Hey, dimbulb tourists! It's a church!

Roto-Reuters: Gum battle marks St Peter's 500th anniversary

Michelangelo designed its dome and Bernini created its columns, but St Peter's Basilica has the modern age to thank for the chewing gum stuck to its floors and the graffiti marring its walls.

As the Vatican launched a 500th anniversary celebration of St Peter's on Thursday, the prelate in charge of the upkeep of Christianity's largest church was considering how to save it for another half millennia.

"People have no idea how much time and energy is wasted removing chewing gum," Cardinal Francesco Marchisano told a news conference on Thursday to launch a year-long series of events.

"It gets stuck all over the place and finds its way into the crevices in the marble. Ah, that poor marble!"

As many as 30,000 visitors stream every day into the basilica, which marks the burial place of the apostle St Peter and was built by some of Italy's most famous architects, including Michelangelo, Donato Bramante, Raphael and Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Visitor numbers have swelled further since the death of Pope John Paul II last April and thousands daily queue for hours to visit his tomb deep in the bowels of the church -- some of them dropping gum and scribbling on the marble as they wait.

An army of Vatican workers, known as "sanpietrini" (little St Peters), work full time trying to repair the damage and remove the stains left by visitors.

Marchisano said upkeep was not cheap. Although he declined to give a precise figure, he said most of the funds were met by tickets sold to those wanting to visit the giant dome or "cupola."

Aid has also sometimes come from the guilty.

Marchisano recalled a rector from an English university who sent a cheque for 1,500 euros ($1,850) after he discovered his students had signed their names on the ceiling of the cupola designed by Michelangelo in 1558.

One place the vandals could not damage is the necropolis of St Peter, where only 50,000 visitors are allowed in each year because of its tiny space and the need to protect the ancient paintings and relics from humidity, he added.

The Vatican is marking its year-long celebration of St Peter's with a series of events. A major exhibition about the basilica's history, including the first display of the stone marking St Peter's 2,000-year-old tomb, will open in October.

I get mail from starving filmmakers...

Mr. Fritz, the suspiciously German-surnamed artiste who made the documentary about the Slave China punk band Joyside gets it just a little tiny bit.

I think.


Kevonthefritz said

You are an idiot...but thanks for the plug on your website.

I would like to send you a copy of the film to do a review. Then you can tell me if you think these dudes are smarter than me. I never remember the paper or myself claiming to be smarter than JOYSIDE.

The title of that song is "A Girl From Nowhere" and not a girl from London. Originally it was but they changed it because it was no longer about a specific girl but girls in general.

Also to be noted in the credits of the film there is a credit given to Super Bowl Champs Pittsburgh Steelers.


Fritz, baby, thanks for visiting and commenting.

You are wrong. I only play an idiot on the computer. It is my idiom and I get it from the Russian side of the family.

I would love to have a copy of your film, but that would entail the disclosure of my dacha's secret location. I will consult with my attorneys and e-mail you later.

With regard to my comment on the level of your mental acuity, I was referring to your statement quoted in the article:

"I kind of think in Eastern Europe, two things ended Communism -- rock 'n' roll and Pope John Paul II."

While Pope John Paul the Great's role has been largely ignored, I find it hard to believe rock 'n'roll could even crack the Top Ten list of reasons the Soviet Union fell. (See Reagan, Solidarity, AFL-CIO, Thatcher, the insipid idea of socialism itself, et cetera.)

That was the first time I grew suspicious of your gray matter.

The second? You went back to the hellhole in a cesspool wrapped in barbed wire and an enigma that is Slave China. Joyside, on the other hand:

"They just want to play music and get out of China."

That seems the more reasonable and rational position. The fact that they can't get out makes them slaves, not dopes. I doubt they would be brain surgeons out here in the real world, but then again, they aren't bloggers. Or filmmakers.

Every cretin that takes a check from Lancaster Newspapers, Inc. deserves to be ignored into unemployment. But it is tough to fight a monopoly. I wish I had denigrated their intelligence. Thanks for reminding me.

As for the song title, I couldn't understand a word the guy said. I was going off the graphics at the beginning of the video.

All that being said, I would like to offer my humblest appy-polly loggies for any offense my typing caused. (Super Bowl XL Champion Steelers fans must stick together.)

The Theology of the Body: 91. St Paul's Analogy of the Union of Head and Body

In his General Audience of 25 August 1982, the Holy Father continued his catechesis on theology of the body, by further examination of Ephesians 5. He focussed attention on the analogy of head and body, as analogous to both the Christ-Church relationship and the husband-wife relationship.


St Paul's Analogy of the Union of Head and Body

During the general audience at St Peter's Square on Wednesday evening, 25 August, the Holy Father continued his catechesis on the Letter to the Ephesians.


1. In the preceding reflections on the Letter to the Ephesians (5:21-33), we drew attention especially to the analogy of the relationship which exists between Christ and the Church, and of that which exists between husband and wife united by the bond of marriage. Before undertaking the analysis of the further passages of the text in question, we must note that within the range of the fundamental Pauline analogy: Christ and the Church, on the one hand, and man and woman as spouses on the other, there is a supplementary analogy: the analogy of the head and of the body. This analogy confers a chiefly ecclesiological significance on the statement we analyzed: the Church as such is formed by Christ; it is constituted by him in its essential part, as the body is by the head. The union of the body with the head is above all of an organic nature. To put it simply, it is the somatic union of the human organism. The biological union is founded directly on this organic union, inasmuch as it can be said that the body lives by the head (even if at the same time, though in a different way, the head lives by the body). Besides, in the case of man, the psychic union, understood in its integrity, and the integral unity of the human person is also founded on this organic union.

Eschatological perspective

2. As already stated (at least in the passage analyzed), the author of the Letter to the Ephesians has introduced the supplementary analogy of the head and the body within the limits of the analogy of marriage. He even seems to have conceived the first analogy, "head-body," in a more central manner from the point of view of the truth about Christ and the Church proclaimed by him. However, one must equally affirm that he has not placed it alongside or outside of the analogy of marriage as a conjugal bond—quite the contrary. In the whole text of the Letter to the Ephesians (5:21-33), especially in the first part with which we are dealing (5:22-23), the author speaks as if in marriage also the husband is "head of the wife," and the wife "the body of the husband," as if the married couple formed one organic union. This can find its basis in the text of Genesis which speaks of one flesh (Gn 2:24), or in that same text to which the author of the Letter to the Ephesians will shortly refer in the context of this great analogy. Nevertheless, the text of Genesis makes clear that the man and the woman are two distinct personal subjects who knowingly decide on their conjugal union, defined by that ancient text with the words "one flesh." This is equally clear also in the Letter to the Ephesians. The author uses a twofold analogy: head-body, husband-wife, for the purpose of illustrating clearly the nature of the union between Christ and the Church. In a certain sense, especially in the first part of the Letter to the Ephesians 5:22-23, the ecclesiological dimension seems decisive and dominant.

Particular relationship

3. "Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the Church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church, and gave himself up for her..." (Eph 5:22-25). This supplementary analogy "head-body" indicates that within the limits of the entire passage of the Letter to the Ephesians 5:21-33, we are dealing with two distinct subjects. In virtue of a particular reciprocal relationship, in a certain sense they become a single subject. The head, together with the body, constitutes a subject (in the physical and metaphysical sense), an organism, a human person, a being. There is no doubt that Christ is a subject different from the Church. However, in virtue of a particular relationship, he is united with her, as in an organic union of head and body. The Church is so strongly, so essentially herself in virtue of a mystical union with Christ. Is it possible to say the same thing of the spouses, of the man and the woman united by the marriage bond? If the author of the Letter to the Ephesians sees also in marriage the analogy of the union of head and body, this analogy in a certain sense seems to apply to marriage in consideration of the union which Christ constitutes with the Church, and the Church with Christ. Therefore, the analogy regards, above all, marriage itself as that union through which "the two become one flesh" (Eph 5:31; cf. Gn 2:24).

Bi-subjectivity

4. This analogy, however, does not blur the individuality of the subjects: that of the husband and that of the wife, that is, the essential bi-subjectivity which is at the basis of the image of "one single body." Rather, the essential bi-subjectivity of the husband and wife in marriage, which makes of them in a certain sense "one single body," passes within the limits of the whole text we are examining (Eph 5:21-33) to the image of Church-Body united with Christ as head. This is seen especially in this text where the author describes the relationship of Christ to the Church precisely by means of the image of the relationship of the husband to the wife. In this description the Church-Body of Christ appears clearly as the second subject of the spousal union to which the first subject, Christ, manifests the love with which he has loved her by giving himself for her. That love is an image and above all a model of the love which the husband should show to his wife in marriage, when the two are subject to each other "out of reverence for Christ."

Two become one flesh

5. We read: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church, because we are members of his body. 'For this reason a man should leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'" (Eph 5:25-31).

Aim is sanctification

6. It is easy to perceive that in this part of the text of the Letter to the Ephesians (5:21-33), bi-subjectivity clearly dominates. It is manifested both in the relationship Christ-Church, and also in the relationship husband-wife. This does not mean to say that the image of a single subject disappears: the image of "a single body." It is preserved also in the passage of our text, and in a certain sense it is better explained there. This will be seen more clearly when we submit the above-quoted passage to a detailed analysis. Thus the author of the Letter to the Ephesians speaks of the love of Christ for the Church by explaining the way in which that love is expressed, and by presenting at the same time both that love and its expressions as a model which the husband should follow in regard to his wife. The love of Christ for the Church has essentially her sanctification as its scope. "Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her" (5:25-26). Baptism is a principle of this sanctification. Baptism is the first and essential fruit of Christ's giving himself for the Church. In this text baptism is not called by its own proper name, but is defined as purification "by the washing of water with the word" (5:26). This washing, with the power that derives from the redemptive giving of himself by Christ for the Church, brings about the fundamental purification through which Christ's love for the Church acquires a spousal character, in the eyes of the author of the letter.

7. It is known that the sacrament of baptism is received by an individual subject in the Church. However, beyond the individual subject of baptism the author of the letter sees the whole Church. The spousal love of Christ is applied to her, the Church, every time that a single person receives in her the fundamental purification by means of baptism. Whoever receives baptism becomes—by the virtue of the redemptive love of Christ—at the same time a participant in his spousal love for the Church. In our text "the washing of water with the word" is an expression of the spousal love in the sense that it prepares the Bride (Church) for the Bridegroom. It makes the Church the spouse of Christ, I would say, in actu primo. Some biblical scholars observe that in this text, the washing with water recalls the ritual ablution which preceded the wedding—something which constituted an important religious rite also among the Greeks.

Ecclesiological dimension

8. As the sacrament of baptism, "the washing of water with the word" (Eph 5:26) renders the Church a spouse not only in actu primo but also in the more distant perspective, in the eschatological perspective. This opens up before us when we read in the Letter to the Ephesians that "the washing of water" serves, on the part of the groom "to present the Church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish" (Eph 5:27). The expression "to present to himself" seems to indicate that moment of the wedding in which the bride is led to the groom, already clothed in the bridal dress and adorned for the wedding. The text quoted indicates that the Christ-spouse himself takes care to adorn the spouse-Church. He is concerned that she should be beautiful with the beauty of grace, beautiful by virtue of the gift of salvation in its fullness, already granted from the moment of the sacrament of baptism. But baptism is only the beginning from which the figure of the glorious Church will emerge (as we read in the text), as a definitive fruit of the redemptive and spousal love, only with the final coming of Christ (parousia).

We see how profoundly the author of the Letter to the Ephesians examines the sacramental reality, proclaiming its grand analogy. Both the union of Christ with the Church, and the conjugal union of man and woman in marriage are illumined in this way by a particular supernatural light.

Behold the antique media's masochistic submissiveness before the teeny, tiny phallic symbol that is Slavemaster Hu.

AP: Chinese Media Ignore White House Gaffes
BEIJING - Chinese news reports made no mention Friday of the protester who interrupted President Hu Jintao's visit with President Bush or a White House announcer flubbing China's official name. But ordinary Chinese commenting on Web sites accused President Bush of insulting Hu. "You can see from Bush's lack of respect for foreign leaders just how lacking he is in class," said a posting on a bulletin board run by the People's Daily, the main Communist Party newspaper.

1. Of course Slave China's government-run media made no mention of yesterday's slave revolt. They were too busy helping the secret police track down the poor woman's family members who were not fortunate enough to make it to freedom.
2. Stupid BushMonkey White House! How hard is it to say "Slave China".
3. Respect? Hu's a mass-murdering thug. He's lucky we don't hang him from from the nearest tree.


From the Chicago Tribune:

More pomp than circumstance
Two leaders agree to disagree on issues

WASHINGTON -- With a 21-gun salute and an array of military honor guards, President Bush welcomed President Hu Jintao of China to the White House for an hourlong meeting and a ceremonial lunch, but they had little tangible to show for a meeting marred by protest on the South Lawn.

"Marred"? Just pretend that protester was a scientologist or a moslem protesting CuriousGeorge's policies. Or imagine it was Cindy Sheehag! The antiquers would call her a martyr.


The Guardian: Protester gatecrashes Hu visit as China and US fail to make progress

Same as the one above. Who cares what British commies think?


The piece de la resistance has to be this steaming pile of dictator-envy by noted pantywaist Dana Milbank of Washington's other newspaper.

China and Its President Greeted by a Host of Indignities

Awwww...poor murderous son of a bitch.

If only the White House hadn't given press credentials to a Falun Gong activist who five years ago heckled Hu's predecessor, Jiang Zemin, in Malta. Sure enough, 90 seconds into Hu's speech on the South Lawn, the woman started shrieking, "President Hu, your days are numbered!" and "President Bush, stop him from killing!"

Bush and Hu looked up, stunned. It took so long to silence her -- a full three minutes -- that Bush aides began to wonder if the Secret Service's strategy was to let her scream herself hoarse. The rattled Chinese president haltingly attempted to continue his speech and television coverage went to split screen.

"You're okay," Bush gently reassured Hu.

But he wasn't okay, not really. The protocol-obsessed Chinese leader suffered a day full of indignities -- some intentional, others just careless. The visit began with a slight when the official announcer said the band would play the "national anthem of the Republic of China" -- the official name of Taiwan. It continued when Vice President Cheney donned sunglasses for the ceremony, and again when Hu, attempting to leave the stage via the wrong staircase, was yanked back by his jacket. Hu looked down at his sleeve to see the president of the United States tugging at it as if redirecting an errant child.

Then there were the intentional slights. China wanted a formal state visit such as Jiang got, but the administration refused, calling it instead an "official" visit. Bush acquiesced to the 21-gun salute but insisted on a luncheon instead of a formal dinner, in the East Room instead of the State Dining Room. Even the visiting country's flags were missing from the lampposts near the White House.

But as protocol breaches go, it's hard to top the heckling of a foreign leader at the White House. Explaining the incident -- the first disruption at the executive mansion in recent memory -- White House and Secret Service officials said she was "a legitimate journalist" and that there was nothing suspicious in her background. In other words: Who knew?

Hu did. (If Milbank wasn't such a pinko pinhead, I'd think he was trying to be funny. - F.G.) The Chinese had warned the White House to be careful about who was admitted to the ceremony. To no avail: They granted a one-day pass to Wang Wenyi of the Falun Gong publication Epoch Times. A quick Nexis search shows that in 2001, she slipped through a security cordon in Malta protecting Jiang (she had been denied media credentials) and got into an argument with him. The 47-year-old pathologist is expected to be charged today with attempting to harass a foreign official.

Bush apologized to the angry Chinese leader in the Oval Office. "Frankly, we moved on," National Security Council official Dennis Wilder told reporters later. It was, he said, a "momentary blip."

Maybe, but Hu was in no mood to make concessions. In negotiations, he gave the U.S. side nothing tangible on delicate matters such as the nuclear problems in North Korea and Iran, the Chinese currency's value and the trade deficit with China.

Wilder pleaded for understanding. "Some people today want to see a quick fix to the trade imbalance," he explained. "But in the new global economy there is no quick fix."

In the arrival ceremony, Bush, after leading Hu on a review of the troops, welcomed him to the White House. Hu clapped for himself. He was less enthusiastic about the long list of demands Bush made in his welcome speech: expand Chinese consumption of U.S. goods, enforce intellectual property rights, and allow freedom to assemble, speak and worship.

Hu's reply was overshadowed by what the White House transcript politely called an "audience interruption," as if somebody had sneezed.

Oh, Dana! You're such a clever boy!

The meeting in the Oval Office brought more of the same. In front of the cameras, Bush thanked Hu for his "frankness" -- diplomatic code for disagreement -- and Hu stood expressionless. The two unexpectedly agreed to take questions from reporters, but Bush grew impatient as Hu gave a long answer about trade, made all the longer by the translation. Bush at one point tapped his foot on the ground. "It was a very comprehensive answer," he observed when Hu finished.

Last came the unofficial state luncheon. After the butter heirloom corn broth and the ginger-scented dumplings had been consumed, Hu rose with a toast that proclaimed he and Bush had "reached a broad and important agreement on China-U.S. relations."

The White House didn't see it that way. Instead of a statement about a new accord with China, it issued a press release titled "MEDICARE CHECK-UP: Prescription Drug Benefit Enrollment Hits 30 Million . . . ."


WTF??? Is Bob Dornan back in Congress?

Hu's visit nothing to celebrate

Today, President Bush will roll out the red carpet for Chinese President Hu Jintao, a leader whose government brutally crushes freedom, democracy and the religious expression of the Chinese and Tibetan people. Hu will receive the best welcome U.S. taxpayer money can buy, including full military honors and a 21-gun salute.

This is the same regime that provides military technologies to countries that threaten international security, including Iran and North Korea. The same regime that threatens Taiwan with a military attack, detains and tortures Chinese people for expressing their political and religious beliefs and arrests Tibetans for carrying a picture of the Dalai Lama.

Nope. That was Nancy Pelosi, who apparently strapped on a pair she borrowed from Hitlery. Don't worry, all you left-fascists out there. She doesn't mean a word of it.


In the following editorial, the geniuses at the Old Gray Whore once again pretend there is no difference between us and the commie butchers. (Well, to be fair, there isn't much difference between the NYT and the slavemasters. All that is missing is the nerve to pull the trigger.)

How Dare They Use Our Oil!


How's this for nerve? The leader of a country that consumes more than 20 million barrels of oil a day is warning the leader of a country that consumes some 6.5 million barrels not to try to lock up world oil resources. When President Bush welcomes the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, to the White House today, the American complaint will be that China's appetite for oil affects its stance on Iran, Sudan and other trouble spots.

In other words, China is acting just like everyone else: subjugating its foreign policy to its energy concerns. The United States does it, too — witness its long-running alliance with Saudi Arabia.

Still, the size of China's population — 1.3 billion people — puts things into an alarming context. China recently overtook Japan as the world's second-biggest consumer of oil. Its real gross domestic product is growing at 8 to 10 percent a year, and its need for energy is projected to increase by about 150 percent by 2020. China's move from bicycles to cars has accelerated its oil consumption; by 2010, China is expected to have 90 times the number of cars it had in 1990, and it will probably have more cars than America by 2030.

That leaves the world with two options. The first is to manage energy resources better. The other is to look for another planet. Simply continuing the current trends isn't viable, especially with the growing needs of India, with its one billion people and a growing economy of its own.

Stop the presses! The world has only two (count 'em, two!) options. These guys must be Ivy Leaguers.

BTW, did you ever notice how the Old Gray Whore's options never include freedom? They've never met a strongman they didn't like. (Insert leftist sadomasochistic fantasy here. "Oh, Hu. You're much, much bigger in person!"

The United States doesn't have the right to tell a third of humanity to go back to their bicycles because the party's over. Clearly, Mr. Bush and Mr. Hu must tackle energy in a real and meaningful way. That can be done only if the United States both helps China find alternative energy sources and shows that America is doing the same thing itself.

The best possible course would be for China to leapfrog an oil-based economy and head toward sustainable alternative fuels, just as other countries are jumping past the construction of land lines for telephone service and going straight to wireless systems. China has a lot of biomass — crops, forests and wood products — that could be converted into ethanol.
China, like America, has a lot of coal. But the world can't afford for it to go ahead with a proposal to build hundreds of coal-fired power plants; that would be an environmental disaster. The United States can help stave that off by sharing clean coal technology.

None of this cooperation will work unless the United States provides leadership by making sacrifices of its own. Asking other countries to lay off the world's oil supply so America can continue to support its gas-guzzling Hummers doesn't really cut it.

Said the knuckleheads who ride limos to the office.


And finally, there's this bit of nonsense brought to you by the orphaned bastard child of noted humanitarian Ted "I can't even keep Jane Fonda satisfied" Turner.

Godless Man at Yale

From CNN:

Yale President Richard Levin met privately Friday morning with Hu, but like the Chinese leader's earlier welcome in Washington, not everything went as planned. (Details)

A CNN reporter was thrown out of the welcoming ceremony after he shouted a question about whether Hu had seen the protesters gathered on the city green, school officials said. Yale spokeswoman Helene Kalsky said the reporter was thrown out because he was invited "to cover an event, not to hold a press conference."

I'll bet you $20.00 CNN doesn't make a peep about it.

Hu answered two questions from the crowd during his speech, both of which had been submitted in advance. He was asked whether China was concerned that limiting political freedom would cause social unrest that could undermine the economic growth.

He said China is committed to democracy.

Ha! Get a load of the comedic stylings of Sheckey Hu. When he kills, he really kills.

"China's political system suits its economic development," Hu said.

Religion of Fascism Update.

That Front Page Symposium was right on target. When we are all about to be beheaded by the mohammedan conquerers and their leftist enablers, we should remember that we had plenty of warning.

The good news? Our own totalitarian leftist quislings will be right behind us.

Islamic States Press for Limits on Free Expression
(CNSNews.com) - Islamic groups and governments are pressing international organizations to take steps, including legal ones, to provide protection for their religion in the wake of the Mohammed cartoon controversy, and they're having some success. Full Story

How would you like to beat down Slavemaster Hu and his commie thugs?

Adopt a baby girl from Slave China! Not only can you set these little girls free, chances are excellent you will be saving their lives as well. (Plus, you can say nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah to your friendly neighborhood "feminist" babykiller.)

Human life has always been dirt cheap in China, and girls especially so.It is now worse than ever thanks to the rebellion against God known as communism.

Nota Bene: Be very careful, kiddies. There are plenty of people out there who have no problem exploiting the desires of decent people seeking to adopt.

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Brother Derek is not just Fyodor's sentimental pick to win the Kentucky Derby.

From Sports Illustrated: The One To Beat
By Tim Layden

Kentucky Derby dreams can change people. They can make wealthy owners squander millions on frail yearlings with good breeding, and they can make trainers believe that a slow horse will suddenly run fast or that a fast horse will run far. Derby dreams can go beyond hope. This year they are giving a 47-year-old man one more reason to keep on living.

On a July afternoon in 2004, trainer Dan Hendricks was in a motocross crash that left him paralyzed below the waist. Once vibrant, he lay in a San Diego hospital bed, numb and disconsolate.

"He was talking about the most desperate things you can imagine," says fellow trainer Dick Mandella, who visited him the day after the accident, "like wishing the wreck hadn't stopped hurting him halfway."

Twenty-one hard months have passed for Hendricks. He runs his stable of 23 thoroughbreds from a six-wheel, motorized all-terrain chair. "It's still hard to deal with," he says of his condition. He has been helped by his tireless staff, by the love of his three sons and by a powerful bay 3-year-old colt named Brother Derek, who might wear a blanket of roses on the first Saturday in May.

Last Saturday at Santa Anita Park, Brother Derek toyed with four opponents and won the Santa Anita Derby by 3 1/4 lengths, solidifying his status as the Kentucky Derby favorite. After the race Hendricks reached up from his wheelchair in the winner's circle and lovingly smacked the white splotch in the middle of Brother Derek's brown face. "He's been an inspiration to me," says the trainer. "He's been a big help in getting me out to work every day."

Hendricks raced motocross bikes as a teenager, quit at age 18 and then started again 24 years later because it was something he could do with his boys: Chris, 15, Matt, 13, and Greg, 10. He even began racing again, in veterans' events.

On the afternoon of his accident, at a motocross track an hour from home, Hendricks went off a jump, got sideways in the air and landed badly; his head slammed into the dirt. "I knew it was a bad sign that I didn't feel any pain in my legs," he says. "They told me in the hospital that I had a complete fracture of my T3 vertebra, which means no chance for recovery."
Hendricks underwent surgery to stabilize his spine and returned to work in six weeks. Assistant trainer Francisco Alvarado had helped keep the stable running, but the barn needed Hendricks's relentless, chops-busting spirit. "We missed his jokes," says Alvarado.

Hendricks sought something beyond the old routine, and he found it on a March morning in 2005, eight months after the accident. At the Barrett's auction of 2-year-old horses in Pomona, Calif., Hendricks and his longtime client Cecil Peacock, an oilman from Calgary, wanted Brother Derek, and Peacock paid $275,000 for the California-bred juvenile.

Hendricks's horse sense is in his genes. His father, Lee, and Lee's twin brother, Byron, were renowned horsemen. In the 1950s they had a barnstorming rodeo act that featured expertly trained dogs, mules and horses. At the climax of the act each twin stood on the backs of a team of horses -- Roman riding -- and then jumped over a car from opposite directions. Lee, 82, says he and his brother, who died in 1992, were once paid $10,000 for a show at Madison Square Garden and appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. The Hendricks brothers called their act The Flying Twins. Later they helped break racehorses of bad habits and became known as The Horse Psychiatrists.

Two mornings before the Santa Anita Derby, Dan popped a tape into a VCR in his tack room and narrated as his dad and uncle performed their magic on an old TV show. "Incredible," he said. "My father is the best horseman I've ever known." At the end of his career Lee worked briefly as a thoroughbred trainer, and he introduced Dan to the racetrack. "He was always such a good kid," Lee says of Dan. "And now, what a great job he's doing with this horse."

Brother Derek went into the Santa Anita Derby with three consecutive victories and was sent off at 1-2 odds against Derby hopefuls A.P. Warrior and Point Determined and two other colts. The quartet had no chance against Hendricks's horse. Under jockey Alex Solis -- who suffered a broken back in a spill, with no spinal damage, 16 days after Hendricks's injury and missed seven months of riding -- Brother Derek bounded out of the starting gate and into the lead. When pressed briefly on the far turn by A.P. Warrior, Solis let the reins out, and Derek rolled away effortlessly. He ran his final three eighths of a mile in a brisk 36.79 seconds and his last furlong in 12.61 under a hand ride, suggesting little fatigue and no foreseeable problem with the Kentucky Derby's 1 1/4 miles.

There will be questions, of course. Brother Derek seems to like running on the lead, which could be problematic in what figures to be a 20-horse Derby field. "Even I'm not sure he has the right style for the Derby," says Hendricks. "But I know he's the best horse I've ever trained."

As Solis, 42, a three-time runner-up in the Kentucky Derby, talked about Brother Derek following Saturday's race, tears welled in his eyes. "This horse is so amazing," he said, "sometimes you get emotional." Peacock, meanwhile, who turned 79 on Sunday, is having his first Derby dream. "I used to joke about running in the Kentucky Derby," he says. Then there is Hendricks, who now works relentlessly on six wheels instead of two legs, remaking his life while tethered to a gifted colt. One morning at Santa Anita he fed Brother Derek carrots and then whisked his chair up a small ramp into his office.

"The only scary part," he said, flashing a crooked smile, "is that eventually this ride is going to end." Not before May 6, it won't. And maybe not after.

Congrats to Julio Franco.

Mr. Franco hails from the Dominican Republic, a place notorious for poor record keeping. He may be older.

Sports Illustrated: Franco becomes oldest player to hit homer
Julio Franco became the oldest player in major league history to hit a home run on Thursday night when he connected for a two-run, pinch-hit shot in the eighth inning at San Diego.

Speaking of kids killing kids in Kansas...

I think I figured out the totalitarian "logic" at work in the Jayhawk State, kiddies. While it is bad for teens to shoot other children to death in their school, it is ok for them to kill their own children with an abortion because children in the womb are property, not people.

Of course, this breaks down quite rapidly if you realize what they'll do to you if you kill your dog. Ironic and sick.

Kansas teens planning Columbine-style attack: police
Reuters - Five Kansas high school students were arrested after police learned they were allegedly planning an attack on Thursday's seventh anniversary of the Columbine, Colorado, school massacre, authorities said.


SOUTHEAST KANSAS: Students arrested in plot to kill
The Wichita Eagle - Five teenage boys accused of plotting to kill other students in a shooting rampage at their southeast Kansas high school were arrested Thursday after details of the alleged scheme appeared on MySpace.com.

MySpace, again.

Alleged Kansas school shooting plot foiled
WIS-TV Columbia - Kansas law officials say they've foiled a plot to attack a rural high school. Cherokee County Sheriff Steve Norman says five students are in custody. He says deputies found guns, ammunition, knives and encoded messages in the bedroom of one of the suspects.

Making Kansas Safe For Kids Killing Kids Update.

Remember this one, kiddies? From January 31, 2006: Is fornication with a child protected by the constitution?

Here's a surprise for you. Our moral and intellectual superiors will do anything to keep child murder "legal".

Medical News Today: Federal Judge Rules Against Broader Application Of Kansas Law That Would Have Required Reporting Of Sexual Activity Of Teens
U.S. District Judge Thomas Marten on Tuesday ruled against broadening the application of a state law that is the basis for a legal opinion issued in 2003 by Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline (R) that would have required health care workers and counseling professionals to report sexual activity among minors age 16 and younger, the Wichita Eagle/Kansas City Star reports...

Judge Marten? Fat, dumb, and fascist is no way to go through life.

Happy Birthday, blog!

One year ago I began this foray into the wilds of Bloggerdom. I am thinking of reposting something one year old each day. I hope I can do it without bringing too much shame to my name.

Here is how it all started, kiddies:

Beginning
This blog begun April 21, the feast of St. Anselm: Bishop, Doctor of the Church, and author of the ontological argument for the existence of God.(See Anselm's Discovery by Charles Hartshorne)

This is the anniversary of Pat Tillman's death. May God have mercy on his brave soul. Never forget the others like him whose names we'll never know.

I took a swipe at Earth Day:

In some backwards precincts, this is Indoctrinate Your Children With Pagan Dirt-Worship Day. (Formerly known as Scare People Into Living In Mud Huts Day)



From the Just Because It's Old Doesn't Mean It's Outdated Dept:

Philip Melanchthon was a good man who dedicated himself to accomplishing the impossible: Reconciling Luther with the One, True, Church.

Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560) on Romans 13:5 and following:"...let us learn that in those who believe in Christ, the works of political and economical life are works and acts of worship of God, not merely secular works, because society must be preserved in order that God may become known in it. This purpose is not a worldly matter, since all activities of the political life are aimed at this purpose: God wanted them to be exercises of confession, and on account of this purpose he imposed them on us." (courtesy of The Acton Institute)

We were all much younger a year ago...

Saint of the Day and daily Mass readings.

Today is the Feast of St. Anastasius the Sinaite, abbot, writer, and defender of The Faith known as "the new Moses". Pray for us, all you angels and saints.


Today's reading is Acts 4:1-12.
Today's Responsorial Psalm is Psalms 118:1-2, 4, 22-24, 25-27.
Today's Gospel reading is John 21:1-14.


[Links to the readings will be from the NAB until I can find another chapter and verse searchable Douay-Rheims Bible on-line.]


Everyday links:

The Blessed Virgin Mary
The Rosary
Our Mother of Perpetual Help
Prayers from EWTN
National Coalition of Clergy and Laity (dedicated to action for a genuine Catholic Restoration)
The Catholic Calendar Page for Today


Just in case you are wondering what exactly Catholics believe, here is

The Apostles Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.


Memorare

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercession,was left unaided.Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins my Mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy clemency hear and answer me. Amen.


St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse, pray for us.


Prayer to St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire

Dear St. Anthony, you became a Franciscan with the hope of shedding your blood for Christ. In God's plan for you, your thirst for martyrdom was never to be satisfied. St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire, pray that I may become less afraid to stand up and be counted as a follower of the Lord Jesus. Intercede also for my other intentions. (Name them.)


Prayer To Saint Michael The Archangel

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the divine power, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.


Prayer to End Abortion

Lord God, I thank You today for the gift of my life, and for the lives of all my brothers and sisters. I know there is nothing that destroys more life than abortion, yet I rejoice that you have conquered death by the resurrection of Your Son. I am ready to do my part to end abortion. Today I commit myself never to be silent, never to be passive, and never to be forgetful of the unborn. I commit myself to be active in the pro-life movement, and never stop defending life until all my brothers and sisters are protected and our nation once again becomes a nation with liberty and justice, not just for some, but for all. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Theology of the Body: 90. A Deeper Understanding of the Church and Marriage

In his General Audience of 18 August 1982, the Holy Father continued his catechesis on theology of the body, looking more closely at the two-way analogy found in Ephesians 5, between the relationship of husband and wife and the relationship of Christ and His Church.


A Deeper Understanding of the Church and Marriage

During the general audience of Wednesday, 18 August, Pope John Paul delivered the following address to the large crowd present in St Peter's Square.


1. Analyzing the respective components of Ephesians, we established that the reciprocal relationship between husband and wife is to be understood by Christians as an image of the relationship between Christ and the Church.

This relationship is a revelation and a realization in time of the mystery of salvation, of the election of love, hidden from eternity in God. In this revelation and realization the mystery of salvation includes the particular aspect of conjugal love in the relationship of Christ to the Church. Thus one can express it most adequately by applying the analogy of the relationship which exists—which should exist—between husband and wife in marriage. Such an analogy clarifies the mystery, at least to a certain degree. Indeed, according to the author of Ephesians, it seems that this analogy serves as a complement to that of the Mystical Body (cf. Eph 1:22-23) when we attempt to express the mystery of the relationship of Christ to the Church—and going back even further, the mystery of the eternal love of God for man and for humanity, that mystery which is expressed and is realized in time through the relationship of Christ to the Church.

Understanding reciprocal love

2. If—as has been said—this analogy illuminates the mystery, it in its turn is illuminated by that mystery. The conjugal relationship which unites husband and wife should help us—according to the author of the Letter to the Ephesians—to understand the love which unites Christ to the Church, that reciprocal love between Christ and the Church in which the divine eternal plan for the salvation of man is realized. Yet the content of meaning of the analogy does not end here. The analogy used in Ephesians, illuminating the mystery of the relationship between Christ and the Church, contemporaneously unveils the essential truth about marriage. Marriage corresponds to the vocation of Christians only when it reflects the love which Christ the Bridegroom gives to the Church his Bride, and which the Church (resembling the "subject" wife, that is, completely given) attempts to return to Christ. This is redeeming love, love as salvation, the love with which man from eternity has been loved by God in Christ: "...even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him..." (Eph 1:4).

Analogy follows two directions

3. Marriage corresponds to the vocation of Christians as spouses only if that love is reflected and effected therein. This will become clear if we attempt to reread the Pauline analogy inversely, that is, beginning with the relationship of Christ to the Church and turning next to the relationship of husband and wife in marriage. In the text, an exhortative tone is used: "As the Church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands." On the other hand: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church...." These expressions make it clear that a moral obligation is involved. Yet, in order to recommend such an obligation one must admit that in the essence of marriage a particle of the same mystery is captured. Otherwise, the entire analogy would hang suspended in a void. The call which the author of Ephesians directed to the spouses, that they model their reciprocal relationship on the relationship of Christ to the Church ("as—so"), would be without a real basis, as if it had no ground beneath its feet. Such is the logic of the analogy used in the cited text of Ephesians.

4. As we can see, the analogy operates in two directions. On the one hand, it helps us to understand better the essence of the relationship between Christ and the Church. On the other, at the same time, it helps us to see more deeply into the essence of marriage to which Christians are called. In a certain sense, the analogy shows the way in which this marriage, in its deepest essence, emerges from the mystery of God's eternal love for man and for humanity. It emerges from that salvific mystery which is fulfilled in time through the spousal love of Christ for the Church. Beginning with the words of Ephesians (5:21-33), we can move on to develop the thought contained in the great Pauline analogy in two directions: either in the direction of a deeper understanding of the Church, or in the direction of a deeper understanding of marriage. In our considerations, we will pursue the latter first of all, mindful that the spousal relationship of Christ to the Church is at the basis of an understanding of marriage in its essence. That relationship will be analyzed even more precisely in order to establish—presupposing the analogy with marriage—in what way the latter becomes a visible sign of the divine eternal mystery, as an image of the Church united with Christ. In this way Ephesians leads us to the foundations of the sacramentality of marriage.

Mentality of the time

5. Let us undertake, then, a detailed analysis of the text. We read in Ephesians that "the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, his body, and is himself its Savior" (Eph 5:23). The author has already explained that the submission of the wife to the husband as head is intended as reciprocal submission "out of reverence for Christ." We can presume that the author goes back to the concept rooted in the mentality of the time, to express first of all the truth concerning the relationship of Christ to the Church, that is, that Christ is the head of the Church. He is head as "Savior of his Body." The Church is exactly that Body which—being submissive in everything to Christ as its head—receives from him all that through which it becomes and is his Body. It receives the fullness of salvation as the gift of Christ, who "gave himself up for her" to the last. Christ's "giving himself up" to the Father by obedience unto death on the cross acquired here a strictly ecclesiological sense: "Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her" (Eph 5:25). Through a total giving up of himself because of his love, he formed the Church as his Body and continually builds her up, becoming her head. As head he is the Savior of his Body, and, at the same time, as Savior he is head. As head and Savior of the Church, he is also Bridegroom of his Bride.

Fruit of Christ's love

6. Inasmuch as the Church is herself, so, as Body, she receives from Christ her head the entire gift of salvation as the fruit of Christ's love and of his giving himself up for the Church, the fruit of his giving himself up to the last. That gift of himself to the Father by obedience unto death (cf. Phil 2:8) is contemporaneously, according to Ephesians, a "giving himself up for the Church." In this expression, redeeming love is transformed, I would say, into spousal love. Giving himself up for the Church, through the same redeeming act Christ is united once and for all with her, as bridegroom with the bride, as husband with his wife. Christ gives himself through all that which is once and for all contained in his "giving himself up" for the Church. In this way, the mystery of the redemption of the body conceals within itself, in a certain sense, the mystery "of the marriage of the Lamb" (cf. Rv 19:7). Because Christ is the head of the Body, the entire salvific gift of the redemption penetrates the Church as the Body of that head, and continually forms the most profound, essential substance of her life. It is the spousal form, given that in the cited text the analogy of body-head becomes an analogy of groom-bride, or rather of husband-wife. This is demonstrated by the subsequent passages of the text, which will be considered next.

April the 20th Update.

Columbine Victims Still Healing
San Francisco Chronicle - As a sophomore at Columbine High School seven years ago, Marjorie Lindholm was a cheerleader with a 3-plus grade-point average who wanted to become a doctor. Her life changed dramatically when the killing spree began on April 20, 1999. Lindholm found...


Clinton will keynote Columbine ceremony
Rocky Mountain News - Ground-breaking ceremonies for a permanent memorial to the victims of the Columbine High School slayings will wait for another two months so former President Bill Clinton can deliver a speech at the event, the memorial committee announced today.

April the 19th Update.

Families remember victims of 1995 explosion
11th anniversary brings 168 seconds of silence --Associated Press

6 Davidians due for release 13 years after Waco inferno
Imprisoned for manslaughter, weapons offenses related to deaths of 4 federal agents --Associated Press

From The Get Your Kids Out Of The Government Indoctrination Centers Department:

2nd-graders read story about 'gay' wedding
Since same-sex marriage is legal in state, administrator says no parent OK needed --WND

Heck, it beats MySpace.

Man advertises for child bride
Yard sign says he'd like to pay for young virgin --Associated Press

Scott Crossfield, Requiescat in pace.

One of the greatest pilots ever has died.

From My Way News:

Legendary test pilot Scott Crossfield, the first man to fly at twice the speed of sound, was found dead Thursday in the wreckage of a single-engine plane in the mountains of northern Georgia, his son-in-law said.

Searchers discovered the wreckage of a small plane about 50 miles northwest of Atlanta, but the Civil Air Patrol didn't immediately identify the body inside.

Ed Fleming, Crossfield's son-in-law, told The Associated Press from Crossfield's home in Herndon, Va., that family had been told it was Crossfield.

Crossfield's Cessna was last spotted in the same area on Wednesday while on flight from Alabama to Virginia. There were thunderstorms in the area when officials lost radar and radio contact with the plane at 11:15 a.m., said Kathleen Bergen, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Crossfield, 84, had been one of a group of civilian pilots assembled by the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, the forerunner of NASA, in the early 1950s.

Air Force Capt. Chuck Yeager had already broken the speed of sound in his history-making flight in 1947. But Crossfield set the Mach 2 record - twice the speed of sound - in 1953, when he reached 1,300 mph in NACA's Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket.

In 1960, Crossfield reached Mach 2.97 in an X-15 rocket plane launched from a B-52 bomber. The plane reached an altitude of 81,000 feet. At the time, Crossfield was working as a pilot and design consultant for North American Aviation, which made the X-15. He later worked as an executive for Eastern Airlines and Hawker Siddley Aviation.

More recently, Crossfield had a key role in preparations for the attempt to re-enact the Wright brothers' flight on the 100th anniversary of their feat near Kitty Hawk, N.C. He trained four pilots for the Dec. 17, 2003, flight attempt in a replica of the brothers' flyer, but poor weather prevented the take-off.

Among his many honors, Crossfield was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1983.

On Wednesday, his plane had left Prattville, Ala., around 9 a.m. en route to Manassas, Va., not far from his home.

Religion of Peace, Love, and Understanding Update. (Sorry, Declan. You too, Elvis.)

Muslims 'taught to despise unbelievers as filth'
Students at London school for imams told others like pigs, dogs
--London Times

Olmert's 'non-response' to suicide attack
Israeli defense establishment concerned new government weak on terrorism --WND

Peres: Give the Palestinians an airport
Israeli defense officials fear Gaza facility will enable weapons smuggling
--WND

Palestinian rocket master gets government post
No. 2 on Israel's most wanted list to be Hamas' interior minister --Ynet News

Gratuitous Sienna Miller Photos of the Day.

There is nothing quite like a non-veil wearing, independent, individualistic, opinionated blonde with a British accent.

Sienna Miller is the hottest heroine around.

The fabulous Sienna (Exactly what was Jude Law thinking?) says "Boo!" to the goat rapists.

Don't expect me to post any Steve Buscemi photos.

Sienna Miller reportedly feared for her life after getting a flood of death threats from Islamic extremists.

The American-born, British-bred actress best-known for starring in the remake of "Alfie" as well as her engagement to actor Jude Law, is said to have received a torrent of vicious threats from Muslims furious she's starring in "Interview," a remake of director Theo van Gogh's 2003 thriller.
Van Gogh is the Dutch director who was shot and killed in 2004 by an Islamic extremist in connection with his film "Submission: Part I," which was aired on Dutch television in August of that year.

Warning letters have been sent to Sienna, 24, who is currently filming the movie in New York, stating "she will be sorry" unless she pulls out of the project.

"Sienna refuses to give in to these threats. The people behind them represent everything she abhors," a crewmember told Britain's Daily Star. "The film hasn't got anything to do with Islam. But because it's being made as a tribute to Theo, the Islamic fundamentalists have hit the roof."

"She was scared to begin with," the source added. "But her co-star Steve [Buscemi] has been receiving similar letters, so they've been supporting each other and laughing about it." (Thanks to WND for the heads up.)

Stoned and Parkherb, call your office.

Arab airline hijacks kids of 'South Park'
Carrier based in UAE uses hauntingly familiar images

Hauntingly?

Chris Reardon caught us red-handed. (Sorry, Ward.) Now what'll we do?

Oh, woe is me! Our fiendish plot to indoctrinate the youth of America has failed! Who will fill the ranks of the Klan now?

Curse you, Cornel "Wild" West! Curse you, Ward "Big Chief" Churchill!

From Best of the Web Today:

Spot the Idiot
In the Daily Collegian, University of Massachusetts-Amherst student Chris Reardon faces up to the unbearable whiteness of being:

OK, I have something to confess here. Until very recently, I was one of those white people. You know the kind. The ones that think race relations are all hunky-dory because we live in a progressive society and because the civil rights movement started 40 years ago. I was too young to know anything about the Rodney King incident and the L.A. riots, and I didn't know enough about economics to understand how and why Hurricane Katrina was a disaster of racist policy. I knew that there was a problem, but I had been too brainwashed by
white-controlled media and by disgustingly racist history lessons to realize just how deep the issue went.

For a number of reasons (not the least of which being the fact that I finally cracked open my Sociology 106: Race, Class and Gender textbook), I've gone through a semi-enlightenment, and I am not happy. They say that those who do not learn their history are doomed to repeat it. I'd like to annotate that
proverb a little by adding that those who muddle the truth of their history are doomed to continue those practices that they wish to forget.

It actually reads better translated into Redneck.

Sure does:

OK, ah have sumpin t'confess hyar. Until mighty recently, ah was one of them white varmints. Yo' knows th' kind, cuss it all t' tarnation. Th' ones thet reckon race relashuns is all hunky-do'y on account o' we live in a progressive society an' on account o' th' civil rights movement started 40 years ago. ah was too yo'ng t'knows ennythin' about th' Rodney Kin' incident an' th' L.A. riots, an' ah didn't knows 'nuff about economics t'unnerstan' how an' whuffo' Hurricane Katrina was a disaster of racist policy. ah knowed thet thar was a problem, but ah had been too brainwarshed by white-corntrolled media an' by disgestin'ly racist histo'y lessons t'reckanize jest how deep th' issue went.

Fo' a number of reasons (not th' least of which bein' th' fack thet ah finally cracked open mah Sociology 106: Race, Class an' Junder textbook), I've gone through a semi-enlightenment, an' ah's not happy. They say thet them who does not larn their histo'y is doomed t'repeat it. I'd like t'annotate thet provahb a li'l by addin' thet them who muddle th' truth of their histo'y is doomed t'continue them prackices thet they wish t'fo'git.

I'd like t'start wif slavery. As explained by Billy Bob B. Moree in his article "Racist Stereotypin' in th' English Language," th' fack thet we still reckon of th' African varmints who were kidnapped an' sploited fo' centuries as slaves who had masters is clear evidence of white ethnercentrism in th' histo'y lessons still taught t'our chillun today. "Th' term slave cornnotes a less than hoomin quality an' turns th' cappive varmint into a thin'," Moree says.

Thet we still refer t'black varmints who were fo'ced t'wawk fo' no pay as slaves is simply a means of minimizin' th' damage done by aristocrats at th' time. Th' psychological impack of larnin' about how slaves were bett up an' raped is lessened on account o' we still reckon of slaves as propuhty, not varmints.ah doubt yo'll see a change enny time soon, howevah, on account o' our histo'y is writ by th' dexcendents of th' varmints who sploited Africans an' by th' varmints who is currently sploitin' millions of on overseas labo'ers. Sweatshops an' chile labo' haf a minimal impack on th' lives of U.S. citizens - 'cept th' fack thet th' producks thet come fum on overseas is substantially less expensive than U.S.-made merchan'ise - simply on account o' we doesn't hafta see it.

Continued, cuss it all t' tarnation...

SLAVE REVOLT!

HU HECKLED ON SOUTH LAWN: 'YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED'

Hu Hu! The cry of the historicus trashbinus.

From Drudge:

The arrival ceremony for Chinese president Hu Jintao was interrupted by a protester who appealed to President Bush to stop Hu from 'persecuting the Falun Gong,' a banned religious movement in China.

The woman began shouting from the top of a camera stand located directly in front of Hu and Bush.

'President Bush, stop him from killing'... 'Stop persecuting the Falun Gong,' she yelled... She also shouted in Chinese, 'President Hu, your days are numbered, No more time for China's ruling party.'

As far as I know Falun Gong could be the Slave China version of scientology, but that does not mean it is right for the commie creeps to kick their teeth in and shoot them.

Memo To The Haters: This is one way you can tell the good guys from the bad. Good guys use sarcasm and buying power to express their displeasure. (Instant translation for the scatologist disciples of O.M.Hubbard: Take the criticism like men, you cretins.)

The incident occured right after Bush urged Hu to allow Chinese to 'speak freely'. The woman, had a temporary pass with a big 'T' on it, also unfurled a yellow 'Falun Gong' banner.

The woman was taken away by uniformed secret service officers. Bush leaned over and whispered to Hu, 'You're okay.' Hu, who had stopped talking briefly, then resumed speaking.

Awwww...look at Georgie be compassionate towards the little mass murderer. Ain't it cute?

On China TV: As Hu was speaking when yells of protesters became audible, the screen went black. When the feed came back the screen once again went black when woman was again heard. During CNN International's post-speech commentary, at mention of south lawn heckler, the screen also went black again. The CNN feed returned when the incident ended.

Pseudo-science (and real fascism) Update.

Fair-Weather Alarmists
"Two U.S. explorers plan to start a four-month summer expedition to the North Pole next month to gather information on the habitat of an animal they believe could be the first victim of global warming--the polar bear," Reuters reports from Los Angeles.

"Project Thin Ice 2006" will be the first such expedition since 2004. Reuters explains that the explorers had to call off the mission they planned last year because of--we kid you not--"unusually heavy snow and ice."

That arch-criminal Dick Cheney actually dares to gives his tainted cash to those less fortunate.

From Best of the Web Today:

He's So Generous, He Belongs in Prison
Paul Caron, who blogs about tax law, has an item about Vice President Cheney, and here's a selection of the reader comments about it:

"Why is this man not in jail?"

"How does this guy sleep at night? This administration makes me sick to my stomach. They are sooooo corrupt."

"This administration has no shame. They are 'do as I say, not as I do' people."

"REPREHENSIBLE, totally devoid of any moral values, ...a true, dyed-in-the-wool Robber Baron."

"I look forward to one day, watching him being escorted out of the White House in handcuffs. Until then...keep the pressure on them and keep calling your representatives. If not you...who?"

What did Cheney do now? He donated 77% of his 2005 income to charity. In most years donations to charity are tax-deductible only up to 50% of income, but Congress lifted the cap last year as a response to Hurricane Katrina. So these moonbats are actually attacking Cheney for being too generous.

The nerve of that man. Showing up the Forces of Compassion with actual compassion!

The Repansycan mole inside The Party of Blasphemy, Buggery, and 'Bortion strikes again.

From Best of the Web Today:

Keep Your Day Job, Howard
Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, stopped by the offices of the liberal American Prospect for lunch last week, and according to the Prospect's Tapped blog, Salon's Walter Shapiro had this exchange with him:

Shapiro: Governor, from where you sit, is the fact that there will be two caucuses between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary a done deal, or is this still open for negotiation, as to whether there will be caucuses and/or
whether New Hampshire will have its traditional unmolested Iowa/New Hampshire role in American history?

Dean: We don't molest anybody. We leave that to the deputy press secretary of the Homeland Security agency.

Dean's reference is to Brian Doyle, who was arrested this month for allegedly sending sexually explicit emails to a "14-year-old girl" who was actually a police detective. Blogger Kevin Aylward notes that this case has gotten lots of attention from liberal bloggers, "heaping generous portions of blame on the Bush administration."

But it turns out, also according to Aylward, that Doyle is a career civil servant and a registered Democrat! (Emphasis mine.) Dean's little joke is not only tasteless but is at the expense of his own party.

BTW, why is Howie Spleen still called "Governor" when he has not held that office in years and has never been a character in a Dickens novel? There is no way I would address Gerald Ford or Goober II as "Mr. President". (Heck, Clinton would be lucky if I refrained from spitting in his face.)

Sorry, Howie, this is America and we don't have honorary titles. Why don't you win an election and get back to us.

Democrass Doyle Update:

Out of Time
It turns out that Brian Doyle, who resigned as deputy press secretary at the Department of Homeland Security after being charged with solicitation of a minor and transmitting pornographic material to a minor, is not a career civil servant, as we said yesterday. As CNN reported earlier this month, he actually spent most of his career in the mainstream media:

That explains a lot.

Friends and former co-workers say Doyle was disciplined by Time magazine after he allegedly used company computers to view adult pornography in the publication's Washington bureau office. . . .

Time began an investigation after an employee in the bureau complained after finding offensive photographs on her computer, sources said.

The photos, which were not of juveniles, were traced to Doyle. The complaint was dropped after Doyle's colleagues signed a petition of support, the sources said.

Doyle received a formal warning and was required to undergo mental health counseling before returning to work, the sources said.

Sources disagree over whether Time suspended Doyle or whether he took a leave of absence after the incident.

Time magazine said only that it employed Doyle for 26 years and refused to comment further.

Doyle, a registered Democrat, left Time in 2001 to work for the government.

Slavemaster Hu Update: Slave China resorts to goat-rapist tactics in its war against its own people.

It's not really hard to believe if you remember the kind of monsters these commies are.

And besides, CBS wouldn't lie to you, would they?

With more than a billion people, China has too many men. According to the latest census, an average of 120 boys are born for every 100 girls, the greatest imbalance in the world.

As correspondent Lesley Stahl reports, the root of the problem is a traditional preference for sons. In China, as in other Asian countries, it is sons, not daughters, who usually take care of their parents in old age.

To deal with its population explosion, China imposed its strict and harshly enforced one-child policy in the 1980s, and that’s when things started going out of whack, as couples, faced with having only one child, went to great lengths to ensure it was a boy. And 60 Minutes found they still do...

Here it comes:

The (sex) imbalance grew out of communist China's draconian social engineering policies, where a woman, after having one child, was forced to make a choice: sterilization or insertion of an IED.

在奴隶中国政府真正地拥有您的子宫! ("In Slave China the government really does own your womb!" or its non-union Altavista equivalent.)

To make sure the women kept their birth control devices in, the government — starting in 1982 — sent portable ultrasound machines all over the country. They are compact and lightweight and even some small villages got as many as two or three. But in a classic case of unintended consequences, pregnant women realized that the machines could also identify whether they were having a boy or a girl. And, as a result, by conservative estimates, more than 8 million girls were aborted in the first 20 years of the one-child policy.

May God have mercy on their poor little souls.

The government has tried to discourage these abortions. Zhao Baige, vice minister of the Family Planning Commission, says it is now illegal to get an ultrasound in order to identify the sex of a baby.