On the Loaves and Fishes and Socialism

My friend Byron Bullock emailed me this article by Rev. Glen Mullan on the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes and Socialism.

Socialism
July 26, 2009, 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) (Jn 6:1-15)

...Jesus performed a great miracle for the people which in many ways mirrors the understanding of social justice and welfare we have today. Here was a large crowd of people, who had no food. So Jesus and his apostles found a way to provide everyone what they needed, for free. In addition to feeding, the Gospel tells us Jesus had also been healing the sick.

And the people responded: “this is the Prophet, let us make him our King!” But Jesus ran the other way, withdrawing to the hills! The next day, when the crowd found him on the other side of the lake in Capernaum, he criticized them. You follow me because I give you food, but the next day you are hungry again. Am I supposed to keep performing this miracle over and over, is that what my job as king is? more...

Thanks and a tip of the beret to Byron, and especially to Fr Mullen for this article.

Jhesu+Marie,
Brantigny

NASA

In a move reminicent of the popular TV program "Everyone loves Raymond" NASA reports that it tapped over the orginal recordings of the Moon landing in 1969.

NASA lost moon footage, but Hollywood restores it
…
Seth Borenstein, Ap Science Writer – Thu Jul 16, 7:11 pm ET

WASHINGTON – NASA could put a man on the moon but didn't have the sense to keep the original video of the live TV transmission.
In an embarrassing acknowledgment, the space agency said Thursday that it must have erased the Apollo 11 moon footage years ago so that it could reuse the videotape.

But now Hollywood is coming to the rescue.

The studio wizards who restored "Casablanca" are digitally sharpening and cleaning up the ghostly, grainy footage of the moon landing, making it even better than what TV viewers saw on July 20, 1969. They are doing it by working from four copies that NASA scrounged from around the world.

"There's nothing being created; there's nothing being manufactured," said NASA senior engineer Dick Nafzger, who is in charge of the project. "You can now see the detail that's coming out."

The first batch of restored footage was released just in time for the 40th anniversary of the "one giant leap for mankind," and some of the details seem new because of their sharpness. Originally, astronaut Neil Armstrong's face visor was too fuzzy to be seen clearly. The upgraded video of Earth's first moonwalker shows the visor and a reflection in it.

The $230,000 refurbishing effort is only three weeks into a monthslong project, and only 40 percent of the work has been done. But it does show improvements in four snippets: Armstrong walking down the ladder; Buzz Aldrin following him; the two astronauts reading a plaque they left on the moon; and the planting of the flag on the lunar surface.

Nafzger said a huge search that began three years ago for the old moon tapes led to the "inescapable conclusion" that 45 tapes of Apollo 11 video were erased and reused. His report on that will come out in a few weeks.

The original videos beamed to Earth were stored on giant reels of tape that each contained 15 minutes of video, along with other data from the moon. In the 1970s and '80s, NASA had a shortage of the tapes, so it erased about 200,000 of them and reused them.

How did NASA end up looking like a bumbling husband taping over his wedding video with the Super Bowl?

Nafzger, who was in charge of the live TV recordings back in the Apollo years, said they were mostly thought of as data tapes. It wasn't his job to preserve history, he said, just to make sure the footage worked. In retrospect, he said he wished NASA hadn't reused the tapes.

Of course no one thought that the first steps on a planet in the solar system by man would possibly be of interest to mankind. This is certainly the US Government.

Brantigny

Pelosi Kills the MJ resolution.

Now we will see how long it is before the Black Caucus starts to use the race card...

I think Rep Jackson-Lee should have tried a nomination for a Nobel peace prize. I mean they gave one to Al Gore...

SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shut the door Thursday to a resolution honoring Michael Jackson because debate on the symbolic measure could raise "contrary views" about the pop star's life.

Lawmakers are free to use House speeches "to express their sympathy or their praise any time that they wish," said Pelosi, D-Calif. "I don't think it's necessary for us to have a resolution."

A resolution sponsored by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, cites some of the singer's charitable acts and proclaims him an American legend, musical icon and world humanitarian.

Even before Pelosi's comments, some Democrats said privately they did not support the resolution and a divisive debate would hurt House efforts to muster the votes for priorities such as health care and climate change.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who posted a video on YouTube calling Michael Jackson a "pervert" and a "pedophile," has pledged to do all he could to block the resolution.

Michael Jackson was acquitted in 2005 of charges that he molested a 13-year-old boy. Those allegations, and his admission that children slept in his bed at his home but nothing sexual occurred, have led some members of Congress to put distance between themselves and any formal honor for the entertainer.

"A resolution, I think, would open up to contrary views to — that are not necessary at this time to be expressed in association with a resolution whose purpose is quite different," Pelosi said at a Capitol Hill news conference where she discussed various legislative matters.

Unbowed, Jackson Lee said she will seek support from colleagues who thanked her when she introduced the measure June 26, one day after Michael Jackson died. She said honorary resolutions don't often "pass the next day."

"On this floor we elevate people and doing that we have to work to tell your story," she said after a House vote. But she would need support from Democratic leadership for the resolution to advance to the full House from the committee where it is now.

When members of the Congressional Black Caucus held a moment of silence in the House after Jackson died June 25, some lawmakers walked out of the chamber.

Jackson Lee has pledged that the resolution, now before the House Foreign Affairs Committee where she is a member, would come to the full House for debate. Such honorary measures normally move quickly from committee to the full House and pass on a voice vote.

But Jackson Lee's resolution was in trouble early. It drew only one co-sponsor, Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., and was not endorsed by other black caucus members.

From the stage at Jackson's memorial Tuesday at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Jackson Lee hoisted a framed copy of the resolution.

Brantigny

Violence Escalates

Less than a week after the US troops pull out of the major cities and turn them over to the Iraqi troops the violence has increased. I sure am glad the man-god has talked to them. What worries me the most is that after all the dead who have died for our country, after all the Iraqi dead, that Iraq will be a new Viet Nam, abandoned by the US as we were forced to do in 1975. It was democrats in Congress who passed a law which denied US Military aid to the Viet Namese after we abandoned them. I pray that Iraq will not turn into another Viet Nam.

BAGHDAD – Bombs killed nearly 60 people in Iraq on Thursday in the worst violence since U.S. combat troops withdrew from urban areas last week, and American forces released five Iranian officials suspected of aiding Shiite insurgents.

U.S. officials said they believe the Iranians, detained in northern Iraq in January 2007, had facilitated attacks on American-led forces but handed them over to the Iraqi government at its request because they were obliged to do so under a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement.

The U.S. State Department said it was concerned their release could present a security threat to American troops in Iraq.

Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, called the release a "good initiative" that could encourage dialogue between Washington and Tehran, which are longtime foes.

Iranian Embassy spokesman Amir Arshadi said Iraq had transferred the Iranians, described by their government as diplomats, to the embassy. Washington believes they are associated with the Quds Force, part of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps, and that they trained Iraqi militants.

The carnage within Iraqi borders Thursday was a sign that insurgents remain intent on destabilizing Iraq as the United States shifts its focus to the war in Afghanistan. Attacks are down sharply from past years of war and militants have been driven from many strongholds, but they routinely inflict casualties in Baghdad and northern Iraq, a cauldron of ethnic and sectarian tension.

The most lethal attack Thursday was in the northern city of Tal Afar, where women sat in the street amid torn and bloodied bodies in the aftermath of suicide bombings, wailing and beating their chests in grief. Several men crouched and wept into their hands. Others rushed the wounded to ambulances; some used a bed sheet as a makeshift stretcher.

In a statement on his Web site, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani condemned the attacks and said the "forces of evil and terrorism" were trying in vain to demoralize Iraqi security forces and the civilian population.

Some 130,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, but they have a much lower profile and are preparing for a complete pullout by the end of 2011. Iraqi attitudes are mixed, with some rejoicing over the absence of American troops in their streets and a new sense of sovereignty, and others worried that extremists will now have more freedom to operate.

"Our security forces are still weak, with poor intelligence," said Saeed Rahim, a government employee in Baghdad. "Deploying more unqualified troops into the streets does not necessarily lead to better results."

The day's violence began at 6:30 a.m., when a suicide bomber in a police uniform and carrying a radio and a pistol knocked on the door of an investigator in the anti-terrorism police force in Tal Afar. When the officer opened the door, the bomber detonated his explosive belt, killing the officer, his wife and son, said Maj. Gen. Khalid al-Hamadani, police chief of the northern Ninevah province.

As people gathered in the aftermath, another suicide bomber detonated his explosives belt, al-Hamadani said. The coordinated attack killed a total of 38 people and injured 66. Army Brig. Abdul-Rahman Abu Raghef said the first suicide bomber was a local resident who had been jailed for one year on suspicion of terrorism, but was released in an amnesty in June.

A day earlier, car bombs in two Shiite villages near Mosul, another northern Iraqi city, killed 16 civilians and injured more than two dozen.

Haneen Qaddo, a lawmaker representing Shiites in the Mosul region, complained about a "big security vacuum" in the north and said Kurdish forces, known as peshmerga, should withdraw from some areas and allow Iraqi army units to deploy. Tensions between Iraqi Arabs and Kurds, who run a virtual mini-state in part of northern Iraq, are considered a major threat to long-term stability.

Factions are maneuvering for control of Kirkuk, a disputed northern city in an oil-rich area that is seen as a flash point for conflict. Police there said a civilian bystander died in a bomb attack on a police patrol on Thursday.

Insurgents also struck Baghdad on Thursday morning, detonating bombs that killed 18 people and injured dozens. Eight of them died and 30 were injured in coordinated blasts near an outdoor market in the Shiite district of Sadr City, said Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Mousawi, spokesman for the city's operations command center.

Hassan Abdullah, a vegetable salesman, said he heard the first blast and went to see what was happening when a second bomb hidden in trash about 100 yards away exploded. He was taken to a hospital with hand and leg injuries.

In the Karrada district of central Baghdad, one civilian died in a bomb attack on the convoy of Central Bank Gov. Sinan al-Shibibi, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. The governor was unharmed.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the U.S. had to release the Iranians under a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that took effect in January. Kelly said the release was not part of a deal or prisoner exchange with Tehran.

He said Iraq has issued arrest warrants for all non-Iraqi detainees held by American forces and asked the U.S. to transfer them to the Iraqi government's custody.

Kelly described the five Iranians as being "associated with" the Quds force. Kelly said the possibility of the five creating security problems in Iraq was "a big concern."

A senior Iraqi government official said on condition of anonymity that the Americans had advised Iraqi counterparts that the Iranians should leave the country.

Also Thursday, the U.S. military said it was investigating the death of a U.S. soldier who had been found "unresponsive" on a military base.

Brantigny

Rep Shelia jackson Lee

I thought Al Sharpton was out of line telling the Jackson children that there was "nothing strange about your Daddy". Well I was wrong.

From Michelle Malkin...

Sheila Jackson-Lee hits rock bottom;
By Michelle Malkin • July 7, 2009 03:10 PM

Oh, no, she didn’t.

Oh, yes, she did.

Democrat Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee just pimped the stupidest House resolution ever on stage at the Jacko memorial at Staples Center. She held up a big, framed copy of it as the crowd cheered. That was after she extolled “The King,” painted him as the world’s greatest humanitarian, and demagogued the child molestation cases by proclaiming that members of Congress “understand the Constitution” and “we understand laws” and we know that “people are INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN OTHERWISE!”

Yes, she did. Right there in front of Jacko’s three children.

I thought Al Sharpton’s memorial rant (“There was nothing strange about your daddy!”) was the low point for American culture.

Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, you win.
***
Question: Who paid for Jackson-Lee’s flight to L.A.?

Brantigny

Mireille Mathieu Demoiselle D'Orleans

Having my French language stolen from me this song has an especial meaning to me.

Joan the maid calls out to from the past to remind France that it was for France that she Gave her Blood and Liberty.

Mireille Mathieu can be the Edith Piaf of the new millenium.

Brantigny