Societal Regression

marriage-shattered-smlrProgressives like to pretend we’re all moving toward some higher plane of existence. And of course on our way to that utopia, we can ignore messy realities like human nature altogether – or maybe re-engineer them.
 
Yet, as contemporary society is redefining marriage, bending genders and creating a whole new kind of family, we don’t seem to be heading into a beautiful, brave new world so much as we’re regressing a couple millennia. Humans have already covered this ground – before they knew better.
 
Father Dwight Longenecker provides us with some historical prospective ~

As the traditional family disintegrates what we are seeing is the development of supposedly new forms of family life. These new forms of family are supposed to be of equal value or even better than the traditional family, but we should not be deceived. The newly developing forms of family life in our society are not morally neutral, nor are they a progression to something better and more sophisticated. They are a regression to a more primitive and barbaric form of family structure.

 

Fr. Longenecker sees two growing trends as especially troublesome: matriarchy and polygamy.
 

Matriarchy –

Single mothers who for the most part have relegated males to sperm donor status.

This sort of matriarchy is not an advance. It does not lead to human flourishing, human achievement or any sense of human self worth. The men resent being excluded by the women, the women eventually resent having to do everything. The children are left to fend for themselves.

 

Polygamy –

Already favored by many Muslims – and some Mormon sects, Longenecker sees this trend growing once the LGBT crowd has essentially rendered “marriage” meaningless.

Many women will turn away from the de facto and accept it’s opposite: polygamy. Rather than do everything they will join a harem of women reliant on the one man who does and decides everything.

 
Clearly, polygamy is also regressive ~

Polygamy will set back women’s rights and self esteem, locking them into a relationship with a man which must be abusive because (when faced with a tribe of pregnant women who can’t support themselves) he will be the one in charge. The woman will become a second class citizen, valued only for her child bearing capability like the roaming stud is valued in statist matriarchy only for the fact that he can give the girl another baby.

 

Today’s cultural elite voices are trying to convince us that their new kind of family is “progress.” Don’t be fooled.

Every society that has advanced and moved forward historically has moved beyond matriarchy and polygamy. This must be so because matriarchy demeans men and polygamy demeans women. Only in monogamy are man and woman ideally treated as equals.

 
marriage-tradition 

Before feminists go ballistic and commitment-phobes run away, understand that monogamy does mean a willingness to share, compromise and frequently put the needs of others before your own. It takes two equally mature individuals. We’re all imperfect, but if each spouse can put aside their own self-interest, the advantages of traditional marriage far outweigh the disadvantages. 🙂
 
And it’s part of God’s ideal plan ~

The true advancement for humanity was the gradual predominance of not only monogamy, but the Christian ideal of monogamy. It was only Christianity which exalted the union of man and woman to such a high status.
The Romans were aghast that Christian husbands and wives actually loved one another. That a woman was to be treated with respect and honor within a marriage was revolutionary. That marriage should be for life (thus offering security and protection to the woman) was revolutionary. That the Christians loaded marriage with theological significance making it a sacrament and the crucible whereby the soul’s salvation was forged, was a radical advance and innovation. That marriage signified the union between God and humanity was an astounding advance in human social and self understanding.

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Not only is the nuclear family; father, mother, children, the Creator’s perfect building block for society, secular research supports the quality-of-life benefits inherent in that traditional structure ~

“Social science confirms the importance of marriage for kids. According to the best available sociological evidence, children fare best on virtually every examined indicator when reared by their wedded, biological parents. Studies that control for other factors, including poverty and even genetics, suggest that children reared in intact homes do best on educational achievement, emotional health, familial and sexual development, and delinquency and incarceration.”

~ Ryan T. Anderson Heritage Foundation, 2013

 
As western civilization regresses to a darker time, it’s becoming more and more evident: Progressivism is anything but.

 
devolving

Posted in Cultural Erosion, Timeless Principles, Unvarnished | 2 Comments

The Eye of God

Today’s picture from NASA:
 
eyeofGod 

… and there will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven.
~ Luke 21:10 ~

A mere seven hundred light years from Earth, in the constellation Aquarius, a sun-like star is dying. Its last few thousand years have produced the Helix Nebula (NGC 7293), a well studied and nearby example of a Planetary Nebula, typical of this final phase of stellar evolution. A total of 28.5 hours of exposure time have gone in to creating this deep view of the nebula. Combining narrow band image data from emission lines of hydrogen atoms in red and oxygen atoms in blue-green hues, it shows remarkable details of the Helix’s brighter inner region, about 3 light-years across, but also follows fainter outer halo features that give the nebula a span of well over six light-years. The white dot at the Helix’s center is this Planetary Nebula’s hot, central star. A simple looking nebula at first glance, the Helix is now understood to have a surprisingly complex geometry.

Posted in Comfort & Joy | Leave a comment

No time for wimpy Christians

This episode of the Vortex from Michael Voris ties in with the theme of my January 7th post about Pope Francis and his reluctance to condemn the worldwide persecution of his fellow Christians. The Pontiff’s attitude is emblematic of a much larger problem within the Catholic church (and yes, many other Christian denominations as well): flimsy faith – and wimpy witnesses.
 
Rather than the robust, fearless conviction of the early apostles, what we’re seeing among far too many of the clergy these days is a lethargic, watered-down version of evangelism. In fact, this trend is so pervasive (again, I believe this is far from just a Catholic problem or we wouldn’t be losing young western Christians in droves) that a cardinal recently observed – only half in jest – there’s no faith left even in Rome…
 

 
The video’s title – “Welcome, Angel of Death” – refers to natural attrition which will, over time, rid the church of these anemic, ineffective priests.
I’m not sure Christendom can afford to wait that long.

Posted in Cultural Erosion, Fruits of Their Labors, Unvarnished | Leave a comment

Remember when NYC had a REAL Mayor?

All I can say is thank God Rudy Giuliani was in charge on 9-11. Can you just imagine the Marxist clown now occupying the mayor’s office attempting to manage the city in the aftermath of that horrific day? Yikes!
 
Yesterday, Guiliani offered some advice for the clueless – and classless – Bill de Blasio, in this conversation with Sean Hannity ~
 

Video via Breitbart TV
Sorry about the annoying commercial! (Adjust your volume when it’s over)
It’s about 30 seconds long, but worth the wait.

“I’m getting really annoyed at this concept of ‘progressive,’” Giuliani said. “There’s absolutely nothing progressive in this class warfare stuff. It’s retrogressive. Every single policy that they’re talking about is a policy that has failed several times historically going back 130, 140 years. We’re talking about basically Marxist ideas. We saw them used in Eastern Europe.”

 
The former mayor discussed some measures that had been successful when he was running things – not surprisingly ~
• Don’t raise taxes; lower them; and,
• “Workfare” not welfare; reinforce the work ethic – don’t erode it.

 
Rudy does hold out some hope that de Blasio may come to his senses. That is, if the new mayor gets a big enough jolt of reality, he’ll become more practical/pragmatic out of necessity.
 
For the sake of the Big Apple let’s pray it’s a MEGA-jolt.

Posted in Fruits of Their Labors, Unvarnished | Leave a comment

Why Won’t Time’s “Person of the Year” Address Muslim Persecution of Christians?

Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil. ~ Thomas Mann

 
popeFr1The Left sure does Pope Francis. Time Magazine is so enamored with the latest pontiff they named him Person of the Year for 2013. For a publication that leans largely secular-left, they were positively gushing…

“He took the name of a humble saint and then called for a church of healing.”

 

What’s got so many nonreligious and pseudo-Christians excited is the Pope’s seemingly tolerant approach to sin. As CNN said last month ~

Francis has also stirred controversy among some conservatives for trying to steer the church away from focus on social issues such as contraception, abortion and same-sex marriage. In what has been seen as a conciliatory tone toward homosexuals, he has said he was in no position to judge gays.

 
Apparently he’s in no position to articulate what’s sinful and what isn’t either. Here was his response to a reporter during an interview last fall; a question about who decides what “good” is ~

“Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.”

 
So what about that whole Ten Commandments thing?
This moral relativism is absolutely destroying Western societies. Instead of buying into this warped philosophy, one would hope the leader of the Catholic Church would take a firm stand for the Word of God, and the one True Faith.
 

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To say that Ann Barnhardt (one of my go-to bloggers for all things Catholic) doesn’t quite share Time’s papal admiration would be an understatement ~

Francis is a scourge. He is a chastisement upon us, and we deserve it because we have done basically NOTHING while the Church has been all but destroyed, the Mass turned into an abomination and a mocking of Our Blessed Lord upon the Altar and in the Tabernacle, and Western Civilization destroyed as a direct result.
 
50 million children are murdered every year in the world. Sodomy and fornication are destroying lives and souls at a clip never before seen in human history, and now have as their goal the total and complete destruction of the family unit and the sacrament of marriage. The financial system has been destroyed and the livelihoods of billions of people are, as we speak, being stolen and the loot being distributed amongst a cadre of oligarchs. Mohamedism is running totally unchecked and is now explicitly supported by the maggot-infested carcass of post-Christian civilization, led by the former American republic.
 
Every day souls are lost forever to hell in numbers that are far too horrific to comprehend.
 
And Pope Narcissus I just said that the two greatest problems in the world are youth unemployment and loneliness among old people.

~~~~~~~~
[Yeah. She doesn’t pull any punches.
I happen to be Lutheran, but if all Catholics were such stalwart defenders of the Christian faith (starting with the Pope!) I might almost consider converting.]

 

Francis also believes that the church needs more interreligious dialogue ~

[Just as an aside, what I find particularly frustrating is how frequently the pope seems to contradict himself; often in the very same sentence…]

Francis of Assisi, the pope said, also “tells us we should work to build peace,” which can come about only by overcoming a relativistic view of the world, “which makes everyone his own criterion and endangers the coexistence of all peoples.”
 
The title of pontiff, he said, means builder of bridges. [ 😯 who knew?!] “My wish is that the dialogue between us should help to build bridges connecting all people, in such a way that everyone can see in the other not an enemy, not a rival, but a brother or sister to be welcomed and embraced,” he said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 
The preceding has been a (probably too lengthy) lead-in to the main topic of this post, which is this: the Pope’s seeming indifference to the ongoing persecution of Christians by Islamists. Robert Spencer, in an article at PJMedia, reports on a letter written to Pope Francis by a Pakistani Catholic woman imprisoned for making “blasphemous remarks;” a death sentence hanging over her head for more than four years now ~

In her letter to Pope Francis, (Asia) Bibi wrote: “I do not know how long I can go on and on. If I am still alive, it is thanks to the strength that your prayers give me. I have met many people who speak and fight for me. Unfortunately still to no avail. At this time I just want to trust the mercy of God, who can do everything, that all is possible. Only He can liberate me.”

 
It’s hard to predict whether Francis will respond, either privately or publicly to Bibi’s appeal, but considering his present focus on building bridges, it’s not likely that he’ll risk burning any. He’s certainly taking a much different approach to the Muslim world than his predecessor did ~

After Muslims in Egypt massacred 21 people in a New Year’s Eve 2011 bombing of a church, Pope Benedict spoke out in January 2011 against the persecution of Christians in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East. When Benedict dared to raise his voice in that way, Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the world’s most prestigious Sunni Muslim institution, reacted angrily, breaking off dialogue with the Vatican and accusing the pope of interference in internal Egyptian affairs. In a statement, Al-Azhar denounced the pope’s “repeated negative references to Islam and his claims that Muslims persecute those living among them in the Middle East.”
 
Benedict stood his ground, and that was that. But in September 2013, Al-Azhar announced that Pope Francis had sent a personal message to Ahmed Al Tayyeb, the grand imam of Al-Azhar. In it, according to Al-Azhar, Francis declared his respect for Islam and his desire to achieve “mutual understanding between the world’s Christians and Muslims in order to build peace and justice.”

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2014 years after the birth of Jesus Christ, the world is in a giant mess. With all due respect, what we need from the head of the Catholic Church is not tolerance for sin, or pointless interreligious dialogue. We need staunch defenders of the faith, who know that good and evil are not subjective concepts. We need leaders who will defend God’s absolute Truth with their very lives.
 
Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. (Luke 19:10) He sure didn’t come to dialogue!
 
popeFr2

Dialogue? How about “Hey Brother! Let my people go!”
 
 
Tolerance is the virtue of a man without convictions. ~ G.K.Chesterton
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 
Related:

Unpacking the Latest Hot Mess from Pope Francis ~ More righteous commentary from Ann Barnhardt. Recommended reading for a more thorough understanding of why Francis is the Left’s favorite pope.

Posted in Fruits of Their Labors, Good vs.Evil, Timeless Principles, Unvarnished | Leave a comment

Progressivism Strands the Ice Ship of Fools

iceshipoffools1 
The entertaining saga of the Akademik Shokalskiy, frozen solid in Antarctic ice for more than a week, has been good for more than just a few hearty guffaws; it’s actually a textbook example of Applied Progressivism. A misguided mission from beginning to end, the story was then misreported by the mainstream media who – firmly stuck in their own Leftist agenda – refused to discuss the truth.
 

Just as we are forced by federal law to give up incandescent
bulbs for lesser alternatives to save carbon, fifty-two adventurers
set off on a doomed expedition to prove a falsity: that the ice cap
in the Antarctic is melting because of greenhouse gases.

~ Clarice Feldman @ the American Thinker

 

The Akademik Shokalskiy episode serves to illustrate the selfishly-hypocritical nature of progressive thought ~
 

Saving the planet from evil humanity

 

“…The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”

Club of Rome [premier environmental think-tank,
consultants to the United Nations]
Source: The Green Agenda

 

Liberals, leftists, socialists, progressives… however they choose to self-identify these days, all have one primary goal: reforming human nature to achieve an earthly utopia. The environmental offshoot of this movement is currently pushing their (increasingly implausible) theory of man-caused climate change. And the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, led by one Chris Turney (professor of climate change at Australia’s University of New South Wales), embarked on their ill-fated journey to give credence to that half-baked hypothesis.

 
Fox News was one of the few mainstream sources to report the truth ~

The leader of a scientific expedition whose ship remains stranded in Antarctic ice says the team, which set out to prove climate change, is “stuck in our own experiment” […]

“Sea ice is disappearing due to climate change, but here ice is building up,” the Australasian Antarctic Expedition said in a statement. 😯

In other words; the facts contradict our reality therefore the facts must be wrong even though we’re frozen in reality. Or something like that.
 
When your goal is utopia, facts are irrelevant.
 
iceshipoffools2 

Fueled by self-interest

 
Used to be, back in the day, that scientists were objective, intent on actually discovering, rather than being personally invested in a particular theory or hypothesis. Unfortunately that’s not the case with so many of these climate change professors.
 
Turns out our Prof. Turney happens to have ~

… set up a carbon refining company called Carbonscape which has developed technology to fix carbon from the atmosphere and make a host of green bi-products, helping reduce greenhouse gas levels.

Oh – you mean he’s got a vested interest in proving the existence of man-made global warming? Well, well… How AlGore-like of him.
 
That old adage “follow the money” can be applied to almost all progressive projects.
 

Pushing the propaganda

 
For the most part the media glommed on to the Akademik Shokalskiy story for its prime-time drama factor, but steered well-clear of any real invesigative reporting ~ MSM Glosses Over Irony of Global Warming Scientists Trapped in Antarctic Ice.
 
If you only watched the network news, chances are you never learned the original purpose of the expedition. Nor did you hear about Turney’s personal stake in its success. And what about the cost – in real tax-payer dollars?

… the passengers were helicoptered out 12 at a time by a Chinese aircraft which presumably wasn’t relying on green energy from Carbonscape or any other source on which we and other governments around the world have blown billions, if not trillions, of dollars.
~ Clarice Feldman @ the American Thinker

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As I mentioned in the introduction, this amusing tale of the frozen research ship is not without its instructional value. What have we learned?
 
Progressives seek to recreate Eden by reforming human nature, hopefully lining their own pockets in the process. They plan to build an elite ruling class on the backs of the bourgeois (most of whom will be eliminated or forced into serfdom).
 
Were they to be perfectly candid about their ambitions, most average Americans would vehemently oppose progressives, so they’re forced to resort to deception. And they’ve enlisted the mainstream media to obfuscate for them (our new Pravda).
 
Ultimately, progressivism is doomed to failure because it embraces such an unrealistic view of the world, how it works and the true nature of its inhabitants.
For the future of the planet – and its inhabitants – pray that it fails soon, without inflicting much more damage.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 
Here’s a humorous postscript to our modern-day fable, from the New Zealand Herald: Forest needed to cover carbon footprint of icy rescue ~

The expedition had pledged to plant about 800 kauri trees in Northland to cover its carbon footprint. Environmentalists believe planting trees helps to offset the impact of burning fuels such as diesel.
 
But former Act Party leader and Herald on Sunday columnist Mr Hide said that would have to increase to about 5000 trees to make up for the fossil fuels burned in the rescue.

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Related:

On why it would be quite wrong to laugh about Prof Chris Turkey and his Antarctic Ship of Fools :mrgreen: ~

“Climate change” is the greatest threat mankind has faced in the history of the universe because all the nice, caring people say it is and because even if it isn’t technically a major, proven or unprecedented threat well it kind of feels like it ought to be and therefore we shouldn’t look too carefully at the actual evidence.
~ James Delingpole

Posted in Mendacity, MSM Malpractice, Unvarnished | Leave a comment

The World’s War on Christendom – Latest Dispatch from the Front

noChristiansJohn15
 
American secularists are really starting to shake their fists at God these days – and more and more; right in the face of Christians. Matt Barber reports on a recent outburst: Planned Parenthood rep: Christianity ‘going down’ ~
 

When the atheist gives voice to his or her God-denial, it provides those in Truth a small glimpse into the same dark spirit – old as Adam – that prompted the psalmist to observe: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good” (Psalm 14:1).
 
Valerie Tarico is one such God-denier. She’s on a fool’s errand. A steadfast disciple to the unholy trinity of “LGBT,” atheist and pro-abortion activism, Ms. Tarico proudly sits on the Board of Advocates for Planned Parenthood – America’s premier one-stop-death-shop […]
 

… In a tedious, though unintentionally funny screed recently published at Salon.com under the headline: “10 signs that religious fundamentalism is going down,” Ms. Tarico gives empty hope to her fellow hopeless with a word salad steeped in anti-Christian bigotry and wishful thinking.

 

tinytantrumUltimately, Valerie is just another radical-left bully who doesn’t want anyone telling her how to live her life.

 
And, as Bruce A. Riggs at the American Thinker reminds us, secular progressives actually have a religion of their own – whether Tarico and her fellow atheists recognize it as such or not – Leftism: A Radical Faith ~

…(It’s a) coercive faith (that) has the character of an endemic narcissism. It is an arrogant faith led, and largely populated, by a relentlessly aggressive, power-obsessed political class dedicated to imposing an egalitarian minimalism (“social justice”) on the world […]
 
Many on the right find solace and guidance through the sensed presence of a transcendent Intelligence at the root of things and structure their lives accordingly. The secular-narcissistic left dismisses this outlook as fanciful nonsense while working relentlessly to establish its own fanciful nonsense of fabricating a homogenous earthly Eden out of highly disparate human material.

 

Ignoring God’s rules in pursuit of man-made utopia never turns out well. Just count the piles of dead bodies left behind by last century’s famous atheists ~

Much of the political history of the extended twentieth century is that of massive extinctions of citizenries by their dictatorial governments. Take the engineered mass starvations, torture chambers, firing squads, and gulags of Lenin and Stalin; Nazi gas chambers; Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge killing fields; the genocides of Mao’s “Great Leap Forward”; and the tyrannical North Korean Sung dynasty, and one will find that over one hundred million people have been slaughtered.

tinytantrum2
 
Valerie Tarico and similar non-believers are much like small children discovering for the first time that they’re autonomous beings. Asserting their fledgling independence they declare “I’m the boss of me.”
 
But we all serve a “master.” That is, we’re all slaves to something; our ambitions, our desires, our addictions, maybe all three. But, because we were created with free will, we can choose which master we will serve…
 
I choose God.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
“What has always made the state a hell on earth has been
precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven.”

~ German poet Friedrich Holderlin (1770-1843) ~

Posted in Good vs.Evil, Timeless Principles | Leave a comment

Saturday Shorts – 1-4-14

sshorts1-5-13

Random links of interest, concern or curiosity from the past week or so, that deserve at least a SHORT mention:

 
Aw: MSNBC’s Chris Hayes frustrated by mockery of global warmists rescued from Antarctic ice ~ Sorry Chris, the inconvenient truth about the stranded ship is that its passengers were trying to create their own AGW reality – when Reality smacked ’em upside the head.
 
Detroit Demise Spurs Tourist Attraction of ‘Ruin Porn’ ~ People from all over the world visit Greenfield Village & the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, just minutes from downtown Detroit. Now they have a whole new attraction to see ~

Since the city declared bankruptcy in July, there has been an appreciable increase in visitors inquiring about the ruins. Photographers from all over have come to take pictures capturing the downfall of the once burgeoning motor city.

Maybe they can turn this into a package deal: In Dearborn, discover the history behind the rise of the Motor City, and then; drive a few miles to view the demise firsthand.
But while the progressives are at it, why limit the decay to Detroit? With its new socialist mayor, NYC is destined to become the next ‘Ruin Porn’attraction ~ Life on the New York City Plantation.

 
Actually – speaking of Detroit – here’s a pleasant surprise; the city’s police chief supports the 2nd Amendment 😯 ~
Detroit police chief to citizens: Arm yourselves

“There’s a number of [concealed pistol license, or CPL] holders running around the city of Detroit. I think it acts as a deterrent. Good Americans with CPLs translates into crime reduction. I learned that real quick in the state of Maine.” ~ Chief James Craig

And “stop & frisk” ~

Craig has also spoken up on the controversial practice of “stop and frisk,” advocating its use and claiming it’s not racist – as some critics charge – when the city is 85 percent black.

 
The Anus Monologues ~ With her usual irreverence for leftist political correctness, Ann Coulter weighs in on the Duck Dynasty/A&E controversy.
 
Iran Steps Up Its Campaign Against Christians ~ Religion of peace & tolerance cracking down on apostates.
As Open Doors reports about the situation facing Christians in Iran; “Muslim-background believers face most pressure – any Muslim who leaves Islam faces the death penalty.”
 
Free Exercise of Virtue Prohibited as of Today in USA ~ As the Affordable Care Act officially takes effect on January 1, 2014…

Quite literally, under this regulation, a mother can be forced through her insurance coverage to provide her daughter with the drug that kills her granddaughter.

 
The Ridiculousness Of NFL Player-Turned-Gay-Marriage-Activist-Turned-Martyr Chris Kluwe: Top 10 Excerpts from His Article ~ Seriously – hasn’t Kluwe gotten just a tad carried away with the I’m-not-gay blather? Could it be that he just sucks as an pro punter?
 
SEE YA: Top gun company splits from Colorado, costing state $85 million ~ Responding to the state’s new sweeping gun control legislation, Magpul Industries, a leading firearms accessories maker, just announced plans to relocate its extensive manufacturing facilities to Texas and Wyoming.

 

Judicial Watch Announces List of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” for 2013 ~ Including such popular favorites as Harry, Barry, Hilly and Boehner with lies, bribes and outright extortion. If these corruptocrats had worked in the private sector they’d all be unemployed – or in prison.
 

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“Barrying” 2013 – “Year of the Zombies”

Here’s a humorous recap of last year’s socio-political follies by the always-amusing Dave Barry, published at the Washington Post: Dave Barry’s Review of 2013, the Year of the Zombies
Yes folks, a month-by-month reminder of stuff we had hoped was dead and buried that came back to haunt us last year… EEEYYYAAAAWW!
 
zombieyear1

[Accompanying illustrations by Dale Stephanos provide additional chuckles.]

 
Here are some highlights:
 
February ~

… Washington faces another crisis in the form of a “sequester” that will happen automatically unless Congress can agree on a budget, which seems unlikely inasmuch as Congress cannot agree on what planet this is. If the sequester goes into effect, federal spending will continue to rise, but not quite as fast as it would have risen without the sequester. To a normal human, this means government spending is still increasing, but to Washington, the sequester means “draconian cuts” and is a looming disaster of epic proportions. Panic grips the city, as grim-faced former student council presidents write talking points far into the night.

 

March ~

… as the federal budget deadline passes without Congress reaching agreement, the devastating, draconian, historically catastrophic sequester goes into effect, causing a mild reduction in the rate of increase in government spending that for some inexplicable reason goes unnoticed by pretty much everybody outside the federal government. Undaunted, Washington turns its massive collective brainpower toward the task of deciding what to do about the next major national crisis, whatever it may be.

 

August ~

… U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, signaling a major change in the federal government’s policy regarding the War on Drugs, tells a meeting of the American Bar Association that he has a family of tiny, invisible harmonica-playing giraffes living inside his nose.
 
… In politics, San Diego Mayor Bob “Bob” Filner resigns as a result of allegations that he is a compulsive serial horn dog who groped pretty much the entire female population of Southern California. He immediately becomes a leading contender in the New York City mayoral race.

 
zombieyear2

“If you like your plan, you can keep your plan…”
Or not.

 
October ~

… the federal government, in an unthinkable development that we cannot even think about, partially shuts down. The result is a catastrophe of near-sequester proportions. Within hours wolves are roaming the streets of major U.S. cities, and bacteria the size of mature salmon are openly cavorting in the nation’s water supply. In the Midwest, thousands of cows, no longer supervised by the Department of Agriculture, spontaneously explode. Yellowstone National Park — ALL of it — is stolen. In some areas gravity stops working altogether, forcing people to tie themselves to trees so they won’t float away. With the nation virtually defenseless, the Bermudan army invades the East Coast, within hours capturing Delaware and most of New Jersey.

 
September ~

… In other foreign-affairs news, Dennis Rodman travels to North Korea for a loon-to-loon meeting with Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, who presents the former NBA star with a commemorative set of 50 political prisoners.

 

December ~

… retailers report that the Black Friday shopping weekend was weaker than expected, with a nationwide total of just six shoppers killed, 148 seriously injured and only 357 arrested — all numbers well below last year’s totals.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Not only was it a “Zombie” year, but after reading Barry’s re-cap of the last twelve months it’s not hard to imagine that the entire planet has fallen down a universe-sized rabbit hole – which may very well be the case.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 
Related:
Speaking of zombies ~ Don’t Let Death Stop your Social Security ~

Uncle Sam, always generous to a fault with taxpayers’ money, doled out about $108 billion in Social Security benefits to the dead in 2012. 😯

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Overlapping Genetic Code Complicates Things for Darwin Devotees

dna5According to this update from Creation-Evolution Headlines a second, “over-lapping” language has been discovered within the genetic code of living organisms: Two Genetic Codes Are Better Than One.
 

This new language is actually written over the top of the first ~

… this new study from University of Washington scientists found that genomes use the genetic code to write two separate languages.
 
One language describes how proteins are made, and the other helps direct genetic activity in cells. One language is written on top of the other, which is why this other language went undiscovered for so long […]

 
Rather than bolster Darwin’s beleaguered theory, this latest discovery further points toward an Intelligent Designer. Not only would it require that the entire evolution process become even more fantastically sophisticated than has already been posited, it also…

… appears to make the genetic code more fragile, less likely to lead to evolutionary progress when mutations (the raw material of neo-Darwinism) occur.

 

Further, the finding seems to suggest that additional, yet-to-be-discovered languages may still reside within DNA ~

Future research will need to determine the number of overlapping codes that can be tolerated by the genetic code. There is also the question of possible trade-offs, in terms of maintaining regulation and functionality, that have been made to accommodate coexistence of codes and whether this can lead to nonoptimal or deleterious consequences […]
 
The investigation of overlapping codes opens new vistas on the functional interpretation of variation in coding regions and makes it clear that the story of the genetic code has not yet run its course.

 
What scientists should really be discovering is that the more they study the complexities of genetics, the more improbable Darwin’s theory of evolution becomes.

Posted in Unvarnished | 2 Comments

Founding Wisdom [Flouted by the Foolish]

founders-quote-AHamiltonIf the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.
 
Alexander Hamiliton

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In the Bleak Mid-Winter

Because it’s still the bleak mid-winter, this carol seems quite appropriate post-Christmas Day, especially since it references Christ’s Second Coming.
Not only is this a beautiful version of the classic carol – the lyrics are conveniently printed on-screen. 🙂 So feel free to sing along ~
 

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In the bleak mid-winter, the frosty wind did moan
The earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone
Snow had fallen softly, snow on snow on snow
In the bleak mid-winter, oh so long ago
 
Our God, heaven cannot hold Him nor the earth sustain
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign
In the bleak mid-winter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God almighty, Jesus Christ
 
Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
but only his mother, in her maiden bliss,
worshiped the Beloved with a kiss.
 

What can I give Him, poor as I am
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb
If I were a wise man, I would do my part
Yet, what can I give Him? Give my heart.

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