Survival guilt?

Latest idea from the great right-wing looney tunes conspiracy: Liberals have survival guilt.
They believe they are evil and their mothers should have aborted them.
They believe America is evil and that the Native American culture should have prevailed and white people don't belong in America.
It's an interesting theory. And certainly some political rants I've read recently from the liberal side would lend it some force. But I would say there's a bit of pot, kettle, black going on, because conservatives have the same problem with rich folks and guilt over being poor.

Bishops- one area of secular society hasn't lost truth (yet)

Instrumentum Laboris, on the results of the survey on the Synod of the Family, just came out. The news is not good, by any means. Catechisis on the institution of the human family has failed in the last 40 years, not just in America and Europe where it was attacked by the sexual revolution, but everywhere, in a lot of strange ways. Divorce, contraception, abortion, and gay marriage rule in North America and Europe- but male family abandonment is rampant everywhere, and in Africa and Asia it's plagued by polygamy, not homosexuality, being the alternative family structure (you think divorce in the United States is bad, try being one of eight Islamic wives whose husband has decided to go on Jihad and blow himself up in the town square!), not to mention Latin America with problems with marriage extremely young (teens and even pre-teens) and machismo leading to a culture of rape.

In the face of this, it's anthropology that the Bishops are turning to, which while a good intellectual start, doesn't exactly warm the heart and doesn't appeal to today's soundbyte, philosophically free and emotion based culture.

But one area hasn't yielded to the dictatorship of relativism and consent: Popular music still longs for monogamous, heterosexual relationships in a way that the modern and postmodern zeitgiest can't fulfill. So perhaps, that's where we should start: In a love so strong that it even gives one another fertility, to create new life. That is the one arena where traditional marriage still has the ability to be superior- perhaps the only area.

How Scalia's prophecy became a moral crisis – CNN Belief Blog - CNN.com Blogs

How Scalia's prophecy became a moral crisis – CNN Belief Blog - CNN.com Blogs: "Back in 2003, when the court handed down the decision in Lawrence v. Texas, striking down all criminal statutes against homosexual acts, Scalia declared that the stage was set for the legalization of same-sex unions. That was 2003."



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This is a year before I noticed that the civil union debate had suddenly, overnight, turned into an attack on the family and on marriage.



Justice Scalia, is a prophet.

Heterophobic extremeism

The clearest case of heterophobia I've ever seen exhibited by a Transgender person.



Infant gender assignment: Unnecessary and potentially harmful.:



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And from a former homosexual turned therapist the way you should really respond to gender confusion in your son or daughter.

Planned Parenthood's War on Women - Aleteia

Planned Parenthood's War on Women - Aleteia: "Think about that. One of every sixteen girls who would have been born in 2014 will see her life ended by a Planned Parenthood employee."



Who has the war on women now?   6% of all the girls conceived in the United States, will be executed by a Planned Parenthood employee.  6%.

Debunking myths

As much for my own reference as anything else, just like the author I too would like to do more research on the first.

Affordable Care Act is neither Affordable Nor Care

At least my old insurance would pay for prescriptions. Both my wife and I are on medications, and we knew our medication cost was high, so when we chose a plan on Cover Oregon, one of our criteria was cheap copay on prescriptions. We were thrilled to find a Bronze plan that promised $0 copay on prescriptions, so we went with Lifewise. The cards came, and sure enough, they said Retail Rx Copay $0. Over the last several weeks, I've had the worst allergy season I've ever had- and it's given me severe asthma. My doctor is very worried, so he prescribed Predisone and Adivar. Adivar was utterly denied, so I ended up going with Q-Var, and then I got hit with this massive co-pay.

Thanks loads, Obamacare. You are WORTHLESS.

How to rid the human race of any given random infectious disease

We know this, it isn't rocket science.

If you truly want to wipe out an infectious disease in a given population of human beings, it only takes four steps. Billions of dollars worth of effort, but only four steps.

1. Create a cheap test that shows positive or negative for the infectious agent, and test *everybody*.
2. Those who test positive, physically separate into a quarantined area.
3. Hire researchers and caretakers to care for and treat the quarantined.
4. Use the quarantined population as a test bed to work on cures.

If you are working for the eradication of an infectious illness, and are not doing these four steps, you simply aren't trying very hard.

The most important office in the world

There is a vocation equal in power to a parish priest, with a smaller congregation. It is a post that only women can occupy; but in traditional Catholicism, it is the one vocation that is more powerful than the Pope himself, a vocation without which no human being would even exist. Do you understand the riddle yet? If not Click through to this cartoon.

Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime? - The Washington Post

Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime? - The Washington Post: "“Memory is a machine,” he says, “and it is not flawless. Our conscious mind prioritizes things by importance, but on a cellular level, our memory does not. If you’re capable of forgetting your cellphone, you are potentially capable of forgetting your child.”"



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This horrific story, in this paragraph, tells me that there is a technological solution.  I do forget my cell phone in the car from time to time; but I have a technological hint that I've done so:  My bluetooth headset says "Phone disconnected".



What if carseats had a small, low power bluetooth signal to our smartphones, on whenever the seatbelt is engaged, and an app that detected whether that signal was present or not?

Marriage Crucifix |

Marriage Crucifix |: "In the town of Siroki-Brijeg in Bosnia and Herzagovina, not one single divorce or broken family has been recorded in living memory among its more than 26.000* inhabitants! So what is the secret of their success?

The answer is the beautiful tradition the Croatian people of Siroki-Brijeg have for marriage. In fact the Croatian marriage tradition is beginning to take hold in the rest of Europe and America among devout Catholics who have seen the blessings it bestows!

For centuries the people in Siroki-Brijeg have suffered cruelly as their Christian Faith was always threatened by first the Moslem Turks and then the Communists. They knew through experience, that the source of salvation comes through the Cross of Christ! It does not come from humanitarian aid, peace treaties or disarmament plans, even if these things may bring limited benefits.

These people possess a wisdom that does not allow them to be duped over questions of life and death. That is why they have indissolubly linked marriage with the Cross of Christ. They have founded marriage, which brings forth human life, on the Cross, which brings forth divine life.

When the bride and bridegroom go to the church to be married they carry a Crucifix with them. The priest blesses the Crucifix and instead of saying that they have found the ideal partner with whom to share their lives, he exclaims, “You have found your Cross! It is a Cross to love, to carry with you, a Cross that is not to be thrown off, but rather cherished.”"



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Tuam Mother & Baby Home Memorial

Tuam Mother & Baby Home Memorial — iCrowdFundiCrowdFund:



We've all heard about the sad case of anonymous graves at this unwed mother's home in Ireland.  Thankfully, the early reports have been proven false, but the 796 children who died at this home in the 20th century are still buried in unmarked graves.  This whole story broke because of the attempt to build a memorial for these children.  Give if you can.



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I said it before

In 1992, when I was a liberal protesting the First Gulf War, I said it. I said that getting involved in the middle east would breed jihadis willing to attack America. In 2003 I said it. I said leaving Afghanistan to go have an adventure in Iraq would just breed more terrorists to attack again in a decade. In 2014, many Iraqi cities fell to Islamic Jihadists. And I will say it again. A military solution to tribal problems will just result in more Jihadists a decade from now. Please don't make me say it again in 2025.

Astronauts to enjoy out-of-this world coffee with ISSpresso machine (Wired UK)

Astronauts to enjoy out-of-this world coffee with ISSpresso machine (Wired UK): "The ISSpresso -- that's what they called it, we swear -- was built by Italian coffee kings Lavazza in conjunction with Argotec and the Italian Space Agency. The machine, which weighs 20kg with all the additional safety mechanisms, will be accompanying Air Force Captain Samantha Cristoforetti -- Italy's first woman into space -- in November this year."



'via Blog this'



Oh,  cool, I just found another way to use "blog this", it autoquotes.  Now for the joke:

The only way the Italians could get a woman to go to space is if they guaranteed her the ability to have coffee when she gets there.

You're older than you've ever been

And now you're even older. A bit of perspective, H/T to David Don, my brother in law.