Another One Bites The Dust

The Church once known as St. Mary the Virgin, NYC

The one-time bastion of Anglo-Catholic orthodoxy and forward leaning Missal liturgy, St. Mary the Virgin, Times Square, has rededicated itself to Ss. Sappho and Pansextes. Apparently unaware of the irony of the decision, the parishe's Rector defended the new nomenclature, "Nothing's really changed, we're just being honest about ourselves. 'Smokey Pansextes' is an inclusive, welcoming church."

Too bad, I used to like that church back in the days when it was under the patronage of Our Lady. Preached my first sermon there - I was terrified, the homily was incoherent, but the people were kind.

Deus Vult.

LSP

Foresight

Some people get bewildered by iron sights because they're so used to shooting with scopes, but what happens if the scope goes down? Here's some useful pictures viz. correct sight alignment. As we know, focus on the foresight and don't worry about the rear sight and target blurring.

This excerpt from Random Acts of Patriotism describes it well:

"Focus your eye on the front sight. This should make the rear sight a bit fuzzy, that's fine. The target will also be fuzzy. So... you have to know, and the drawings do show it to some extent, that the image you are seeking is a sharply focused front sight post centered inside a blurry rear sight and resting on a blurry out of focus target."

Allied with proper hold on the weapon, controlled breathing and instinctive position, shooting should be accurate, even if distance eyesight isn't that good - after all, it's only a matter of a few feet from eye to the principle point of focus, the foresight, or 'front sight post'.

Of course you can forget all that and adopt the Imperial Stormtrooper principles of marksmanship by simply blazing away without hitting anything much, which is fun too, if not as productive.

For some reason this puts me in mind of Madalyn Murray O'Hair, who played such a major part in kicking God out of our schools and ended up dismembered, along with one of her sons and grandaughter on a ranch in Texas. She founded "American Atheists"; you can read about her bizarre murder by criminal atheists and its investigation in Crime Magazine. Its rather gruesome.

Off to shoot some guns.

LSP

Horse & Gun

Horses goofing about

Very enjoyable morning at the stables, light rain, cool(ish) and the horses were well behaved, which roughly translated means that they did approximately what I asked them to. Be-Bop's beginning to understand that 'Canter!' doesn't mean, 'become evil possessed facsimile of Pull Devil Pull Baker,' and I'm probably better at balance, seat, influence et al. So that's all good and a serious step forward in The Plan of moving recklessly fast 'cross country with weapons.

Speaking of which, had a Higgins/Marlin .22 shoot off after charging about the pasture, and the synth stock Marlin seemed to beat its elder, despite better foresight and longer, heavier barrel... confused by that, but maybe it was just my poor marksmanship.

Ancient Higgins Foresight - nice

Modern Marlin group at 50 yards

Ancient Higgins group at 50 yards

Well, all in a Thursday morning's installment of 'Horse & Gun'; remember to pray for the soul of Teddy "Lion of the Senate" Kennedy and for the miraculous cure of our national debt.

Deo Vindice.

LSP

Kill The Cow

Ecowarrior Boybishop

Don't get me wrong, I'm against pollution, but I'm a little wary of Mr. Gore's carbon footprint. Perhaps I'm jaded by the Great Ice Age Scare of the '70s, or maybe TROP, slavery and the demographic implosion of the West rank higher on my catastrophe list. Whatever the case, Barking Spider's pithy 'Methane Report' struck a chord; you see, the BBC are busy warning the Brits against the cows because they're turning the UK into a suffocating, gaseous greenhouse. Bad news and I hate to seem disloyal to England but TEC (The Episcopal Church) has been onto this for some time, at least since Boybishop Schori's 2008 Easter address:

"When atmospheric warming, due in part to the methane output of the millions of cows we raise... begins to slowly drown the island homes of our neighbors in the South Pacific, are we truly sharing good news?"

Thanks for that, 'Jefferts' Schori. Note to self - tell cattle raising parishioners to slaughter all livestock and save planet.

For goodness sake.

LSP

Churches I Like

St. Etheldreda, Ely Place

Back in the '90s I loved going to St. Ethedreda's (off of Leather Lane in London) because it was a beautifully restored medieval church, the liturgy wasn't the usual modernist rubbish, it had decent polyphany and if you were lucky you got to hear Fr. Charles-Roux preach - mostly about the Divine Right of Kings and Marie Antoinette. Always a captivating delivery, to say nothing of a singular theme; Fr. Roux went on to be a sort of unofficial chaplain to 'The Passion of the Christ', saying Mass on set for actors and crew.

After Mass you could go to The Old Mitre, which looked pleasantly Dickensian but had been corporatised and ruined inside, or more sensibly there were the various pubs on Lamb's Conduit Street. Great part of London, I always think.

Speaking of which, you might be interested in the hypocritical, sleazy, self-serving, failed Labour attempt to smear England's top soldier. He's come out well, others less so; I like G.O.T's reporting and the All Seeing Eye.

Deo Gratias.

LSP

Wild Evil Hogs

Outrageously Huge Hog

The picture above was tagged 'white trash.' Here's Mr. Auden's comment on that:

The wild evil hogs draw near;

The weather smells of their hate

And the houses smell of our fear;

Death has opened his white eye

And the black hole calls the thief

As the wild evil hogs draw near.

Ravens alight on the wall,

Our plans have all gone awry,

The rains will arrive too late,

Our resourceful general

Fell down dead as he drank

And his horses died of grief,

Our navy sailed away and sank;

The wild evil hogs draw near.

Just a bit of hog poetry, innit. Thanks, GWB, for the insight. In the meanwhile local swine are lying low(ish), but the fight's not over, not by any means.

Doves in a few weeks.

LSP

Space Creature

I thought it was just Episcopal Church 'decision makers', and Nancy Pelosi of course.

No, its deeper than that.

LSP

Ban Ban Taliban

There's a daily update on terrorist activity at The Religion of Peace, here's a snapshot:

2009.08.19 (Yala, Thailand) - A villager is shot five times by Islamists while walking to a market.

2009.08.19 (Baghdad, Iraq) - Islamic bombers stage several coordinated blasts and manage to kill nearly one-hundred Iraqis and injure about six-hundred others.

2009.08.18 (Peshawar, Pakistan) - A civilian is kidnapped and beheaded by Religion of Peace militants.

2009.08.18 (Miranshah, Pakistan) - A suicidal Sunni rams a group of local soldiers with an explosives-laden car, killing four.

2009.08.18 (Badakshan, Afghanistan) - Taliban terrorists murder all four workers transporting election materials.

2009.08.18 (Uruzgan, Afghanistan) - A Fedayeen suicide bomber takes out five Afghanis.

According to the Daily Express, a forum on Islamic Awakening had the following comments on recent British casualties:

“Isma’eel”, said: “Man, they really are dropping like flies over there lol [laugh out loud].”

Another, calling himself “AbuJunayd”, said: “Inshallah [God-willing] the more the kuffs [non-Muslims] deploy, the more the bros will send em back in body bags, or crutches or with serious psychological problems.”

“Waziri” said: “By command of Allah, the invading forces will be forced to withdraw humiliated and defeated by a group of men who between them do not possess even one transport helicopter.”

“Noorah”, said: “They are really getting whooped. Don’t know how they think they can win.”

You can read the whole story here and more than a few have speculated on Jihadist traffic from England to the North West Frontier and beyond. I'm no expert, but there might be truth in rumours of 'insurgents' turning up in Helmand with English Football Club tattoos...

Maybe they have, though its surely more likely that the U.K's homegrown Taliban are perfectly willing to stay at home.

Terrifying prospect.

LSP

Aging Plinker

Walked about Camp Crucis yesterday and heard the distant sound of gunfire, so I went to the source and found the SSC Provincial Secretary firing away at an impromtu range with a scoped semi-auto Remington .22. He kindly lent me an old Winchester pump action and we blazed away in the hot sun for an hour or so. Great fun and a first for me, having never shot a pump .22 before; it had a good feel to it and seemed accurate enough.

Interestingly, the SSC PS is off to Colorado with some bowmen to hunt Elk. He promises pictures; I'll live vicariously. Good man, the Secretary. He has a blog, 'Apostolicity'.

Cheers,

LSP

SSC Retreat

SSC Cross

At 'Camp Crucis' outside Granbury, for the annual SSC (Society of the Holy Cross) Chapter retreat. Its a good society, whose founder members were distinguished for their pastoral work in the slums of nineteenth century London. A far cry from country Texas, or is it?

Hard Luck Farm

Don't get me wrong, I love the country and the values of thrift, independance and freedom from the atheistical State. But that's not to say that life isn't hard for lots of people; sometimes its their fault, sometimes its not. Whatever the case, the Church should step up to the plate and exercise the virtue of Charity - like the founders of the SSC.

God bless,

LSP

Spend Like Fury!

No relevance whatsoever to events here in the United States.

Off to purchase a wheelbarrow for stipend.

LSP

PS. Thanks to Prats in Power.

Churches I Don't Like

Clown Yewkrist, Holy Trinity, Wall Street

I try to avoid religious polemic on this blog, apart from the odd playful dig at His Grace, The Lord Archdruid of Canterbury, his waspish boybishop sidekick, Katherine Schori and, of course, the slaver proponents of The Religion of Peace. But sometimes enough is enough and you have to speak out against churches like Holy Trinity, Wall Street. Why? Because of their **y Clown Eucharist. I don't like that church; I think its its a right mockery. Unfortunately its paradigmatic of the The Episcopal Church as a whole - wealthier than a truckload of Nazi Gold, and as risable as a gang of clowns. Chances are they're not even humans beneath the clown masks; no, they're probably Aliens, or robots, like Nancy Pelosi. With that in mind, I award Holy Trinity Wall Street a sturdy 9 out of 10 LSP Rubbish Church points. A high score, by anyone's reckoning.

After dwelling on that for an unwholesome ten minutes, I hoisted a Texan Flag outside the Parsonage. Uplifting.

Hang Out More Flags

Have a blessed Sunday, remember to shoot safe, stay on the horse and beware of sinister clowns, ecclesial or otherwise.

Cheers,

LSP

PS. Thanks to Texanglican for the unsettling clown picture.