Month: May 2025

Rogues in Bergoglio’s Footsteps

The truth is too magnificent a thing to be the the property of any one religious institution.  Too magnificent a thing, and too elusive a thing to be owned or housed or patented or reduced to the formulas of a sect or finitized or fought over.

Institutions too often value their own perpetuation over the fulfillment of their legitimate mandates. Examples are legion. This observation occurred to me last year as I watched Representative Chip Roy's grilling of the prevaricating FBI director Christopher Wray.  It is especially pertinent to churches of whatever stripe. 

Idolatry is ubiquitous. Bibliolatry and ecclesiolatry are species thereof, not that 'Romanists' could be accused of the former.

Things are not looking good for the RCC. Jim Bowman reports.

Life in Time

A life in time is a paltry substitute for eternal life, but at least we know we are alive, and in time, whereas we don't know much if anything about eternal life.  On rare occasions, however, some of us catch a glimpse of something that seems to fits the description.  These occasional glimpses fuel a faith that makes life in time a game worth the candle.

Those who claim to know what they can only believe do a disservice to both knowledge and faith. 

Technical Difficulties

Due to problems with the Typepad comment system, comments will not be accepted or answered until these problems can be resolved. This may take a while. Afflicted as I am with cacoethes scribendi, posting will continue.  I thank you for your 'patronage.'

Illegal Alien on NYC Subway Rapes Corpse!

Story here:

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) slammed The New York Times Saturday over a story about a suspect who allegedly raped a corpse on a New York City subway, saying the reporters failed to mention the man was in the U.S. illegally. 

The defense will no doubt argue that the man cannot be guilty as charged inasmuch it is impossible to rape a corpse. Have the journos over at the NYT degenerated so far that they have never heard of necrophilia?  

Or maybe the defense will argue that since illegal entry is no crime because no one is illegal, the same should hold for illegal entry into a living human's body, and for illegal entry into the corpse of a human.  There cannot be illegal entry in any sense since everyone has the right to go wherever he wants.  The corpse should have "welcomed the stranger."

Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Cowboys of the Open Road

Advanced AI and robotics may push us humans to the margin, and render many of us obsolete. I am alluding to the great Twilight Zone episode, The Obsolete Man. What happens to truckers when trucks drive themselves?  For many of these guys and gals, driving trucks is not a mere job but a way of life. 

It is hard to imagine these cowboys of the open road  sitting in cubicles and writing code. The vices to which they are prone, no longer held in check by hard work and long days, may prove their destruction. The topic is huge and beyond my paygrade. In any case it's Saturday night,  I'm drinking a Jack and Coke, and dreaming of the open road.

Sunday morning addendum: we need to think about the infantilization brought about by our technology.  Laura Trump interviewed Elon Musk last night on her show.  He will be scaling back his work on DOGE to get back to his various projects, including work on self-driving cars. One upside, though, is that the elderly will be able to retain their independence when they are no longer able to drive safely. Musk made  a comment to the effect that it won't be long before seeing a person driving a car will be as unusual as seeing someone traveling via horse and buggy.

Eddy Rabbit, Drivin' My Life Away

Dave Dudley, Six Days on the Road

Buck Owens, Truck Drivin' Man

Red Sovine, Phantom 309. Tom Waits' cover. 

Lynyrd Skynyrd, Truck Drivin' Man

Cody Jinks, Lost Highway

Tony Justice, One Mile at a Time 

Seatrain, I'm Willin'

I've been warped by the rain
Driven by the snow
I'm drunk and dirty, and don't you know
That I'm still, yes I'm still willin'

I ride the highway, late at night
I see my pretty Alice, in every headlight, Alice, Dallas Alice

[Chorus] I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari, Tehachapi to Tonopah
I've driven every kind of truck that's ever been made
I've even rode the backroads so I wouldn't get weighed
If you give me weed, whites, and wine
 Show me a sign, and I'll be willin' to keep on movin'

. . .

And I've been from Tucson to Mexicali, Tehachapi to Tonopah
I've driven every kind of rig that's ever been made
I've even rode the backroads so I wouldn't get weighed
If you give me weed, whites, and wine
Show me a sign, and I'll be willin' to keep on movin' 

How Trump Won the Canadian Election

Philip Cunliffe:

In electing a consummate globalist to defend Canadian sovereignty, Canadian voters exhibited a voluble national pride more commonly seen south of the border. In that sense, even if Trump may not get his 51st state of the Union, he has nonetheless imposed the value of sovereignty and national independence on the archetypal post-national state. Far from signalling a global liberal rally against Trump, the fact that the liberals were only able to beat Trump by embracing the language of national independence, national interest, and sovereignty make clear that Carney’s electoral victory happened on Trumpian terrain. 

Finally! An End to Taxpaper Subsidization of NPR and PBS

We conservatives have been talking about this for years, but it's all been talk. Until now.  A re-post from 10 December 2014:

National Public Radio and the Tit of the State

"If the product is so superior, why does it have to live on the tit of the State?" (Charles Krauthammer)

One answer is that the booboisie  of these United States is too backward and benighted to appreciate the high level of NPR programming.  The rubes of fly-over country are too much enamored of wrestling, tractor pulls, and reality shows, and, to be blunt, too stupid and lazy to take in superior product.

Being something of an elitist myself, I am sympathetic to this answer.  The problem for me is twofold.  NPR is run by lefties for lefties.  That in itself is not a problem.  But it is a most serious problem when part of the funding comes from the taxpayer.  But leftists, blind to their own bias, don't see the problem.  Very simply, it is wrong to take money by force from people and then use it to promote causes that those people find offensive or worse when the causes have nothing to do with the legitimate functions of government.  Planned Parenthood and abortion.  NEA and Piss Christ.  Get it?

And then there is the recent anti-Christian nastiness.  Just in time for Christmas.  What a nice touch.  Would these 'liberal' pussies mock Muhammad similarly? 

Second, we are in fiscal crisis.  If we can't remove NPR from the "tit of the State," from the milky mammaries of massive Mama Obama government, what outfit can we remove from said mammaries? If we can't zero out  NPR how are we going to cut back on the waste, fraud, and abuse of 'entitlement' programs such as Social Security?

Ah, but no one wants to talk about a real crisis when there is Ferguson to talk about.

Don't get me wrong.  I like or rather liked  "Car Talk" despite the paucity of automotive advice and the excess of joking around.  I even like the PBS "Keeping Up Appearances" in small doses.  But if frivolous flab like this can't be excised, what can?

Life is Hierarchical

An old lie of leftists is compressed into one of their more recent abuses of language: 'equity.' So-called 'equity' is wokespeak for equality of outcome or result. 'Equity'  in this obfuscatory sense cannot occur and ought not be pursued.

It cannot occur because people are not equal either as individuals or as groups. That is a plain fact. Leftists won't face it, however, because they confuse the world as they would like it to be with the world as it is. 

'Equity' ought not be pursued because its implementation is possible only by the violation of the liberty of the individual by a totalitarian state apparatus precisely unequal in power to those it would equalize.

Life is a ladder.  It is many ladders, as many as there are directions of achievement. On any ladder, some are above, some below. Look up without envy; look down without contempt. Climb as high as you can on as many ladders as you are on.  Lend a hand to those below; if any you help should surpass you, take satisfaction at your mentorship and pride in their accomplishment.