Driving from Calgary to Dallas

You may wonder why an LSP should break with protocol and head North to Canada every once and a while. The answer's simple, to see two junior LSPs and this time to take them to Texas for a summer of swimming, shooting and riding. So, after the deerstruck car was fixed, which took three weeks, I loaded up the mileage vehicle and got on the road for the Lonestar State.

on the way to Helena

It's a long journey, though easy enough. We drove from Calgary to Lethbridge and entered Montana on Hwy 2, which turns into 15. Normally you head cross country to Billings from Great Falls, but the route was under construction so I stayed on 15 and went through the mountains to Helena/Butte before going East on 90 to Billings. A longer way to go, but worth it, I think, for the views.

awesome Ranchester

From Billings you pick up 90/87 and drive South through Wyoming and Colorado. I'd hoped to make it to Casper but had to stop in Ranchester because I was paranoid about hitting another deer on the pitch black roads. We stayed at old style motel.

Wyoming

Then it was time to get back on the road and take 25 through Denver, ending up at Raton, the City of 21 Motels. I liked Raton, in a 'small town in the mountains with endless motels,' kind of way and after breakfast we pushed on to Texas via 87 to Amarillo then taking 287 to Dallas/Fort Worth, where we were met with a rain storm and oddly nuclear blast-like clouds.

Texas

It's a good journey and not hard if you do it in three days; it certainly gives an impression of the sheer size of the country and a little of its variety. America isn't just an endless suburban subdivision bisected by strip malls, though it can give that impression, but a huge continent with vast areas of wilderness and open country. Much of this has been settled recently and the newness of the enterprise is striking; altogether different from much of Europe and the East Coast, for example.

I like it, but here's a question. Why is it that the country towns you drive through in Southern Alberta seem prosperous and well put together and then, in the space of miles, you cross the border and things get pretty ramshackle? For that matter, why should so many small Texan towns, in the Panhandle for example, seem like rural versions of Detroit when their Alberta equivalents don't? 

A mystery to me, no shortage of oil and gas in either place.

Drive safe,

LSP

Syria

There is no truth whatsoever in any of the malicious rumours that British, French and American special forces are supporting Al-Qaeda Jihadists in Syria. Neither is Mossad, or Blackwater, and even if they were, which they probably aren't, it's humanitarian, right?

Some people speculate, foolishly, that the West, along with "terrorist paymasters" Saudi Arabia and Qatar, has an interest in securing territory on the border of Iran. But nothing could be further than the truth; all we want to do is take down the brutal Assadian police state and replace it with peace loving Islamists.

Alpha Dog

Forgive the sarcasm, but there's something badly unsettling about the thought of our soldiers training their Islamic enemies, to say nothing of innocent men, women and children being killed and tortured in a civil war in which neither side appears to have anything like ethical ascendance. The solution?

Toy Dog

Alpha Dog moves ships, arms and men into Russia's naval base at Tartus, not-so-covert ops  continue under the aegis of Barry and David "Toy Dog" Cameron, Mossad conjures with the all too real threat of an Iranian 12th Imam, and the world moves ever closer to yet another war in the Middle East.

Barry

Don't get me wrong, I support our troops, I support Israel, and like the fearsome Chesterbelloc I support the West and the Faith, but none of this looks good to me.

Both Alpha Dog and Barry have peace prizes, Toy Dog is an old Etonian. 

Make of that what you will.

LSP

Putin is Alpha Dog?

Black belt

Vladimir Putin cheers on judo stars in London's Olympic games and has a black belt in the sport himself. Putin, who was chief spymaster in Russia's dreaded KGB, is also a horseman, a shooter, a diver and a concert pianist. Some fear that Putin is leading Russia into a new dark age of tyranny and despotism, others think that he is "Lord of Awesomeness" and the reincarnation of St. Paul.

Kind

Following a letter to the Times, signed by pop luminaries such as Jarvis "Menswear" Cocker, Putin has urged  leniency today for Pussy Riot, an all girl punk band who face up to seven years in jail for inciting "religious hatred."

Menswear

Putin is known in diplomatic circles as "Alpha Dog." Jarvis Cocker is known as "Menswear."

Barry with Alpha Dog

Then there's our leader, he used to go by "Barry." 

"Menswear" is a fan of "Barry," apparently.

God bless,

LSP

Miserable Offender

guard dog

This incredibly fierce Golden attack dog managed to get himself skunked last night. Well done, dog. Fortunately it wasn't a severe skunking or the brave defender of hearth and home would be outside for the duration.

Here's another criminal.

nice

Don't be priestess. Do something else instead.


Just sayin'.


LSP

Masters of the Universe

draghi

You'll have to forgive me for a shameless re-post, but I liked it so here it is, from ZeroHedge. Make of it what you will.

The astounding hubris of central bankers is comical, but the consequences of their actions are playing out as needless tragedy.

Central bankers present themselves as Masters of the Universe. They are, but only in their own little Theater of the Absurd. In the real world, they are as clueless as any other mortals about the unintended consequences of their actions and the speed with which the corrupted, unsustainable financial Status Quo will decay and die.

The only attribute they possess in abundance is hubris. Their claims to godhood are comical when viewed in their little Theater of the Absurd, but they become tragic when the consequences of their actions play out in the real world.

Their job, such as it is, is to deflate a tottering system based on phantom assets slowly enough that it doesn't implode. Stripped of mumbo-jumbo, their strategy to accomplish this is to inflate other phantom assets to replace the phantom assets that are falling to zero.

All their promises, preening and posturing boil down to patting their breast pocket and speaking vaguely about a "secret plan" to end the crisis without bringing down the system that spawned the crisis as a consequence of its very nature.

There is no secret plan, of course, and no secret financial weapons; all they really have is artifice and the hubris to present artifice as reality.

To admit the usustainable is not sustainable would bring the entire rotten edifice crashing down, so the central bankers invite us into their little Theater of the Absurd and evince a phantom confidence in their phantom solutions that depend on phantom assets.

A swollen cloud of doom hangs over the central banker's little Theater of the Absurd; all their chest-pounding hubris and empty confidence is artifice, as phantom as the assets they claim will replace the phantom assets that have been destroyed by exposure to reality.

On their absurd little stage, they claim the Emperor's robes are thick and fine; and we laugh, bitterly, for these threadbare lies are all they have to "save" a parasitic, predatory, anti-democratic financial Status Quo.

We're all doomed. Here's a picture of the Fed for good measure.

Operation Overlord

Cheers,

LSP

War Games

The helmet taking cover at the chair is an American rifleman; the blueshirt advancing to contact from the wooden F.O.B is a member of the German Wehrmacht. In a closely fought action, both sides acquitted themselves bravely before falling back to their respective positions.

It's curious, I think, that children should still be fighting WWII. Let's hope and pray they won't have to go through the real thing and if they do, return home safely.

ET Come Home?

In other news, Calgary has become a UFO hotspot, with 26 sightings recorded last year alone. Could it be that the mysteriously small ACoC (Anglican Church of Canada) is returning home? Experts are divided.

God bless,

LSP

Mystery Billionaire Builds Huge Yacht

A mystery billionaire has built the world's largest yacht, leading some experts to speculate that the Episcopal Church's leaderene is looking for a quick getaway from her rapidly sinking denomination.

From over three million members in the 1960s, the Episcopal Church has shrunk to a mere one million members, but only 657,000 of these can work up the energy to turn up to church for Sunday worship. That number's shrinking fast, with some 50,000 members exiting the pews every year.

that'll bring 'em in

Maybe allocating $1 million of the shrinking church's $111 million budget towards "church planting" and $13 million towards legal costs, will help to bail out Episcopalian fortunes.

sorted

There is no line item item for shipbuilding in the Episcopal Church's triennial budget. Jefferts Schori is a keen boat person and a marine biologist.

Anchors away!

LSP

Episcopal Church Transtastic!

All means All

The Episcopal Church is declining at a rapid rate, but perhaps their new slogan "All Means All!" will reverse this disturbing trend.

You be the judge.

LSP

Fort Calgary

Col. MacLeod

One of the things I like to do is stroll down to Fort Calgary to look at the statue of Col. James MacLeod, who sits on his bronze horse gazing out at the city's ever taller skyline and a Union Jack, which reminds us of a time not so long ago when Canada was a far flung Dominion of the Empire.

hang out more flags

MacLeod seems to have been one of those tireless men of the nineteenth century, an adventurer perhaps, who managed to combine Law, which apparently bored him, with military service and a founding role on the NWMP (North West Mounted Police). 

He was respected by the Indians and rather less so by Montana's whiskey traders. A brief biography talks of his vision: 

"James Farquharson Macleod exercised a decisive influence on the early development of western Canada. More than any other single individual, he was responsible for establishing the policies followed by the NWMP in their dealings with the Indians and for setting the tone of Canadian Indian policy in the NWT. His vision of the region was of a place where newcomers and the native population might live together in peace and where disputes could be settled by reason."

He died in 1894, just 20 years short of World War I and the opening shots of a new and different age.

Long live Queen Victoria,

LSP

I Think I'll Take a Road Trip

Calgary

By way of some well needed R&R I thought I'd drive to Calgary. So I did, making good time through the Panhandle and Raton, pushing through to the other side of Denver, where I stopped at a not-so-super 8. "Super" 8s now cost around $80 per night, in case you're wondering.

Rocky Mountain Road

The next day I sped through Colorado and into Wyoming, taking a stop at Casper for an oil change and a quick visit to a Sportsman's Warehouse. I liked Casper; everyone I met wanted to talk and pass the time of day and they seemed pleased with life. Move to Casper, folks, and you too can be happy.

Little Bighorn

Then it was on to Montana. I took a break at Little Bighorn, where Custer fought his last stand, and today's Crow have a gifte shoppe and a trailer park. It's a dusty,windswept, desolate kind of place. I gazed at the battlefield from a distance and thought of the horsemen on both sides of the action; Crazy Horse and Gall going at it full tilt and the men of the 7th, fighting and dying where they stood. 

someone's picture of the battlefield

After a prayer for the people who died at the battle I bought an energy drink, which apparently contained something called "Guarana." The internet tells me that Guarana is native to the Amazon. Nothing daunted I drove to Billings and took 3N to Harlowton and, ultimately, Great Falls. 

Bad mistake; 3N is under serious contruction and that cost me hours of slow, slow driving over unsurfaced roads. Fine, if you're in a 4x4, which I wasn't, and you're not on a schedule, which  I was. Great Falls to Calgary was easy; a straight shot down I15N to the border, then 4N to Lethbridge and Fort MacLeod, exiting on 2N to Calgary.

But as you get into Calgary on 2N you have a choice. You can take the MacLeod Trail, or the Deerfoot Trail, to the city center. I opted for the Deerfoot. Why? Instinct, I suppose, and I didn't want to deal with the traffic lights on MacLeod. Bad mistake, because the Deerfoot's called the Deerfoot for a reason. You see, deer cross the Deerfoot, and I hit one at about 55 mph.

mine was like this but from the driver's side

It happened fast. One instant you're driving along getting ready to exit onto the Barlow Trail and the next there's a large animal bouncing up and onto the hood then skidding off the windshield into the darkness. The windshield didn't break, the airbags didn't deploy and no one was hurt. Thank God. I pulled over and inspected the damage; the car's front end was badly mashed but the vehicle was drivable. I coaxed it to my destination in Inglewood. The thing's insured, fortunately.

gotta get back to the garden, LSP

So that was exciting. Now it's time to relax and enjoy Calgary which is a prosperous city, waxing large on Oil and Gas.

God bless,

LSP

Anglican Church of Canada Found at Bottom of Baltic Sea?

Anglican Church of Canada?

In a dramatic new discovery, a team of salvage divers have found what might be the lost Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC). At the bottom of the Baltic sea!

Spotted on sonar last year, the mysterious object appeared to resemble the Millennium Falcon, of Star Wars fame, leading some observers to speculate that it was a UFO. But when the diving team, calling themselves "Ocean X," returned to the site this June, something even stranger was discovered.

artist's impression

The UFO shaped object appears to be a massive stone mushroom, the size of a passenger jet, with grooves cut in its surface and small fireplace-like structures covered in what might be soot. One diver stated that it was like "nothing I'd ever seen before."

Speculation over the identity of the object is rife. “We've heard lots of different kinds of explanations, from George Lucas's spaceship – the Millennium Falcon – to ‘It's some kind of plug to the inner world,’ like it should be hell down there or something,” said Peter Lindberg, an Ocean X diver.

stairway to Tartarus?

Mystery and speculation deepened when it was discovered that the strange stone structure shut down electrical equipment and media devices, leading some experts to question whether the underwater phenomenon was the Anglican Church of Canada.

Millennium Falcon

According to Canon James Daltrey, a noted ACoC theorist, "It's about the right size, about as big as a jumbo jet, and it cuts off communications. Just what you'd expect from the Anglican Church of Canada." But others aren't so sure. "True, the object is extremely small for a religious denomination and appears to be covered in dirt, but everyone knows that ACoC launched into deep space some time ago. The object's probably a Nazi device for catching submarines or an antedeluvian monolith of some sort. Who knows, perhaps it's a UFO," said one senior Episcopal cleric who insisted on anonymity for fear of being sued under his church's draconian Title IV Canons.

bishop Michael Ingham

Anglican Church of Canada, UFO, or pre-flood remnant of an ancient civilization, no one knows for sure. Ocean X is set to return to the site later this year.

Stay tuned,

LSP

The Episcopal Church Launches Into Deep Space!

The Episcopal Church is now well and truly off on a deep space quest to go where other churches have never gone before. I know. I was there at the launch, at the shrinking church's 77th General Convention, in Indianapolis.

Gene Robinson, with friend

What happened? Apart from press room rumors that bishop Gene Robinson was getting a divorce from his "beloved Mark" and living estranged in separate hotel rooms. Apart from that and gender neutral bathrooms, what happened?

Famously, a rite, or ceremony, for gay-marriage, which hits the pews in Advent and appears to be the first of its kind.  Chalk that up for history and with it the declining church's new gender rules. These make it a crime to exclude people from governing positions in the small denomination if they've had a sex-change. Gender reassignment surgery? The Episcopal Church is the place for you, if you can find it that is, which is hard because it's shrinking at a rate of 50,000 members a year.

weaving the circle 

But who knows, maybe the church's new mission oriented budget will turn things around, get the mothership back on the planet, as it were. Unlikely, given that 42% of the denomination's $111 million budget is going to be spent on administration and governance, with $12 million earmarked for legal costs and $1 million for church planting. Mission and growth? You do the math.

you're very small from way out here

A small minority of traditionally minded bishops did mount a fight-back of sorts, signing the Indianapolis Statement, which protests their church's accelerating trajectory into the icy void.

All well and good, traditional bishops, you have my total sympathy. But remember, in space no one can hear you scream.

The Episcopal Church was last seen leaving earth orbit.

LSP