Lent Lite

I love these guys...

I said we'd celebrate Earth Hour in the Moot House, with an hour-long meditation on the darkness. That meant, after much nagging, that even the lights were switched off in the Archdruidical Suite.

But Hnaef had agreed, after even more nagging, that Milton Ernest was going to be allowed to organise an authentic Celtic worship evening. I had real reservations, but you know how I am - once I'd heard that the authentic Celtic worship evening was going to include Taizé chant and Tibetan Prayer Bells I was in.

Love the yurt.


(...and it beats flying off to Brazlaffistan, or wherever it is, to go seek out some pure and pristine form of liturgy that does not offend even one single little sensibility...you know who you are Mr. Fusspot.)


h/t and thanks for the smile, Fr. Tim

Face it, hippies...

...it's over.


H/T to the long-lost Greg.

I've never had to give Winnie a pill yet,

But if it is anything like what we go through when I have to clip her claws...



H/T to the Carolina Canonball

Bad

So, as my old blogging buddy Steve pointed out,

Now that all those goody two-shoes types who have given up the internet for Lent have gone away,

we can talk about them...

Let's eat grandma!

Just joined a facebook group that asserts, "punctuation saves lives".

Yep.

Also for some time been a member of the FB group "I judge you when you use bad grammar".

Can't think of a better reason.

Also happy that there is a thing on the 'net called the "Apostrophe Protection Society".

Why doesn't the government do something about apostrophe abuse? Someone has to care!

Shouldn't be read on the bus

I shouldn't read Mark Steyn where anyone else is in earshot. He's got a column on the often amusingly ironic differences among MEPs in Brussels:

The SNP is antipathetic to homosexuals, whereas Krisztina Morvai, the attractive blonde Jobbik member just elected to the Euro-parliament, is a former winner of the Freddie Mercury Prize for raising AIDS awareness. I can’t be the only political analyst who wishes that, instead of a victory speech last Sunday, Doktor Morvai had stood on the table in black tights and bellowed out, “We Are The Champions.”

Of course, none of these political differences make the slightest difference to what the European Union actually decides and does. People who think the EU is run by its Parliament, and that its parliamentarians have any kind of power to effect anything that it decides and does, aren't paying attention.

But it's fun to watch them sometimes anyway. A bit like watching old episodes of Yes Prime Minister while Britain crumbles.

Fonda on Fonda

If Jane Fonda wants to go around wearing a t-shirt with her own mug on it, I'd suggest that the silly fist-up salute pic she chose, to commemorate her glory days as the US's first open, out and proud Hollywood communist, really doesn't do her political legacy justice.

If I were her, I'd take one from her real peak cinematic moment, in her oooo-baby-tie-me-up-and-beat-me-till-I-cry Barbarella dominatrix gear.

It was her best role.

But I suppose at a well-surgeried 71, her glory days as a big-haired sex-kitten aren't really what Miz Fonda wants us to remember.

H/T, as always, to The Shaidle.

Buck up little camper. Some day you'll be able to play with the big kids.

Diogenes still does it to me:

During his meeting with President Obama, Dan Gilgoff of US News tells us, "Benedict will be aware of operating on a global stage."

How nice of the American president to give the Roman Pontiff-- who heads up a 2,000-year-old institution, founded by the Son of God, spanning the world and claiming over 1 billion members-- a shot at the big time.

Dear me, but I'm longing to have a drink with this man

Gerald Warner on The Blair.

It beggars belief that idiots somewhere will dig deep into their pockets to hear the relentless claptrap that this nation would once have paid its entire GDP to silence.
...
there was something very special about Tony, Bloke of Blokes, Father of All Kids, the ultimate product of the delusion industry that is celebrity politics. We shall not look upon his like again - not even Barack Obama can run him close. This was a unique cocktail of narcissism, self-deception, self-interest and doe-eyed mendacity such as no other politician has been able to replicate or to rival.

Y'all know how much I love journalistic jargonry.

Here's one I haven't come across before.

"patient groups" is the new word at the Grauniad for the abortion lobby.

The Catholic church is exhorting Catholics to oppose parliamentary reform of abortion law (Catholics must mobilise against abortion reforms, says archbishop, September 30) despite support for pragmatic modernisation from medical and nursing bodies and patient groups. The legal requirement for two doctors' signatures can delay women from abortion care. Reforms would permit abortion under the 24-week limit to be offered on the basis of informed patient consent and good clinical practice, as with other medical treatment.

"Gordon Brown’s fortunes have now slumped to the point where he is not so much living in Number 10 as lying in state."

"Any further decline will take Labour out of the province of psephologist Tony King and into that of historian Andrew Roberts, whose responsibility it will be to discover equivalent ratings for the Whigs after the defeat of the Exclusion Bill. If Gordon continues in freefall it will then be the mediaevalists’ turn, when some comparisons may be found with the popularity of, say, Richard II at the height of the Peasants’ Revolt, or Henry II immediately after the murder of Becket.

Spam Envy

Long-time readers will recall that I've never particularly liked Mark Shea. I know some people who had once been in solidarity with me on this have gone a little soft recently, but I'm afraid I have been unable to shake my distaste for his peculiarly American, Disnified version of Catholicism that is sometimes referred to as Neo-cathism. This will not come as any sort of surprise to Shea either, since I've never kept it a secret and I know he doesn't particularly hold it against me, being, I suppose, essentially a good enough sport on the one hand and not giving a damn on the other. Fair enough.

But I have to say, I do envy his spam.

As a more or less ex-prod, Shea, instead of the dreary invitations to become involved in international money laundering scams from Burundi and requests to join pyramid schemes, gets long loving and painfully over-punctuated pleas to return to the bosom of protestantism.

Dear Mark, just came from your Web site and have some questions.
It sounds like you were a "Protestant" before becoming a Catholic? I don't
know which church you were in but I have to question whether you were ever
taught the Word of God there? If you had been in a church which taught the
truth concerning Baptism according to the Word of GOD and not the "traditions
of men" you would have learned that not only does baptism NOT save nor
"grant justification" but it is ONLY for those who ARE BORN-AGAIN by the
SPIRIT of GOD by placing their faith in the LORD JESUS CHRIST! It is to be
symbolic of the new birth ALREADY ACCOMPLISHED by GOD as Romans 6 clearly
teaches! PLEASE READ the Gospel of John and pray asking GOD to show you
HIS TRUTH -- HE LOVES THE WORLD and DESIRES TO SAVE the LOST -- which we all
are apart from the New Birth which IS FREELY offered to ALL! Please read
and be saved! I will be praying for you in JESUS Name. Carolyn

If I got stuff like this in my spam file, I would check it most diligently for treasures, every day.

Danger - Do not pull out all the stops

Environutters, pagans and thieves

Mr. Carriere seems serious about his return to blogging.

Here he gives strict instructions on what to do on Earth Day.

Apparently it's the latest trend in evangelization

"read the book read the book pray pray..."

Hippies

So, some teachers in Britain think that the military is trying to "lure" students into their ranks.Sometimes, I wish I could just go tell them what I really think.


Luckily, I'm not alone.

I laughed so hard, the tea just came out my nose...

Someone is suing the Canadian conservative bloggers?

"Geezus... that's like shakin' up a bag of feral cats... and then sticking your face in to see how they're doin'."

Now go buy yourself a cool Ezra Levant T-Shirt. If you wear it somewhere like London or Singapore or Brussels, it will act like a secret handshake for bloggers-in-the-know. You might even make new friends.

The cool, in-the-know kind of friends. The kind you want.

"No Votes for Women"

King Herman the Irascible

"As a matter of fact," admitted the Prime Minister, "we are hampered by these votes-for-women creatures; they disturb our meetings throughout the country, and they try to turn Downing Street into a sort of political picnic-ground."

"They must be dealt with" said Hermann.

"Dealt with," said the Prime Minister; "exactly, just so; but how?"

"I will draft you a Bill," said the King, sitting down at his type-writing machine, "enacting that women shall vote at all future elections. Shall vote, you observe; or, to put it plainer, must. Voting will remain optional, as before, for male electors; but every woman between the ages of twenty-one and seventy will be obliged to vote, not only at elections for Parliament, county councils, district boards, parish-councils, and municipalities, but for coroners, school inspectors, churchwardens, curators of museums, sanitary authorities, police-court interpreters, swimming-bath instructors, contractors, choir-masters, market superintendents, art-school teachers, cathedral vergers, and other local functionaries whose names I will add as they occur to me.

"All these offices will become elective, and failure to vote at any election falling within her area of residence will involve the female elector in a penalty of 10 pounds. Absence, unsupported by an adequate medical certificate, will not be accepted as an excuse. Pass this Bill through the two Houses of Parliament and bring it to me for signature the day after tomorrow."

It was not wonderful that the female disfranchisement agitation became a formidable movement. The No-Votes-for-Women League numbered its feminine adherents by the million; its colours, citron and old Dutch-madder, were flaunted everywhere, and its battle hymn, "We Don't Want to Vote," became a popular refrain. As the Government showed no signs of being impressed by peaceful persuasion, more violent methods came into vogue.

Meetings were disturbed, Ministers were mobbed, policemen were bitten, and ordinary prison fare rejected, and on the eve of the anniversary of Trafalgar women bound themselves in tiers up the entire length of the Nelson column so that its customary floral decoration had to be abandoned.

Still the Government obstinately adhered to its conviction that women ought to have the vote.

Ooooo More from the Wake-up Cat guy

And has anyone ever heard the In/Out song by Garrison Keillor?

They used to play it now and then on the CBC.




(Thanks Kathy)

Lefties - Irony-challenged

"One of the strangest things about Richard Warman’s threatened lawsuit against me is his complaint that I dare to call him litigious and a censor. It’s strange because it’s so obviously a fair comment, based on the facts of his track record. But the really weird part is that he doesn’t see the irony in it. I mean, demanding that I censor my comment that he’s a censor? Or threatening that he’ll sue me because I say he sues a lot?

Not that strange, actually.

I've often noted that one of the things the southpaws and the Islams have in common is a total inability to grasp irony. Especially about the things they do themselves.

Has a lot to do with their lack of a sense of humour and utter inability to self-criticise,

which in turn, is, I am told, a common symptom of psychosis.

The evil and insane are not a cheerful or funny lot.