It's eclipse time

Lata in Albuquerque sends this photo of the "ring of fire" eclipse.

It's Prom time

Alice and her prom date.

They found the bishop

two days ago the press was saying that the "philippine bishops" were boycotting LadyGaga here, but I searched and googled in vain to find who they were talking about.

Well, today the Inquirer found one, the Bishop of Lipa, Batangas, to quote.

That's one down and 70 more to go....

------------------------
quick addendum: If you want some bananas, contact Filipine growers. China has decided to hurt the Philippines by economic moves, including boycotting the bananas. Ditto for visiting the beaches here. They are telling their folks not to visit us on vacation.

Bigot apologizes

from Twitchy:

In what reads like a bad Hollywood movie script, Marion Barry has changed his mind about Filipino nurses. Just a few weeks after complaining about how many Filipino nurses work in Washington D.C., Barry’s life was saved by Filipino medical professionals.

he has now tweeted an apology.

Airbrushing Eugenics

rant moved to BNN heh. I learn a lot about history by factchecking what I read on blogs. Sometimes what seems to be a conpsiracy theory has a hidden truth behind the matter.

Religious censorship story of the day

Oh NO!

The Egyptian religious police have shut down the Belly Dancing channel!

Pinoys Heart LadyGaga

No, the Catholics here in the Philippines are not boycotting Lady Gaga: these are protests by a few tiny Protestant churches.

r

Full rant at BNN.

The "What if" question of the day

Father Z blogs on Celestine V, the only Pope who resigned.

The church calls him a saint, for his holy life and his attempt to renew and purify the church, but Dante puts him in hell for being a quitter.

Was Dante right? Yes, he was personally Holy, but because he quit, those running the church chose money over holiness, moved to Avignon, which later resulted in the schism of the church for awhile when the Pope moved back to Rome, and ultimately these political shennanigans led many to reject the papacy itself, i.e. the Protestant Reformation.

 Question of the day: What would have happened if Celestine hadn't quit? ----------------------------------
Triva question: which popes (beside Celestine) resigned? The BBC has the answer:

Pope Gregory XII - who reigned from 1406 to 1415 - did so to end what was called the Western Schism.

Lamb chop take two

The really important news stories of the day

The RAF Rescue Helicopters have priorities you know

The pilots landed on a beach to buy three Magnum Classics ice cream bars and one white chocolate Magnum
-------------------------------------------

Plan your next vacation: Visit the Snoring Museum

Located in Alfeld, Germany, The Alfelder Schlafapnoe- Gesellschaft (ASG), (is)one of the oldest self-help groups for Sleep Apnea....(exhibits include) several leather chinstraps with attached mouth coverings, vintage humidifiers, and ointments and nasal sprays on display. There are even electronic devices––looking like blood pressure monitors––that are supposed to relive snoring with buzzes and zaps.

---------------------------------------------
Dave Barry links to

A new pilot program in Georgia is giving kindergartners a say in whether or not their teachers will get pay raises or get fired.

-------------------------------------------
Spike Milligan's epitaph 'I told you I was ill' voted UK's favourite

His words of wisdom was voted ahead of Oscar Wilde’s "Either those curtains go or I do" and Frank Sinatra’s "The best is yet to come" by a considerable margin...

Next was Mel Blanc's "that's all folks", followed by Frank Carson with "what a way to lose weight’ while Winston Churchill was next.

The former Prime Minister finished sixth with: "I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."

----------------------------------
Dr. Krauthammer predicts " It’s going to be one of the filthiest campaigns in American history"...

What, dirtier than accusing Jefferson from having a black mistress, Andrew Jackson for being a bigamist, Cleveland for having a son out of wedlock, and McCain being the "Manchurcian candidate"?

Another reason to support the Pirate Bay: You can download and watch your favorite TV shows without political commercials.

-----------------------------------
 The latest boycott: one is not allowed to even mention Hoopoe birds in the UK Press...

 (Photo: Eyal Bartov)


--------------------------------------------------------

and the really importan headline of the day: Science zeros in on the perfect lambchop.

no, not this one (photo fromDollsmagazine)

this one: The researchers say there is a fine balance between the amount of muscle and the amount of intramuscular fat for consumers (Source: Brian Steele/iStockphoto)

Stories below the fold (all of which have religion "ghosts")

Sorry to post stories on weekends, when I usually post humor, but some of these stories are important and seem to be dumped on a weekend so no one will notice it.

 Most of them seem to have a "religion ghost" to use a phrase from GetReligion blog.

-----------------------------
Egypt's election seems to be about religion, but the ordinary folks are worried about jobs and job creation.
They note that folks want a gov't in line with Islamic law, but not an Islamicist government.

 What's the difference? Islamicist means the Mullahs or Immans decide the law based on Sharia, an Islam inspired government allows seculars to make the law, but allows them to be inspired by their religion.

The US is going through a similar argument now about the place of religion in a secular society, and if the government can require religious people and religious institutions to cooperate with contraception, abortion and gay marriage.

----------------------------------------

Globlogizationblog, which usually comments on international affairs, sees minorities and women backing Obama, and adds:

All three of those major minority groups tilt decisively toward Dems, and racially-tinged political messages simply reinforce that reality and perhaps lock it in for the longer term.  Simply put, as a polity, America is past all that nonsense.
And the fact that the Republicans are considering it - even among just their fringe hardcore elements - signals just how bereft of ideas and leadership and vision they really are.
And that is a very sad day for this republic, because, quite frankly, Obama does not deserve a second term and it won't be any better than the first.

-------------------------
GMA news reports $28.5 million dollars were raised to help the UNPopulation fund ...some of this will  to clinics, but much of it will go to train activists and bribe politicians to push the government to pass the RH Bill...

He noted the fund will be used for “capacity-building” training and “data gathering” in partnership with the Philippine government.

Ah, but where did they get the money? From rich politicians who stole it from the people (or whose wealth comes from owning feudal plantations which pay small wages to their workers?) Or did they get the funding from rich outside foundations from the US and EU? Or did they get it from US Taxpayers under the guise of "Foreign aid"?

the use of the word "mobilized" suggests the money comes from outside sources: UN dues, 22 percent of which comes from US taxpayers, and from "voluntary contributions", many of which come from the US taxpayers too.

Can we say "neocolonialsm", children?


Wikipedia notes their broad agenda, mixing good with bad, and that Bush cut funding to protest their funding of forced abortion in China. But Obama restored the money. (which is why he and his MSM minions ignored the Chen story...Chen's human rights activism included providing dataabout forced abortions).

This might give you some insight why Pacquiao was hit by a planned ambush  for "anti gay bigotry".(discussed in FilAm Malkin's article).

Pacquiao is a likely future president of the Philippines, so he has to be carefully trained to follow the agenda of the NWO or he'll be removed like Erap...

-------------------------
of course, it's not just people like Pacman being hit by the PC police: Supsup lost the Miss Universe crown for saying she'd put God before her boyfriend, and even Donna Summer was boycotted for stating her Christian beliefs...

-------------------------------------- 

If the EU drops Greece, Russia may come to the rescue.
Their link: Orthodoxy, and a long history of Russia's defense of local Orthodox believers in Greece and the Balkans against Muslim Turks...which is why Bill Clinton's bombing of Serbia upset Russia.

Then there are those natural gas deposits off Cyprus... helped by an Israel who is no longer the buddy of Turkey due to the Turkish turn toward Islamic extremism...

----------------------------------------------------
 
 Genocidal ecofascism? Instapundit has links. Treehugger admits there are some but resents all environmentalists being smeared by saying they are the same as the fringe groups.

---------------------------------------------
Pallative care that controls pain including terminal sedation is not the same as euthanasia.

Yeah, I know. The bad part of this is that the PC push to kill the suffering has resulted in some docs being accused of killing people by their relatives because they sedated them to relieve pain or stopped treatment that wasn't working (as opposed to futile care theory, which sometimes includes stopping treatment that might work but the patient will be left handicapped)

1. Futility is not a medical determination; it is a value judgment. Treatment is refused  based on “quality of life” judgmentalism and/or “cost-benefit” analysis.

Sigh.

How to get attention for your blog

headsup Father Z.

Sounds like my blog. I often blog in the dim light while Lolo is asleep and hit the wrong keys and don't notice it (I touch type)...

Gift item of the day

for your favorite golfer: A HelloKitty Golf bag

 
and don't forget to add a few HelloKitty Golf Tees

Let this adorable Hello Kitty 3.25" Plastic Tee hold your golf ball still before your first stroke. This adorable set features white and pink tees, as well as red and white plastic tees for a cute look. Hello Kitty's name is printed on the body for an extra touch of cuteness.

Movies movies

They are making a film of Ender's Game, and Uncle Orson discusses how they are doing it: The special effects, and noting that it not making the novel but retelling the story to fit the media.

He also reviews The Avengers, and gives Joss Weldon a lot of credit for making it a success, even though such movies are too often lousy stories with good special effects.

Headsup AICN

Ender's Game Film blog here includes photos of the set.

I suspect a lot of clueless folks will compare it to the Hunger Games, but the Hunger Games was aimed at girls growing up, and Ender's Game is a boy growing up and how a soldier is trained story: it is actually linked to the battle premise of Heinleins' Starship troopers, and predates the Hunger games.

And no, I won't see it until it gets on HBO, because although we now finally have a theatre here in town, Lolo's hearing is too bad to understand what is going on without subtitles...

Musical interlude of the day

Behind the incident that started the Arab spring

Lots of stuff is so full of propaganda or misunderstanding how people outside the US actually live that I don't trust it, but this interview by Michael Totten with the woman regulator whose actions sparked the uprising in Tunesia rings true on all points.

“A revolution cannot be solely the cause of one person,” she said. “Even though I didn’t really participate in it, I’m proud of the revolution and proud of my country.”
She may not have participated in it, but she sure did precipitate it. Her name is Faida Hamdi and she is Tunisian. She is also Lorenzo’s butterfly, a small soul who flapped her wings and set off storms of tornadoes for thousands of miles in every direction.

Back to the future post of the day

Tired of trying to type those tiny keys?
Does QWERTY confuse you?

No problem...Samuel Morse to the rescue:







headsup FatherZ
includes this comment::

markomalley says:

My personal favorite practice site is: http://www.qsl.net/kf4kvg/cw.html. You can cut and paste whatever text you choose into the applet (for example, learn to copy code by pasting in sections of Caritas in Veritate) and then set the speed as you’d like. Then there’s PA3BWK’s Morse Code Supersite: http://www.morsecode.nl/index.html — which covers all things CW —
.-.-.

Family news

Lolo is better.

Chano, Joy and Ruby are in Manila, delivering rice and going to some business meetings.

One of thepuppies of the small dog Angel has died: the other one looks okay and should make it.

Mama dog and Blackie's puppies are all thriving.

It's still very hot, but the aircon in our bedroom is fixed, so we again can use our own house to read and blog and watch tv...

Headlines below the fold

Donna Summer has died. in our prayers...

----------------------------------
Did a drone almost cause a midair collision with a commercial jet in Denver?

and whose drone was it?

Update: Strategypage reminds us: Balloons can also be used to spy, and are cheaper.
-----------------------------------

Azithromycin is a good antibiotic, with fewer side effects and fewer pills to take than other antibiotics for pneumonia. but it is associated with heart deaths?

It is related to Erythromycin, which has many drug interactions, so I suspect the problem is here. But Azithromycin has less effect on the liver enzymes, so the problem should be minor. Do they need new studies? Or is it because we use this more expensive one for higher risk patients?

(I once published a study on Clarithromycin interaction with anti convulsants in our institution, and one question was why I didn't use Azithromycin, which supposedly had fewer interaction problems. The reason was that that drug had only been released a month earlier, and was not yet the drug of choice for Mycoplasm pneumonia.)

------------------------------------------------
WAGD Headline of the day: 4700 "near earth objects" that could hit earth...and that's only the ones they know about.

---------------------------------------

The key to a longer life: Ragu on your spaghetti, followed by a cup of coffee...

But you’ve got to do it right.  The high concentration of cancer-fighting antioxidants comes from prolonged cooking of tomatoes, and it doesn’t work with vegetable oil.  You’ve got to use extravirgin olive oil.  And you have to take your time (to cook it), as I learned when I first starting studying Neapolitan cuisine. 

So presumably the cheap tomato sauce here won't work....
----------------------

The dead voting is nothing new to anyone growing up in the northern cities of the US, but when Florida finds 53000 dead voters, it makes you wonder how many zombies voted for Gore in Florida in 2000....

on the other hand, they should have taken lessons from Gloria.

------------------------------------------


What hath Drudge wrought? Or maybe I should say Beitbart:

Wonder why the press didn't find this five years ago.

full rant at BNN: The problem is not that Obama might have been born abroad, it is that he simply doesn't how American culture works...