Boxing Day

Ice Age

Drove through a light dusting of Global Warming to get to the LSP command post in Dallas and a Christmas greeting from my old friend Moet; always a welcome guest. Then it was food, fun and family till well into the night - huge enjoyment. And what's wrong with that, in our puritanical and barbarous times? Nothing at all.

lull before the storm...

Speaking of barbarians, it seems that yet another person has tragically misunderstood The Religion of Peace and set himself alight while trying to blow up an airplane heading to Detroit. A good thing Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab failed. What an evil thing to do, thank God he was stopped.

Have a great Boxing Day and Feast of St. Stephen.

Cheers,

LSP

Merry Christmas

Jowett

Jowett, Master of Balliol, after a mile of walking in silence with the young Augustus Baker,

"Your last observation was singularly commonplace."

Well, I stand judged... Anyway... thanks for reading & following.

Merry Christmas!

LSP

Midnight Jokers

I've stayed out of the Healthcare thing because everyone else has been on it but I've got to say that the comments on Hillbuzz and KOOK's seem right on the money. Death Panels, infanticide, subterfuge, corruption, pork... and the list goes on. Anyway, here's some writing from Hillbuzz via the excellent KOOK's Manifesto, if you haven't read it already:

Claire McCaskill, the second worst Senator alive today, is stirring rebellion in Missouri.

Across the state, images of Claire Bear as The Joker are popping up…caused by Missourians angry at her refusal to stop the government rationing of healthcare through Harry Reid’s dead of night, top secret, forced legislation.

Every single Democrat voting for this monstrous bill is a Joker.

This is not how legislation should be passed. This is not the American way. This is how the Soviet Union and banana republics operated.

UPDATE: Some of you wonder why Claire McCaskill is now just the Second-Worst Living Senator. Previously, she has been listed as the Worst Living Senator in our book. Harry Reid, in our opinion, nudged her out of her title a few weeks back when he started calling opponents of Healthcare Rationing RAAACISTS, and said that opposing what he was doing with this secret, middle of the night legislation was tantamount to supporting slavery. That is so wrong, so inappropriate, and so patently INSANE that we couldn’t help but list him as the Worst of the Worst. McCaskill will, no doubt, regain her title in November 2010 when Reid is booted from office…and she will retain that title until she, too, is removed from the Senate in 2012.

Off to wrap presents now.

LSP

I Like Guns

Found this at Conservative Scallywag. Result.

Must get more of them...

Happy shooting,

LSP

Berdyaev

Wjatscheslaw Iwanow, Lev Kobilinskij-Ellis, N. Berdyaev (standing) and Andrej Belyi

I've been struck Berdyaev's book "End of Our Time"; he was writing in 1935. Here's a quote:

"Faith in the ultimate political and social salvation of mankind is quenched. We have reached settlement-day after a series of centuries during which movement was from the centre, the spiritual core of life, to the periphery, its surface and social exterior. And the more empty of real significance social life has become, the more it has tyrannized over the general life of man. Politics have twined about us like a strangling parasite, and the greater part of contemporary political and social life has no reality, no being, at all: it is just bogus. The strife of parties, parliaments, conferences, newspapers, programmes and platforms, propaganda and demonstrations, the grab and scheming for power - these are not life... they are a hopeless hindrance."

He doesn't have much time for the Bolshevists either. These, he feels, are in the grip of a diabolic, supernatural power, the "kingdom of Satan".

Perhaps they were - or are. Regardless, I like "strangling parasite". Seems to sum our situation up neatly, and his thoughts on secularism aren't bad either, but that's another post.

Have a blessed Sunday,

LSP

Moving House

There I was, in Dallas, quietly standing outside a restaurant, reflecting on the state of the world and a magazine deadline when all of a sudden a house went by - on a flatbed. There it was, moving down a side street in Oak Cliff. You don't get that in England. Amazing country, Texas.

Anyway, a pleasant couple captured the thing on their smart I Phones and emailed me the shot. They were from Holland, I think, and wanted to know who I was and where I was from. So I rambled on about guns and England - much consternation in the Dutch camp.

Cheers,

LSP

GNN & The Holy Sepulchre

Entrance to the Holy Sepulchre

I've been to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre a couple of times and its never failed to move me, on several levels. I was moved when I came across this post on the excellent GNN; here's the intro:

"OK... it's time to come clean. I didn't come to Israel for the waters, nor the nightlife. Some months ago I realized a calling to ordination in the Episcopal Church. Jerusalem is my pilgrimage. It has confirmed my faith and made me all the more confident in my decision.

Since my childhood I have heard many spiritual and downright breathless tales of visits to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The church includes within its walls the last 5 Stations of the Cross:

10..........The site where Jesus is stripped of His garments

11 & 12...The site of Christ's crucifixion and death on the cross

13...........Where His body was removed from the cross and prepared for burial

14...........Jesus' tomb

That's my preface. Read about the place. It's amazing."

Read it all - a great post, I think.

I'll be saying a Mass for Nicky's intention and, from the haven of the Diocese of Fort Worth, wish him all the best. Its not easy being a padre at the best of times - harder still under the aegis of Jefferts Schori.

God bless,

LSP