddites).


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another story that you might have missed is that the UK had an election and turned right. (well, the conservatives there are middle of the road by US standards, but it is making a lot of buzz on Republican sites especially since the polls miscalculated).

the BBC quotes Cameron as saying the election is about "renewal", whatever that means.

What this mean for the USA I have no idea.

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oh yes: Happy VE day. Did anyone in the USA celebrate the 70th anniversary of the ending of the European part of WWII? It was big in Russia..
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and the CSI story of the day

Another day

another typhoon....signal one.

well, the harvest is almost finished.

But the roof in the kitchen is leaking again. Sigh.

Family news

Internet was off due to a bad thunderstorm two days ago.

the smart phone users can connect but not the land line.

Not much else is new here.

CSpan, documenting absurdity for all to see

I keep an eye on a lot of public information sites that post on youtube, including C Span, but for the last six month haven't kept up on them, although I have downloaded some to watch when I start to feel better.

So what do I see on C Span today?
Elton John giving testamony to the US congress on Global Health problems.

LINK 2.

Duh. John is a wonderful entertainer but isn't this outside his area of expertise? I mean, how many years has he worked in public health in poor countries? And given his history of promoting druguse/promiscuity, hasn't he sort of been the poster boy for HIV/STD spread, not disease prevention?

another speaker is a preacher from one of the big mega churches, who testifies that the church invented hospitals.

uh, not quite true: The ancient Egyptians did that, although the early (Catholic) church did establish hospitals, and monasteries often had outreach hospitals and lepersariums (calling Brother Cadfael) attached to them, along with libraries and schools.

So why have testimony from a preacher whose church isn't renowned for running hospitals? What, no Catholics around? (Or Mennonites or SDA's, all of whom run a lot of hospitals not just in the USA but also in a lot of third world countries and get little publicity).

oh well.

They do have other things to keep you up to speed, such as a short film on asymetric warfare folks from Camp APHill training on the Washington DC subway system.

there are also book discussions and concerts via the Library of Congress website.

Family News

We went to check the grave yesterday, and they were putting up the tubes/truss to hold up the roof.

AHHHH....COFFEEEE!

Star-bucks: Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti sips espresso from a cup designed for use in zero-gravity on the International Space Station. Cristoforetti, the first Italian woman in space, fired up the first espresso machine in space, which uses small capsules, or pods, of espresso coffee.Picture: Nasa/AP

Photo from uktelegraph

reminds me of this:

factoid of the day

Author Brian Sibley writes about the real story behind the "carry on" poster.

Family news

In Philippine custom, the spirit of the dead stays around for 40 days and then the mourning period is over. So we went to mass this morning and then to the grave of my husband.

The roof over the grave is not yet finished, so we just lit candles and said a prayer and left some flowers behind.

Food item of the day

It's time to eat the bug

A bright orange butterfly risks being snapped up for dinner as it lands on tip of a caiman's snout. The sharp toothed reptile gives a sideways glance as the Julia Butterfly uses the caiman to harvest some much-needed minerals. The insect has actually landed on the spectacled caiman to feast on the minerals coming from his nostrils.Picture: Konrad Wothe/Minden Pictures/Solent News & Photo Agency

Family news

I went to church at 5:30am but it was very hot and there were no seats even though I came early. After ten minutes I left, since I tend to faint, and this time there wasn't even room to sit on the outside steps.

I don't know if this is because of the fiesta which is this weekend, or because the Pacquiao fight was due at noon and the men wanted to go to early mass so they wouldn't miss it.


everyone figures there will be another fight after this one, to make money and Pacman will run for president of the Philippines in the future. And like Erap, he will win honestly, without having to buy votes. -

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I am avoiding facebook after a blowout against my step son It's about money. Long story, some of which I wrote about here and some of which I wrote about on my bitchblog. Sigh. -------------------------

After I left mass early, I came home and put the airconditioner on full blast and slept until 10, when I went to visit Lolo's grave with the cook. we left flowers and candles.

No one was working there, probably they took off the morning for the fight, since contract workers usually work straight through until the job is done and don't stop work on Sunday.

When I got home, Joy and Ruby had returned from their church, which had also had a short service so folks could watch the fight. So we went to Luz' Restaurant for lunch....

it was half empty, and most of the staff were in the corner watching the fight, but a few of the lady waitresses were there to help, and we bought food buffet style instead of waiting for the waitress to take our order.


EVERYONE was hoping and praying but it didn't work.
Whatever. It didn't work, because the Pacman lost to Merryweather, leading to the local social media posting pictures of Barney

and making jokes about hugging.

• 3,188 shares
• 

  Arjun Kannan Mayweather hugged Manny more times than my girlfriend has hugged me in my whole life

  3,680 · 23 mins · Edited
• 71 Replies · 1 min
• 

  Jivan Raj Legends say Mayweather still hugging Pacquiao in locker room.

  1,774 · 30 mins
• 20 Replies · 3 mins
• 

  Patricia Dela Merced "Marry someone who hugs u the way #Mayweather does to pacquiao even during a fight."

  1,771 · 30 mins
• 17 Replies · 1 min
• 

  Mohd Zulfan Statistics of the fight: Pacquiao: 240 hits and 30 successful. Mayweather: 256 Hugs and 45 kilometers running.

  5,609 · 31 mins

Oh Canada!

I have heard several of Brian Fagan's podcasts on prehistory and right now have a few of his books listed on my ScribD library to read when I am less depressed...the one I am reading now is "elixir", and it discussed the irrigation in the mountains of South and east Africa, which I had seen and always wondered what those terraces were made for, since they were not used then I lived there.

One of his lectures about human evolution pointed out the "desert/wet" cycles of the Sahara had a lot to do with human evolution since it required men to improvise or die, and those that improvised survived.n

There is also one to read latnser about the ElNino and South American civilizations that I will read soon.

So today I link to this talk (video not there, but there is an mp3 link) about climate change.

and of course climate is changing, because it is always changing. So what should we do about it?

In the question and answer period, he was asked what the stricken people can do about it? “Move,” he said, “is the only option.” If the world is heating up, where would he move to? “Canada. It will be dryer, much warmer, and their politics are reasonable.”

So investment tip: invest in land in Calgary.

My cynicism is not that I don't believe that there is a major problem with pollution (there is) or that the environment is being destroyed (we see it here) or even that the climate is changing (it is) but because too many want to pull all these things together to make a top down dictatorship where the elites run everything.

As I have written before, here in the Philippines, one of the side effects of the more radical "green movement" is that it makes things worse. Keep out mining and logging, and the result is illegal mining and logging with worse poverty and environmental destruction than you would get if you regulated companies to do it without destruction.

And grow green crops and avoid pesticides, chemicals, and of course GM food, but that leads to importing food from other countries that use chemicals, pesticides and GM seeds because the local organic stuff is too expensive for the poor to eat.

Stuff below the fold

the Ten top Superheroes of the Middle ages.

Yup. The Green Knight is there, as is Roland, Siegfried, and...St Francis?

Superpowers: Stigmata, Levitation, Talking with animals - the 13th century saint Francis of Assisi...

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Poets of World War I: Sasoon, Owen, and... Jesse Pope?

"Many candidates have harsh words for generals. But the sins of the top brass fade into insignificance besides those of Jessie."Before the war, Pope was a popular writer of light verse, praised by London's Evening Standard for her "nimble wit" and "shrewd observation of life". When war started, she became a vehement supporter. Her verses encouraged young men to sign up, women to buck up and everyone to pull together.

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The Wave that swept the world

how Hokusai's art influenced western artists.




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the girl who changed history. No, not Joan of Arc, but Catherine of Sienna.

Were nothing holy allowed to her ... she must still be admired for having, often single-handedly, by the boldest imaginable acts of persuasion, on the basis of no formal authority or title, achieved astounding things.
These would include healing the Great Schism of the fourteenth century; bringing the papacy from exile in Avignon home to Rome (with Europe-wide ramifications); negotiating peace between warring Italian states; quelling insurrections; reforming the incorrigible; and turning the whole worldly activity of the Church once again healthily outward — back on mission and crusade, after a period of institutional self-immolation almost as shameful to recount as our own times.

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and the really important headline of the day:

No blackouts tomorrow, Meralco assures Pacman fans

the country will shut down to watch the fight tomorrow, and the churches will cut short sermons and services so the men can go home and watch it.

family news

Deliveries and a trade fair in Manila, so the truck went down this morning and Joy with Ruby will go later since Ruby will be going to a school related camp overnight.

Aside from the party here celebrating meeting tommorow with the farmers to introduce them to the new farm "supervisor" using the excuse of the fiesta tomorrow, nothing new.

/s