For the next time I see somebody denying Christmas

Why Jesus was born in December

Addams Family Values

No, not the movie. The 1960s TV show:



THIS is marriage. Real marriage. Not that cheap American version, destroyed by divorce, damaged by psychiatrists, ruined by imaginary individualism. No, Gomez and Morticia really have a love that is to be defended, against the world, against all who would attack it. THAT is what we lost due to the sexual revolution. We lost marriage.

Francis wasn't first

But if you find Evangelii Gaudium challenging, perhaps you need to hear from St. John Paul The Great, autotuned:

Gee, this seems familiar

Kevin O'Brien explains the odd choice of emphasizing homosexuality over adultery, theft, and fornication when considering 1 Corinthians 6:9-20. Adultery Pride Day, anybody?

On the Strange Side

Christopher's Doctor Who Lego Fanfic: Not the best photography- nor the best stop gap as the frame rate is one every four seconds- but be kind, he is special needs. At the very least, at over five minutes, it's the longest story line he's come up with yet.

The subversive theology, philosophy, and politics of Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer

I loved this song growing up- it spoke to my undiagnosed (at the time) Asperger's:



But today, it has inspired a mortal sin in me, that I also see in the neurodiversity and LGBT movements in the United States- Pride.

Readers of this blog are well familiar with my complaints about the LGBT movement. And yes, this post was inspired by yet another Crisis article on the topic. But, I do not believe the sin of the New Homophiles is homosexuality (in fact, by their voluntarily celibacy, it significantly is NOT!). Instead, I'd like to talk to you about a subset of the neurodiversity movement- the evolutionary autistics.

Evolutionary autistics see the gifts of autism- affinity for complex systems, ability to work on a computer without talking to another human being for hours on end, brilliant technical and philosophical insights- as "the next stage in human evolution". A good example is the fictional character of Dr. Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory:



I submit that like Sheldon Cooper's inability to drive, and my much-loved-by-leftists inability to recognize a human face (loved by leftists because they imagine my inability to tell a caucasian friend from an asian friend from an african friend is a plus, when in reality, it's a horrid social disability that makes it impossible to ever remember anybody's name) is indeed a disability, not an ability- and the false pride we take in it is just that, false pride, one of the seven deadly sins.

I am not just a nitwit, I am a misfit. I should be more humble about that, and I'm not.

Coming back around, that's what bugs me about the political LGBT movement. Gay Pride parades, the insistence on changing all of marriage law to fit them, even the "New Catholic Homophiles" with their insistence that we need to be "accepting" of a severe disability instead of helping people with that disability see the truth, bothers me because I'm guilty of the exact same sin, the sin of pride. It isn't about homosexuality at all- or even the struggle with same sex attraction. As the Grand Knight back in 2011 said in his speech giving me Knight of the Year, we all have our struggles, our fears to overcome. This is not different for anybody in the world- and we are not special because we have a disability. "Special needs" means we have to deal with the world differently- it does not mean that we are exceptional people.

What Pope Francis was talking about, American style: #Staffergate

I've long said that the only real difference between a libertarian and a crony capitalist is a bank account large enough to buy politicians. With the combination of Staffergate and Pope Francis's Apostolic Exhortation, I'm beginning to think that we live under rule of corruption, not rule of law. It's hard to tell the difference between the two- since the very people writing the law are the ones taking the bribes.

This is why the magical overflowing glass of Argentinian's version of the trickle down theory never overflowed and kept growing larger. This is why a rising tide floats some boats and sinks others. This is what is wrong with von Mises' theories about government in general- a free market means that government is for sale to the highest bidder.

This is also why Bill Diss' math classroom was invaded by Planned Parenthood, he was harrassed, and finally last night, was fired. Money wins again- how can a public school math teacher compete with the millions of dollars behind Planned Parenthood?

The system is no longer democracy. Democracy is one man, one vote. Welcome to the corruptocracy, where it is one dollar, one vote.

Too much Theory, Not Enough Action

An interesting article at The Catholic Thing on the ordinary charity of those too poor for monetary gifts suggests perhaps that Pope Francis is neither capitalist nor Marxist- as a good Catholic should be neither- but is instead talking about physical on the ground reality of economics, rather than lofty theories (well, aside from the theory of Trickle Down, which as anybody knows who actually works with people who don't own medium to large businesses, doesn't work). Presence, is what the poor require, not presents.

I must admit that I myself have fallen into this trap this Christmas season- but all the presents have been purchased, I'm on a train that can't be stopped. Still, three out of the thirty or so presents I have purchased *are* presence- events that we will get to enjoy with family and friends during the 12 days of Christmas, as opposed to physical items.

However, as I work 50 hour weeks to pay for all of this (well, not just pay for it all, but also because the needs of the current project are such that I need to work 50 hour weeks- I get a shutdown between noon on Christmas Eve and New Year's day, but January 2nd will be back to the grind), I have to wonder, if I am doing too much and not spending enough time with the people who really do need me.

That's an interesting twist on Evangelii Gaudium, and not one I was expecting.

And so it begins

The first court case of February-December Romance results in Italy reducing the age of consent to 11.

An example of unfettered capitalism, New York Style

Pope Francis, in Evangelii Gaudium paragraphs 50-109 has much to say on the dangers of capitalism. Libertarians in the Church have fired back, claiming that there are no markets that are not regulated, at least in the first world. A few admit to the idea that due to corruption, unfettered de facto markets do exist in the third world- especially hell holes like Argentina, where the Pope is from and where the economy collapsed under the weight of predatory capitalism in 2001.

But is corruption limited to the third world? One state in our union has more than 50% of its income derived from predatory capitalism directly- derived from controlling investments in companies that exploit markets all over the world. And so for your consideration, may I present unfettered capitalism, New York Style where the government is most assuredly for sale to the highest bidder. Is it any wonder that this is also a culture of waste, where gay marriage, prostitution, pornography, and abortion are widely practiced (as long, of course, as the true victims and perpetrators of these crimes pay for the priviledge of committing them)?

Morality isn't a cafeteria, all crimes are related.

A very satisfying discussion on Reason vs Religion

Reading Pope Benedict's reply to an atheist, combined with a new theory about the Holographic Universe being misreported in the press caused this comment on slashdot- which turned into a major discussion on the reality of mathematics as applied to science.

A Brother Knight Learns the Art of Compromise

Maybe it was Pope Francis's recent apostolic exhortation. Maybe he's just tired of fighting.

But Paul Ryan's new budget solves the sequester standoff without cutting programs for the poor (except people in jail collecting unemployment checks) and without new taxes.

Perpetual Poverty

It costs a lot of money to be poor in America today. It's incredibly easy for rich east coasters to claim poverty doesn't exist- or worse yet, that the only thing we need to do is tolerate the bad habits of the poor like divorces and homosexuality- without recognizing that the main reason people ARE poor in America is because the free market is full of fraudulent activity designed specifically to take advantage of the poor.

The war on cisgendered people continues

You can bet that if Hunter had been kissing boys that wouldn't be considered sexual harassment- but because he and his girlfriend are six years old and we can't possibly let heterosexuality begin, Hunter is being persecuted for opposite sex attraction.

Pope Benedict XVI to Richard Dawkins

Careful when you poke a sleeping Pope Emeritus- the German university professor will attack. But here's a curious thought embedded halfaway down in this letter- are many of our scientific breakthroughs merely science fiction and not science fact? Richard Dawkins' _The Selfish Gene_ is considered science fiction by the Pope, and certainly the entire field of quantum mechanics is currently more science fiction than science fact, based as it is on only secondary evidence about particles too small to be scanned by any instrument we have. And yet, many of these guesses seem right- until, of course, they are proven wrong, as they often are.

Why Cover Oregon is a failure

And no, it isn't just the latest state scapegoat, Oracle.I don't know about Obamacare in the rest of the nation, but the poor here in Oregon work 50-80 hour workweeks just to keep fed, sheltered, and clothed. They don't have hours and hours to waste online with a half-assed website that in the end, lets you download a 19 page PDF to print out, fill out, send in, get the wrong one back, get their identity stolen by the prison inmate doing data entry, get the right one back, pick a plan, get told it's the wrong plan, get a guess on what my subsidy will be, pay the wrong amount, have to write 6 checks to pay the right amount, only to get fined in the end because they lost the paperwork.

Hint to socialists out there- the way to bring the communist revolution to America is make it convenient. Otherwise, nobody's going to have the time to bother.

Mimicry vs Plaigarization

I used to say that everything worthwhile in the civilization of mankind, came from Catholicism- and I blamed other cultures for plagiarizing good. Until I watched this:

Proving once again that I'm not a capitalist

The lengths some people go to in fear of the living wage

Another great article on the Slippery Slope Phenomenon

or, as this one puts it, going down the ladder of depravity, by which figures of speech are used to destroy sin and call evil good.

A great example is this little rant of depravity which chows the misogyny inherant in the pro-choice movement.

Is Religion the cause of war?

Does religion cause war? We've heard this charge from the atheists so many times, it's become a lie wanting to be true. But a massive study on the art of war from 2004 reveals that out of 1,763 wars, only 123 were caused by religion. Take Islam out of the picture, removing Jihad, and you're down to 57 wars (including the Crusades, the 30 years war, and all the wars of the reformation) caused by non-Islamic religion. In other words, like so much else- Atheism is objectively false.