Recent Comments

1. about 4 hours ago on Francis

   The true reason for celibacy is that if a priest is married and HE dies, his family gets his estate. If he has no family, then the church gets his estate.

   The Roman Catholic Church is all about the money.

2. about 4 hours ago on Moderately Confused

   Anger is good. Anger can be a motivator. It is hate that is destructive. It is harmful to the hated and it consumes the soul of the hater.

   Anger can be directed against things and circumstances. Hate is directed against human beings who are as worthy of life as the hater, no matter what derogatory names the hater calls them in an attempt to demonize them.

3. about 4 hours ago on Calvin and Hobbes

   Several weeks ago I had a pleasant conversation with the person who takes care of our neighbor’s lawn.

   Yesterday I am in my den and I hear him in my neighbor’s yard with his leaf blower. After a while, I thought it was louder than it should be, so I looked out and he was doing MY yard!

   He said he enjoyed our conversation and wished me an early Merry Christmas.

   People can be surprisingly kind.

4. about 4 hours ago on Aunty Acid

   I run myself into exhaustion most days. I fall asleep about halfway between taking my feet off the floor and my head hitting the pillow.

   I literally thank God for the ability to do so. It is a blessing and I do not take it for granted.

5. 1 day ago on Francis

   The combination of church and state worked very well back in the middle ages when one could not be the King of France without the blessing of the Pope and vice-versa.

6. 1 day ago on Moderately Confused

   There is some truth to “security though obscurity.” Generally, the smaller internet footprint you have, the smaller risk of compromise. Which is a good reason to rid oneself of applications and accounts that are no longer needed.

   My email domain is not Irs.Gov or BankAmerica.Com so I’m a rather obscure target. Nobody is going to spend more than a couple of minutes trying to hack my accounts. My passwords are at least that good.

   It’s sort of like the old joke about the two campers who come upon a bear. One of them laces on his sneakers and the other said, “What are you doing? You can’t outrun a bear!” To which the other replies. “I don’t have to outrun the bear; I have to outrun you.” Don’t be the low hanging fruit.

7. 1 day ago on Herman

   In 1906, The Royal Navy built the HMS Dreadnaught, the world’s first modern battleship. Overnight every Navy was exactly ONE modern battleship short. This sparked an arms race as nations built ever bigger battleships.

   In the United States we have a thing called a “crash safety rating.” Cars with higher displacement tonnage do better than smaller cars. So we have an arms race going on as auto manufacturers build safer and safer (read heavier and heavier) cars.

   So if your car weighs about as much as an M1A2 tank, your children will be safe in a crash (That is if you even notice that you’ve been in a crash). The children in the other car, maybe not so much.

8. 1 day ago on Herman

   Just call it an SUV and all bets are off on gas mileage.

9. 2 days ago on Francis

   I have a hypothesis that 80 percent of people are sheep. They rather follow than lead. The extent to which they attach themselves to an authoritarian leader varies. Some people are more accepting of the leader’s words and do not question the authority.

   That’s one of the reasons I joined the Episcopal Church: the priest who “recruited” me said, “God gave you a brain. The Episcopal Church expects you to use it.”

   “I would rather have questions that can’t be answered, than answers that can’t be questioned.” – Richard Feynman

10. 2 days ago on Francis

    Ordination of women was one of the reasons I left the Catholic Church. I liked the Catholic Religion, it was the Church with which I had a problem.

    My wife and I did not have this specifically in mind when we became Episcopalians (same theology, different implementation) or that she would eventually be ordained a deacon in the church.

    According to my eyeball count, about 1/3 of the Episcopal clergy is female.