Category: Blithe Spirit

Don Harmon taking flak from anti-fracking people

Among other things, they do not like his attitude:

After the vote, Harmon said the committee was weakening the rules because the Department of Natural Resources made them stronger after an unprecedented turnout at public hearings. “We aim to displease both sides equally.”

That’s the kind of flippant comment a legislator usually makes in a Springfield session bar when they’re too intellectually lazy or too inebriated to explain their actions. It’s embarrassing language when discussing an issue that puts communities and lives at risk.

It’s a “Profile in Cowardice,” they say.

Sad day coming for U.S., when Obama goes royal (his word for it)

Royal, not presidential in character, he said.

Tomorrow promises to be a sad day for the United States, as the president will knowingly overstep his constitutional authority to regularize the immigration status of millions of illegals for narrow partisan purposes. Juliet Eilperin and Ed O’Keefe report Obama’s anticipated executive order at the Washington Post.

Consider “the instances and the relevant quotations here.” Plus videos.

Yes. He “he has baldly lied about his past statements.”

He “is a famously cold-blooded character. He now proves himself once again to be a cold-blooded liar.”

Bad news day from both sides of Atlantic

British Prime Minister Cameron says ‘red warning lights’ flashing on global economy – The Washington Post.

Not good to hear this:

LONDON — In a starkly downbeat assessment, British Prime Minister David Cameron has written that the world’s economy could be headed for another fall.

“Six years on from the financial crash that brought the world to its knees, red warning lights are once again flashing on the dashboard of the global economy,” Cameron writes ina piece published Monday inBritain’s Guardian newspaper.

Nor this:

David Stockman Interview On HedgeEye TV: The Bubble Is Global And Its Already Popping

SmarterTimes catches NY Times in self-concentration mode

Apology for mistake, saying IT WASN’T THE REPORTER’S FAULT!  Point is, who cares whose fault within the NYT, which is giant COLLABORATION for the sake of the reader who is the consumer whose interests are supposed to be supreme.

It’s like the counter man at a local “juice bar” cum coffee shop who, when I took note of the high price of their coffee, began to explain it as the high cost of doing things organically, not how much more I would enjoy the coffee knowing it’s good for my health.

Is it?

What ‘America’s Ratzinger’ would like to ask Pope Francis | Crux

​​Cardinal George would like to ask Pope Francis what’s going on.

To begin, George said he’d like to ask Francis if he fully grasps that in some quarters, he’s created the impression Catholic doctrine is up for grabs.
Does Francis realize, for example, “what has happened just by that phrase, ‘Who am I to judge?’ ”
. . . .

“I don’t know whether he’s conscious of all the consequences of some of the things he’s said and done that raise doubts in people’s minds.”

“The question is why he doesn’t he clarify” these ambiguous statements, George said. “Why is it necessary that apologists have to bear the burden of trying to put the best possible face on it?”

. . . . .

George recalled that one of Francis’ favorite books is “The Lord of the World” by Robert Hugh Benson, a converted Catholic priest and son of a former Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury. It’s an apocalyptic fantasy, written in 1907, culminating in a showdown between the Church and a charismatic anti-Christ figure.

George said he’d like to ask Francis a simple question: “Do you really believe that?”

“I hope before I die I’ll have the chance to ask him how you want us to understand what you’re doing, when you put [the end-times] before us as a key to it all,” he said.

Perhaps, George said, the sense that the end is near explains why Francis “seems to be in a hurry.”

More more more with more to come . . .

The widow who pestered the judge and what the Son of Man might or might not find

Never weary of praying, fellow. We know people like that, pray for others at the drop of an email message about sickness, death, and other catastrophes.

Gospel lk 18:1-8

Jesus told his disciples a parable
about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.
He said, “There was a judge in a certain town
who neither feared God nor respected any human being.
And a widow in that town used to come to him and say,
‘Render a just decision for me against my adversary.’
For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought,
‘While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being,
because this widow keeps bothering me
I shall deliver a just decision for her
lest she finally come and strike me.’”
The Lord said, “Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says.
Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones
who call out to him day and night?
Will he be slow to answer them?
I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily.
But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

​Faith on earth in men of good will.​

====================

Later: and women! Sorry.

Gummint money for church institutions? Think on it.

Is there something in this about school voucher programs? Or more to the practical point, federal aid to your favorite Catholic institute of higher learning?

Third Letter of John, 5-8:

Beloved, you are faithful in all you do for the brothers and sisters,
especially for strangers;
they have testified to your love before the Church.
Please help them in a way worthy of God to continue their journey.
For they have set out for the sake of the Name
and are accepting nothing from the pagans.
Therefore, we ought to support such persons,
so that we may be co-workers in the truth.

Take nothing from the pagans? From U.S. Government and become ‘holden to them? Fair question?