Formal cause opened for Pope John Paul's beatification

News reports are aplenty today, such as this one here, reporting that the formal process of beatification has begun for John Paul the Great.

King Fahd dead?

Over at the Belmont Club, Wretchard has bird-doged a UPI item reporting that King Fahd of Saudi Arabia is dead and has been dead since Wednesday May 25th.

How odd is this? This A.M. all the news I can find is reporting him alive and on the mend. Huzzah! How comes it the UPI are the only ones reporting him dead since Wednesday?

Remembering

Photo/Michael Yon

Michelle Malkin has created a small Memorial Day tribute, made up of several links to help us remember our troops. The picture here was found at one of the links and I'll leave it to you to go read the caption. Beware... you won't leave with dry eyes.


UPDATE: Photo is by Michael Yon and can be seen, along with the story behind it, at his Blog. He's a writer working in Iraq with the troops and his blog is an amazing chronicle of the troops as they work there. Do check it out!

Ragemonkey shatters illusions!

Catholic Ragemonkey Fr. Shane Tharp has weighed in on the Penn & Teller fiasco. I have to say, Fr. Shane plays a mean keyboard! He really does some impressive slicing and dicing and those buffons ... er... illusionists deserve every bit of it! Kudos to Fr. Shane.

France may derail EU

Maybe, just maybe, there's hope for France after all. Could it be that this Chirac clown is only a temporary fever and delirium and that France may actually have a survival instinct after all?

Here is another really good source of info... includes a link to the EU Constitution itself...

Bush supports stem cell research

Contrary to all the hyperbole and chicken-little-feet-running-wild, the Prez does support stem cell research. He just has the "unmitigated gall" (according to those trashing him) to insist that we don't kill anyone in the process. For a clear enunciation of his position, read him in his own words, here...

Compromise my a**

Thomas Sowell's take on the "compromise" over the judicial filibuster can be read here...





In the "What did you expect" department, Quin Hillyer bird-dogs the first action taken in the aftermath...

ooopsie IE

Apparently the latest version of Netscape 8 breaks the rendering function of IE. Description and solution are found here...

Man! What's a man gotta do to get a decent browser in this town?

Busted!!!

Are you... thinking about downloading a bootleg copy of the latest Star Wars movie? TINK again, else you get BUSTED!!!

Spin & Blather

You know, there was a time when I thought Penn & Teller did some really good work... they were funny, entertaining and smart. With this bit of free wheeling spew, though, I think I'm done with them. If they have nothing better to do than slander and savage a group of nuns who have done, and continue to do, more for the poor than Penn & Teller could even dream of doing, even with all that money they make savaging nuns, then I have no interest in perpetuating their hatred.

Spew off, monkey boys...

Judicial Filibuster 'Compromise': America Betrayed

Well, this probably happened beneath the radar of most of the people in this country, but it's a sad development. Is there such a song as Cheeseballs on Parade? If not, that's what I'm calling this tune... copyright protected and everything.

Pshaw!

The Greek Orthodox Church In Turkey: A Victim Of Systematic Expropriation

This was an eye opener! This is a briefing by the United States Commission On Security And Cooperation In Europe (Helsinki Commission) on the systematic suppression of the Greek Orthodox Church in Turkey.

Here is an excerpt:

With the date for E.U. negotiations now set, Turkey has taken bold steps to bring its laws into harmony with European Union standards. At the same time, however, Turkey's policies concerning religious freedom and the Greek Orthodox Church have come under increased international scrutiny, and so they should.

Our concerns include property expropriation and continued closure of the Halki Seminary, obstacles to ownership and repair of churches, and the steadfast refusal of Turkish authorities to recognize the ecumenical status of the Orthodox patriarch.

Yikes! How comes it we never hear about THIS type of stuff in the news...?

Investigation of Marcial still underway

For those following the peculiar case of Maciel Marcial, the priest who founded the Legionaries of Christ, this report found here tells us that, contrary to recent widespread reports, the investigation by the Vatican into allegations leveled against him of sexual misconduct have not, repeat, not been dropped. What the hey, you may say!

Here is an excerpt from the report:

Recently, I wrote about the “New Pope and the Catholic Sex Scandal” (go here). In that article, I opined that the recent re-activation of an investigation against the founder of the Legionaries of Christ—a congregation of priests within the Catholic Church—indicated that the Vatican took seriously the problem of the sex scandal not only as it manifested itself in the United States, but in other parts of the Church (and world), and was a cause for hope for the faithful concerned about the status of such cases within the Church.

Specifically, the article detailed the fact that a case against Maciel Marcial which had been shelved in 1999 by then Cardinal Ratzinger, the head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, had been re-activated in December 2004, prior to the death of John Paul the Great. I should now add that Ratzinger, it seems, re-activated a number of cases in addition to the Maciel case at that time.

More leaves...

Yet another bunch ...

Leaves

Luminescent leaves leave one longing for love...

City Hall

This is looking East down Fulton street to City hall from the corner of my block and Fulton.

God and evolution

Here is something of interest to anyone interested in science and theology:

Zygon Volume 39: Issue 1
Continuity, Naturalism, and Contingency: A Theology of Evolution Drawing on the Semiotics of C. S. Peirce and Trinitarian Thought

Andrew J. Robinson

Abstract: The starting point for this article is the question of the relationship between Darwinism and Christian theology. I suggest that evolutionary theory presents three broad issues of relevance to theology: the phenomena of continuity, naturalism, and contingency. In order to formulate a theological response to these issues I draw on the semiotics (theory of signs) and cosmology of the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce. Peirce developed a triadic theory of signs, underpinned by a threefold system of metaphysical categories. I propose a semiotic model of the Trinity based on Peirce's semiotics and categories. According to this model the sign-processes (such as the genetic "code") that are fundamental to life may be understood as vestiges of the Trinity in creation. I use the semiotic model to develop a theology of nature that addresses the issues raised by evolutionary theory. The semiotic model amounts to a proposal for a new metaphysical framework within which to understand the relationship between God and creation and between theology and science.

Soul of the plant

...I think the glow is from her soul...

St. Ignatius

...from Lone Mountain, late one night...

Look up the time...

...taken at the Embarcadero during the 2004 Chinese New Year parade in San Francisco...