tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39227902024-02-28T11:28:27.690-05:00SecretAgentMan's DossierThere's a man who leads a life of danger /
To everyone he meets he stays a stranger /
With every move he makes another chance he takes . . .SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.comBlogger451125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-735869894018857692009-12-24T16:08:00.002-05:002009-12-24T16:12:45.027-05:00<b><u>Christmas Proclamation</b></u><br /><center><span style="color:#e42217;"><br />The twenty-fifth day of December.<br /><br />In the five thousand one hundred and ninety-ninth year of the creation of the world from the time when God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth;<br /><br />the two thousand nine hundred and fifty-seventh year after the flood;<br /><br />the two thousand and fifteenth year from the birth of Abraham;<br /><br />the one thousand five hundred and tenth year from Moses and the going forth of the people of Israel from Egypt;<br /><br />the one thousand and thirty-second year from David's being anointed king;<br /><br />in the sixty-fifth week according to the prophecy of Daniel;<br /><br />in the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad;<br /><br />the seven hundred and fifty-second year from the foundation of the city of Rome;<br /><br />the forty second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus;<br /><br />the whole world being at peace,<br /><br />in the sixth age of the world,<br /><br /><strong>Jesus Christ</strong><br /><br />the eternal God and Son of the eternal Father,<br /><br />desiring to sanctify the world by his most merciful coming,<br /><br />being conceived by the Holy Spirit,<br /><br />and nine months having passed since his conception,<br /><br />was born in Bethlehem of Judea of the Virgin Mary, being made flesh.<br /><br />The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.</span></center>SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-4617769067214288062009-12-16T22:55:00.004-05:002009-12-16T23:12:37.827-05:00<u><b>Hell, I Wouldn't Comment Either</u></b><br /><br />Thanks to <a href="http://christopherblosser.blogspot.com/">Christopher Blosser</a> for updating my blog. Unfortunately, though, I have the new-style comment boxes that require fellow blowhards to enter a password and identifier from a menu of omnivorous corporate data hogs.<br /><br />"This blog does not allow anonymous comments. Please enter the RFID number Google has implanted under your skin, your Google password, your Google social security number, Google date of birth, Google bank routing number and tell Google a little about yourself. That's a good minion."<br /><br />When did Google get taken over by Nigerian scammers?<br /><br />"Google is run by Cynthia Okore, wife of the late General Okore. Read General's tragic plane accident here. Google wishes to give you many moneys to distribute to needy causes in your country with commission for yourself. Google's attorneys require the RFID number Google has implanted under your skin, your Google password, your Google social security number, Google date of birth, Google bank routing number and tell Google a little about yourself. Yours in whatever new age fad we have displayed this week."<br /><br />Soon there'll be a voice-recognition comment system run by GoogleSkype, or GoogleAT&T:<br /><br />"Gracias por llamar Google, la localización del Internet para todas sus necesidades de la realidad. Para proceder en español, ahora presione 1."<br /><br />"Mi dankas vin pro vokanta Google, Interreto loko malgrau via realajo bezonas. Se vi volas procedi En Esperanto, gazetaro 2 hodiau."<br /><br />"Thank you for calling Google, the Internet location for all your reality needs. If you wish to proceed in English, press 3 now." <blockquote><i>BEEEE!</i></blockquote>"Thank you for calling Google, the Internet location for all your reality needs. Please enter the twenty-digit RFID number Google has implanted under your skin, followed by the pound sign. <blockquote><i>Beeb-beep-boop-baaa-bee-baaa-buu-breee-haa-baa-hoo-beep-bee-rrrrr-boo-baa-baap-bee-baaa-buu-breee-baaaaa.</i></blockquote>Thank you. You entered the following twenty-digit RFID number 13567235996831644821. If this is correct, press 1 now. <blockquote><i>Beeee.</i></blockquote>Thank you. Please enter your Google password, your Google social security number, Google date of birth, Google bank routing number and tell Google a little about yourself, followed by the pound sign." <blockquote><i>&%&*%*&(#$&*^*&^*(^(*5$%*$*$*$&$$&$&$@@@@</i></blockquote>Google did not understand your last entry. Please try again before we cancel all your credit cards. Enter your Google password, your Google social security number, Google date of birth, Google bank routing number and tell Google a little about yourself, followed by the pound sign."<br /><br />[thirty minutes later]<br /><br />Thank you. Would you like to enroll in GoogleAdvantage, the home appliance use monitoring system? Say yes or no at your own peril. <blockquote><i>NO!</i></blockquote>Thank you. One last question before we begin. Google is updating our RFID technology. Press 1 if the skin on your left wrist begins to itch. We appreciate your cooperation. <blockquote><i>!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111111111111111</i></blockquote>Google did not understand your last entry. Please try again before we show every burglar in the world where your house is vulnerable and when you're not at home. Press 1 if the skin on your left wrist begins to itch. We appreciate your cooperation. <blockquote><i>1</i></blockquote>Thank you. Select your comment from the following options. Please pay attention, as the menu may have changed:<br /><br />To leave a recorded message about Google's outstanding customer service, press 1.<br /><br />To leave a recorded message explaining why you love Google, press 2.<br /><br />To call the blog's author a moron, press 3.<br /><br />To inflate an aside or tangential vague statement in a blog post into the main point of the author's existence and then refute or confirm that existence at length, press 4.<br /><br />To superimpose your own world view on a blog post and identify the author as a Republican or Democrat fascist, press 5.<br /><br />To superimpose your own world view on a blog post and identify the author as a Republican or Democrat communist, press 6.<br /><br />To superimpose your own world view on a blog post and identify the author as a Freemason, press 7.<br /><br />To accuse Google of being a secret world front for Freemasonry because it assigned Freemasonry the number 7, press 8.<br /><br />To call the blog's author a genius, press 9.<br /><br />To complain that the author secretly approves of something terrible and unrelated to his post, press 10.<br /><br />To praise the author for secretly approving of something wonderful and unrelated to his post, press 11.<br /><br />To exploit an unrelated blog post as an opportunity to advertise your own goofy product or service, press 12.<br /><br />To expose the author as one who exalts form over substance, press 13.<br /><br />To expose the author as an indifferentist, press 14.<br /><br />To spend time with a loved one or friend, hang up and dial your operator.<br /><br /><i>Sheesh.</i>SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-83924304086155260602009-12-11T00:01:00.002-05:002009-12-11T00:12:48.226-05:00<u><b>Avatar: Stunningly Bored?</u></b><br /><br />Ohhh . . . it feels good to be a blowhard again. <br /><br />From what I've read, the film is exactly like <i>Titanic</I>, a film of breath-taking garbage, fantastic drivel, beautiful twaddle. As something to get your mind around, <i>Titanic</I> fails on so many levels that you'd need more space than the end-credits to list them. The entire plot follows: Girl from a wealthy family finds love and human meaning by rejecting the ridiculous and barren social prejudices of her class with the help of a lower-class sort of fellow who truly knows about life and the ship sinks. James Cameron could have told the same story while filming the Great Chicago Fire, the Battle of the Bulge, or janitors at Wal-Mart (as to that last, check out <i>Career Opportunities</I> for something that's at least intermittently intelligent).<br /><br />To find out just how bad <i>Titanic</I> is compare it with <i>A Night to Remember</I>, the 1958 classic that's available through the Criterion Collection. <i>ANR</i> is a bit dry and documentary by modern standards, but at least you know why all the action happens on the <i>Titanic</I>. Or compare the 1960 film <i>The Last Voyage</I> about a family trapped on a sinking ocean liner. (By the way, for all the hype about water tanks used to film <i>Titanic</I>, the director of <i>The Last Voyage</i> actually <i>filmed the movie aboard a sinking ocean liner</I>). Like <i>Titanic</I>, the story of <i>The Last Voyage</I> doesn't have to occur on any particular ship. In fact the same story could be set on one of those silly pontoon boats you see on the local man-made lake. But you care about the family, and the film asks a subtle, nagging question -- would <i>you</I> give up trying to save the life of your spouse?<br /><br /><i>Titanic</I>'s story isn't about anything to do with the <i>Titanic</I>, and not even $200 million can make the romance in <i>Lady Chatterly's Lover</I> (or <i>Anna Karenina</I>, <i>The Wild One</I>, <i>Rebel Without a Cause</I>, <i>Breakfast Club</I>, <i>Twilight</I>, every movie shown on the Lifetime Channel, or every book published by Harlequin) fresh or interesting again. It's all right to like the film because of the special effects. I personally loved the spectacle of the great ship. But the hackneyed romance and jejune social commentary eventually had me rooting for the iceberg.<br /><br />From what I read, <i>Avatar</i> is no different. It's a blindingly insightful and surprising story about greedy men from a technologically-advanced society destroying beautiful habitats and native cultures. One of the soldiers who serves the greedy technologically-advanced society falls in love with one of the natives. He begins to appreciate the beauty and dignity of native culture and eventually takes the natives' side against the evil greedy men who are trying to destroy them. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Who could have imagined such a story? Everybody who saw <i>The Return of a Man Called Horse</I>, <i>Superman</I>, <i>Dances With Wolves</I> or <i>The Last Samurai</I>, that's who. <br /><br />I'm sure the special effects are stunning. They'd have to be, wouldn't they. Chris Rock's career wouldn't last very long if all he did was tell chicken-crossing-the-road jokes. Nobody would watch the Superbowl if the teams agreed to use exactly the same plays in the same order as the last Superbowl. But $100 million in special effects can get us interested in a CGI-enhanced chicken or "wardrobe accident." There's just something weird about people eager to hail a barren exercise in story re-telling, like a kid being overjoyed to get the same present as last Christmas because the wrapping paper has more pizazz. Dark speculations about the future of our culture arise, but I won't make them. I'll just say that the Athenians had it better, and Athenian playwrites had it tougher, because there's just so much you can do with a hoist.SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-33332701640271745822009-12-10T17:38:00.002-05:002009-12-10T17:46:31.060-05:00<b><u>Man, this is good!</b></u><br /><br /><i>Sausage Plate</i><br /><br /><u>Ingredients</u><br /><br />Roasting pan (disposable aluminum will do fine).<br /><br />As many garlic cloves as you like.<br /><br />2 TB olive oil<br /><br />2 cans cannellini or great northern beans, drained & rinsed.<br /><br />8 Johnsonville sausages (any style), or 4 Johnsonville and some kielbasa. You can add beef franks if your kids prefer them.<br /><br /><u>Directions</u><br /><br />(1) Preheat oven to 375. Denude garlic cloves. Be sure to cut the tips off -- they can break a tooth. Drizzle the oil in the roasting pan. Prick the sausages and place them and the garlic in the roasting pan. Ignore for 20 minutes.<br /><br />(2) Remove the pan. If necessary, prick the sausages again (sometimes they swell up and close the original holes). Turn the sausages. Put back in the oven. Add the kielbasa and hot dogs, if any. Ignore for 15-20 minutes.<br /><br />(2) Remove the pan. Throw in your beans. Drizzle some more olive oil and stir. Put back in the oven until the beans are hot. Serve.SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-65778693606965779532009-12-10T02:30:00.003-05:002009-12-10T02:58:29.909-05:00<b><u>I Liked this Part</u></b><br /><br />In <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/6768364/Giant-iceberg-heading-for-Australia.html"> this story about a giant iceberg floating toward Austraila:</a><br /><br /><blockquote><i>Dr Young said an iceberg the size of B17B had not been seen so far north since the days when 19th century clipper ships plied the trade route between Britain and Australia.<br /></i></blockquote>Perhaps Dr. Young hasn't checked his emails. The era of clipper ships ended in the 1870s. Giant icebergs are supposed to be a sign of global warming. That's why John the Baptist (a/k/a) Al Gore <a href="http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/04/22/abc-s-20-20-gore-used-fictional-film-clip-inconvenient-truth">used a special-effects clip</a> from the adventure film <i>The Day After</i> to show us how global warming is causing the arctic and antarctic is shelves to melt.<br /><br />Pardon me for being, uh, inconvenient, but why were giant icebergs like this crashing into the sea 150 years ago <i>but not from then until now</i>? <br /><br />Maybe the good folks at the <a href="http://secret-agent.blogspot.com/2009/11/south-southeast-cumbria-peanut-hundreds.html">University of South-Southeast Cumbria's Climate Research Unit</a> could explain this. I'm sure they know a "trick" proving that the greenhouse gas generated by flapping canvas sails during the 19th century is greater than the greenhouse gas produced from then until the 21st century. <br /><br />That would probably be very satisfying to them. It would mean that alternative energy strategies are out. If flapping canvas causes as much global warming as 150 years of industrialization, wind turbines and all the rest of it won't do much good. It would mean that humanity would have to live like actual 19th-Century serfs, something far more pleasing to the new "Wings Over the World" crowd than lording it over virtual 21st-Century serfs.<br /><br />It just amazes me how similar the global-warming crowd looks like the Bushies whipping us up for the invasion of Iraq.SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-28998617607817360402009-12-10T02:27:00.001-05:002009-12-10T02:28:33.643-05:00<b><u>Why?</u></b><br /><br /><a href="http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091209/D9CFVTR01.html">Because Americans can't do anything without their government.</a>SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-55768956632159904602009-11-30T06:47:00.003-05:002009-11-30T06:55:43.216-05:00<strong>This just in . . . </strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.lvrj.com/news/elderly-question-flu-shot-controls-78063362.html">Expensive Old Coot Whines About Federal Healthcare Program</a>SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-86348766986424873182009-11-30T04:10:00.005-05:002009-11-30T06:54:45.682-05:00<u><b>Climatologists Harassed by Hackers</b></u><br /><br />SOUTH SOUTHEAST CUMBRIA (PEANUT) -- Hundreds of alleged private emails and alleged documents allegedly exchanged between some of the world's leading climate scientists during the past 13 years have been stolen by dastardly evil hackers and should be ignored, it emerged today.<br /><br />The computer files were apparently accessed earlier this week from servers at the University of South-Southeast Cumbria’s Climate Research Unit, a world-renowned centre focused on the study of natural and anthropogenic climate change. Rest assured that this crime will not go unavenged.<br /><br />Evil climate change sceptics who have studied the emails allege they provide "smoking gun" that some of the climatologists allegedly colluded in examining data to support the widely-held and incontrovertible view, based on all available evidence, that climate change is real and is being largely caused by Americans.<br /><br />The veracity of the alleged emails has not been confirmed and the scientists allegedly involved have declined to comment on the story, which broke on a blog called The Air Vent.<br /><br />The alleged files, which in total amount to 160MB of alleged data, were first uploaded on to a Russian server, and we all know about the Russians. The alleged emails were accompanied by the anonymous statement: "We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code and documents. Hopefully it will give some insight into the science and the people behind it."<br /><br />A spokesperson for the University of South-Southeast Cumbria said: "We are aware that alleged information from an alleged server used for research information in one area of the university has been made available on public websites. Because of the volume of this alleged information we cannot confirm that all this alleged material is allegedly genuine. This alleged information has been obtained and published in a gross violation of the rights of unknown persons and without our permission, not that we had anything to do with it in the first place, and we took immediate action to remove the server in question from operation, not that there was anything on it in the first place. We are undertaking a thorough internal investigation and have involved the police in this inquiry."<br /><br />In one alleged email, dated November 1999, one alleged scientist wrote: "I've just completed Mike's Nature [the science journal] trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."<br /><br />A second alleged email, dated January, 2001, says, "We should claim that the oceans will boil in the near future. That’ll scare the shit out of ‘em. Where’s my grant? Hee hee."<br /><br />These stray sentences, in particular, have been unfairly quoted by sceptics as evidence of manipulating data, but the credibility of the alleged emails has not been verified. The scientists who allegedly sent them declined to say whether they wrote them.<br /><br />"It does look incriminating on the surface, but there are lots of single sentences that taken out of context can appear incriminating," said P.T. Barnum, director of policy and communications at the Chatham Research Institute on Undisputable Climate Change and the Increasingly-Deadly Environment at the London School of Ergonomics. "You can't tell what they are talking about. Scientists frequently say 'trick' when they mean empirical research. It doesn’t mean deception. It’s just shorthand for rational discourse. I’m tricking you now, don’t you see?"<br /><br />In another alleged email, one of the scientists apparently refers to the death of a prominent climate change sceptic by saying, "That’s the third hit team we’ve sent out. Third time’s the charm, eh? Where’s my grant? Hee hee."<br /><br />Barnum explained, "Scientists often say ‘hit team’ when discussing climatological data, it doesn’t connote anything underhanded. Galileo was persecuted for saying the Earth was a round hit team. That ought to tell you something about the biases of people mis-using these alleged emails."<br /><br />Barnum said that if the alleged emails are emails, they "might highlight behaviour that those individuals might not like to have made public." But he added, "Let's separate out climate scientists reacting badly to personal attacks from America to the idea that their work has been carried out in an inappropriate way."<br /><br />"Many dedicated climate scientists are persecuted on a daily basis by America," Barnum explained. "They undergo harassment by Americans asking questions about their data and by other Americans who second-guess their methods and conclusions. It’s not uncommon for climatologists to adapt by pretending their research is fraudulent."<br /><br />The revelations did not alter the vast, huge, undeniable body of uncontroverted evidence from every scientific field proving that modern climate change is caused largely by America, Barnum said. The emails refer largely to work on so-called paleoclimate data - reconstructing past climate scenarios using data such as ice cores, dice and tree rings. "Climate change is based on several lines of evidence, not just change in climate," he said. "At the heart of this is basic physics. Things get hot. That’s basic physics."<br /><br />Barnum pointed out that the individuals named in the alleged emails had numerous publications in scientific journals that had been peer-reviewed by other individuals named in the alleged emails. "It would be very surprising if after all this time, suddenly they were found out doing something as wrong as that."<br /><br />Barnum noted that the "Piltdown Man" hoax, perpetrated by archaeologists to boost their reputations by proving evolution, was fully exposed in 41 years. "We’re very quick to catch hoaxes," Barnum said, "That’s why it’s vital that our findings be enshrined in international law this very instant."<br /><br />Professor Zoon Mundley, director of Caton-on-Hoy-Tilsworth University's Earth System Science Centre to Protect Mankind from America, and a regular contributor to the popular climate science blog "Undisputable Evidence So Don’t Bother Arguing You Corporate Tool Jackass," features in many of the email exchanges. He said: "I'm not going to comment on the alleged content of illegally obtained alleged emails. However, I will say this: both their theft and, I believe, any reading of the emails constitutes serious criminal activity. I'm hoping the perpetrators and anyone who’s read these emails will be tracked down and prosecuted to the fullest extent the law allows for stealing something that doesn’t exist or belong to anyone. Preferably they will encounter tricks by round hit teams."<br /><br />When Peanut asked Professor Tee Wanker, at UEA, who features in the correspondence, to verify whether the emails were genuine, he refused to comment. "I will say this, however: These alleged emails were the personal private property of someone, and the people who stole them and anyone who reads them should be killed. And their little dogs, too. It’s despicable that emails which no one wrote are now publicly available on the internet."<br /><br />The alleged emails illustrate the persistent harassment some climatologists have been under from Americans in recent years. There have been repeated calls, including Freedom of Information requests, for the Climate Research Unit to make public a top-secret, confidential dataset of land and sea temperature "tricks" that are "value added" before being released to the public and reported as absolute truth. The emails show the frustration some climatologists have had at having to operate under such intense American harassment.<br /><br />Professor Loo Lee Watson, the chief scientific advisor at the Department for Protecting the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from America said, "Evidence for climate change is irrefutable. It cannot be refuted. It must not be refuted. The world's leading scientists overwhelmingly agree what we're experiencing is caused by America."<br /><br />"With this overwhelming scientific body of evidence, which cannot be questioned by anyone, failing to take action to beat down America and her evil corporate minions would be criminal – the impacts here in Britain and across the world will worsen and the economic consequences will be catastrophic. Pick anything you hold dear, and it will be destroyed. Puppies! Yes, that's it -- puppies will be destroyed!"<br /><br />A spokesman for Leanpeace said: "If you looked through any organisation's emails from the last 10 years you'd find something that would raise a few eyebrows. You certainly would in our case. Contrary to what America claims, the Royal Society, the US National Academy of Sciences, NASA and the world's leading atmospheric scientists are not the agents of a clandestine global movement against the truth. Not that the emails suggest that they are, of course."SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-82793855655027754872009-11-21T10:36:00.001-05:002009-11-21T10:37:48.097-05:002x2l calling CQ . . . . .<br /><br />2x2l calling CQ . . . . .<br /><br />2X2L calling CQ . . . . New York<br /><br />Isn't there anyone on the air?<br /><br />Isn't there anyone . . .SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-1149564883233233272006-06-05T23:34:00.000-04:002006-06-05T23:34:43.246-04:00<u><b>Sorry I Haven't Been Around</u></b><br /><br />Many projects and things are consuming more of my time than I anticipated. But when I saw <i>this</i>, I had to blog it: <u><a href="http://www.miguelcaballero.com/">Miguel Caballero's Bullet-Proof Clothing.</a></u> Check it out! Browse through the "classic" fashions, or take a walk on the wild side with their Gold and Platinum lines of bulletproof suits, overcoats, and jackets. They even have (I'm not kidding) a fashion show complete with catwalk (or is that "arcade gallery"?). I'm tellin' ya, it's Versace meets David Cronenberg!<br /><br />It makes me wonder -- will <u><a href="http://www.slabbinck.be/">Slabbinck</a></u> come out with a "Turbulent Priest" line of vestments? How about an NIJ-certified Level III Gothic Chasuble, with removable trauma plate? Or a NATO-spec Kevlar miter?SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-1147707046538564322006-05-15T11:24:00.000-04:002006-05-15T11:32:01.660-04:00<u><b>Why I'm Not Blogging Much &<br />Menu Review, and New Menu May 15 - May 20, 2006</B></u><br /><br />I'm not blogging much because I had a trial set to begin tomorrow. My client was charged with two counts of felony intimidation, one count of felony possession of a handgun (it's not a felony to have a handgun, unless you have a prior criminal record), one count of serious violent felon in possession of a handgun, and an habitual-offender affidavit due to prior convictions. He was looking at 75 years. Now he's looking at doing 4 years, and I shall resist the temptation to crow and prance. It was good lawyering. Here's the reviews from last week's menu, and this week's menu. Hopefully I can get back to some more serious blogging, by finishing some of the 20+ half-finished blogs I have in my computer!<br /><br /><u>Monday</u><blockquote>Pork Medallions in Dijon Cream Sauce<br />Apple Harvest Rice<br />Salad<br />Rolls<blockquote><i>Review: The pork was very good. The sauce would be excellent on Eggs Benedict, or some kind of egg-and-cheese quiche. The Apple Harvest Rice was a bit too moist for my taste. I like my rice dishes crumbly and dry or, at most, sticky. This wasn't a rissotto, but you could see risotto on the map from where it was.</i></blockquote></blockquote><br /><br /><u>Tuesday</u><blockquote>Grilled Sausages<br />Roasted Vegetables<br />Salad<br />Rolls<blockquote><i>I don't know that I "roasted" these vegetables. I wanted to use a metal roasting pan, which we ended up not having. So I put them into 9x13 pyrex baking pans and decided to pretend that I roasted them. I found some good vegetables, so I ended up using celery, carrots, leeks, eggplant, fennel, zucchini and summer squash. The fennel was a surprise find, and it had all the fronds on it. So I spent a few minutes chasing Hannah around the kitchen with the monster fennel. I cut ‘em up (the vegetables), mixed ‘em in a bowl with some olive oil, oregano, salt and pepper. They came out really well and I ate my fill. I love vegetables. The sausage was hot Johnsonville Italian style, which we all like. I cooked that with my patented Midwestern-Electric-Stovetop-Wok method.<br /><br />The vegetable thing is really useful to have learned. It's got endless possibilities. (See below). For example, adding some chopped tomatoes would be really good. So would new potatoes. Or when it's finished you could add some sun-dried tomatoes. It would go with any land meat -- pork, sausage, beef, or chicken.</i></blockquote></blockquote><br /><br /><u>Wednesday</u><blockquote>Steak<br />Spinach Squares<br />Mashed Potatoes<br />Salad<blockquote><i>Review: I didn't make this. Due to time constraints I went "off menu." I sliced the steak into strips and pan-cooked it with some butter, salt, and pepper. I boiled some penne while I was doing that. When I was finished, I stirred the beef into the leftover roasted vegetables with some mozzarella cheese and butter. It was really good. It would make a good salad-type dish too.</i></blockquote></blockquote><br /><br /><u>Thursday</u><blockquote>Tortellini with Roasted Vegetables<br />Salad<br />Italian bread<blockquote><i>Review: Everybody was sick of roasted vegetables by this time, so we just had the tortellini. Standard store-bought stuff. It's good the way pasta is always good.</i></blockquote></blockquote><br /><br /><u>Friday</u><blockquote>Italian Beef Cutlets<br />Salad<br />Fettucini with Butter-Parsley-Parmesan Sauce<br />Italian Bread<blockquote><i>Review: Bad recipe. You bread the beef cutlets and bake them in the oven. Of course (as I know now) when you do that, the juices leave the beef and wet the breading, and I ended up with baked sirloin couched in tomato sauce, each cutlet covered in its own little package of tan mush. Fettucini with butter and parsley and parmesan isn't susceptible to being screwed up. The tomato sauce was interesting and I might keep that recipe for my pasta sauce "book." But otherwise this was a waste of good steak.</i></blockquote></blockquote><br /><br /><b><u>Menu for 5/15 - 5/20</b></u><br /><br /><u>Monday</u><blockquote>Club sandwiches<br />French fries<br />Salad</blockquote><br /><br /><u>Tuesday</u><blockquote>Sausage Alfredo Lasagna<br />Salad<br />Italian bread.</blockquote><br /><br /><u>Wednesday</u><blockquote>Cornflake Chicken<br />Mashed Potatoes<br />Green Beans<br />Rolls<br />Salad</blockquote><br /><br /><u>Thursday</u><blockquote>Steak<br />Roasted Asparagus<br />New Potatoes with Horseradish-Dijon sauce<br />Rolls<br />Salad</blockquote><br /><br /><u>Friday</u><blockquote>Deep Dish Pizza<br />Salad</blockquote>SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-1146360884272618442006-04-29T21:34:00.000-04:002006-04-29T21:34:44.286-04:00<u><b>Menu, April 30 - May 5, 2006</B></u><br /><br /><u>Monday</u><blockquote>Pork Medallions in Dijon Cream Sauce<br />Apple Harvest Rice<br />Salad<br />Rolls</blockquote><br /><br /><u>Tuesday</u><blockquote>Grilled Sausages<br />Roasted Vegetables<br />Salad<br />Rolls</blockquote><br /><br /><u>Wednesday</u><blockquote>Steak<br />Spinach Squares<br />Mashed Potatoes<br />Salad</blockquote><br /><br /><u>Thursday</u><blockquote>Tortellini with Roasted Vegetables<br />Salad<br />Italian bread</blockquote><br /><br /><u>Friday</u><blockquote>Italian Beef Cutlets<br />Salad<br />Fettucini with Butter-Parsley-Parmesan Sauce<br />Italian Bread</blockquote>SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-1146108688267107872006-04-26T23:30:00.000-04:002006-04-27T11:50:03.126-04:00<b><u>Leadership Bowl: Post-Game Wrap</b></u><br /><br />Thanks to everyone who commented on the <u><a href="http://secret-agent.blogspot.com/2006/04/leadership-bowl-results-monarchy-7.html">Leadership Bowl</a></u> post. Art Deco made some good comments, which I'll address here with some additional observations. That'll serve as the post-game wrap. Art's words in blue, mine in black.<br /><br /><font color=blue>1. Is there any evidence that Mr. Gore was aware that he was assigned a bodyguard?</font color><br /><br />There is no evidence that Mr. Gore thought the armed fellows who hovered around him were anything besides combat photographers who didn't use cameras.<br /><br /><font color=blue>2. Is it your contention that Mr. Gore should have been expected to be an enthusiast for patriotic sacrifice in combat given that at the time he entered the military the withdrawal of American troops for reasons-of-state ("getting out as a matter of policy and not as a matter of defeat" is how Henry Kissinger put it retrospectively) was the stated government policy?</font color><br /><br />No, that is not my contention. <br /><br /><font color=blue>3. Most of Mr. Kerry's compatriots in the Mekong Delta appear to have been unimpressed with him, there are indications that he was visibly upset at being told of this posting, the lily of his service may have been gilded, and he has likely lied about aspects of it in the telling, but he remains nevertheless one of a small minority (~3% perhaps) of those men born during the years running from 1939-54 who did spend time in a combat zone. Can we give him credit for that?</font color><br /><br />Yes, we can, because in my view he came out of the Vietnam era with far more moral credit than George Bush. At least John went to where the North Vietnamese army could shoot at him and where, in fact, they did shoot at him. The impression I got of John Kerry from the Swift Boat website is that he was a more timid, brass-plated version of Winston Churchill, who also used military exploits and connections to further his own career. But John Kerry didn't participate in one of the last cavalry charges in military history, and he didn't spend a year in or near the trenches commanding a regiment on the Western Front. And try as I might, I can't see John Kerry giving and understanding the "blood toil and tears" speech. So that's why I gave democracy the field goal, but not a touchdown.<br /><br /><font color=blue>4. If physical cowardice is one of Mr. Bush's faults, why would he volunteer for service in a National Guard unit where he would be learning to fly fighter planes (of a model with, by some accounts, a poor safety record) and of which some members were in fact posted to Indochina? (Please try to avoid stereotyped answers like, "because he was stupid").</font color><br /><br />To the contrary, Bush's choice (like all self-interested choices) was very shrewd. He had the lowest possible score on the aptitude test for pilot training. He rightly concluded that, as the son of a sitting Texas congressman, he would have a better chance of selection for pilot duty in the Texas Air National Guard ("TANG") than the U.S. Air Force. I note that TANG F-102 pilots could participate in a program that rotated them to fly in Vietnam. They needed 500 hours of flight experience. During his four years with the TANG, Bush accumulated over 600 hours of flight time -- but only 278 in the F-102. The 278-hour figure includes time spent in the F-102's training-seat variant. Bush joined the ANG because the alternatives were (a) a chance that he'd go straight to combat in Vietnam, or (b) having a record that shows strings were pulled to keep him from having a chance at going straight to combat in Vietnam. <br /><br />The temptation at this point is to try changing the debate into whether Vietnam-era Guardsmen are cowards. It's a question I won't dignify with an answer (not that Art's asking it, but others might) because it's got nothing to do with the problem I have with George Bush. I know a few Vietnam-era guardsmen, and I'm related to one. Had I been 18 in 1966 I might have joined the Guard myself. I don't have problems with men who want to live in solidarity with a community which lets them remove, or greatly reduce, the chances of fighting in a terrible and witless war. But I would start having problems with them if they wanted to be War Chieftains, fighter-jock presidents doing a carrier landing under a banner that says "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" and doesn't say "BY OTHER GUYS AT SOME UNDETERMINED POINT IN THE FUTURE." <br /><br />Yes, and Art's right to point it out, that the quotations from Bush, Kerry and Gore are my own inventions. They're like the last words famously attributed to the Old Guard at Waterloo. History records them as, "The Old Guard dies, but never surrenders!" In fact, the reply to Wellington's surrender offer was <i>Merde!</I>. But the reality and the invention convey the same meaning, and while I don't pretend to have a running transcript of Bush, Clinton, and Gore's speech during the years involved, I think there's enough accuracy in them to absolve me of slander. There is a common trait that binds these men, although it binds Kerry less than the others.<br /><br />The common trait isn't what we usually mean by "physical cowardice." In my view, "physical cowardice" can refer to villainy, but it can also embrace the ordinary and healthy reaction of any human being to the prospect of fighting in a war. I should be very nervous and unhappy if, finding myself in a military unit, I realized that my commanding officer were incapable of experiencing any trepidation whatsoever at the prospect of injury or death, and wished only to cover himself and my corpse with glory. I should instead like my commanding officer to wish, with at least some sincerity, that he didn't have to issue orders requiring me or anyone else suffer or die before he goes ahead and issues those orders anyway because they are militarily necessary. In that regard, I would not expect to find that my officer was omniscient, or demand from him a guarantee of success, before obeying. War is fighting, fighting means killing, and killing means dying. Bush, Clinton and Gore aren't odious because they chose not to risk death on the battlefield. <br /><br />The disturbing thing about their choices, the common trait, is not the existence of "physical cowardice." Each of them made the decision that their lives were too valuable, too full of prospect, to be submitted to the outrageous fortunes of combat. Fair enough, perhaps, for a private citizen in a modern state. But it would take a deliberately-enforced naivete to conclude that Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and George Bush were merely private citizens who intended to live quiet lives. They were set on political success, on advancement to positions of leadership, from their early adulthood. While Bill Clinton's ambition was the most obvious, Bush and Gore ran for congress within five years of leaving their military posts. I don't mind the desire for private life or ambition for public office. I mind the idea that a man following the first path should incur no greater risk of harm or suffering than a man who follows the second. <br /><br />I have no quarrel with men who absent themselves from war, or combat in war, due to reasons of conscience clearly stated so long as they take their lumps in the public arena. That is crucial, for an individual conscience is worthy of respect only to the extent it's honestly directed at the right ordering of society. The acid test of that direction is a man's willingness to suffer at the hands of the community whose right ordering he supposedly desires. Christ took that test, and passed it, not least because He wanted to show us how necessary and expensive a conscience can be. So we should judge Eugene Debs an honorable man, whether or not we think he was right to oppose World War I, because Debs went to jail for opposing it. <br /><br />Clinton, Gore, Bush -- they didn't take that test. From what I know of their lives, it seems they were oblivious to the whole matter or, at best, regarded it as a nuisance to be negotiated by dodges that would make a tax lawyer blush. And it is not right, it is not fitting, for men in government to have shaped their characters on the idea that service depends on the absence of risk and one's individual preferences. Bush and Gore didn't join merely to avoid serving in a war. They, like Kerry, also joined for the political eclat that comes with having served in wartime. Bush, Clinton and Gore wanted high office, they wanted to lead, but they wanted it cheap. These men didn't serve. They postured. Clinton, Gore and Bush are worse than other men, not because their souls blinked, but because they wanted to be chieftains without suffering for the people.<br /><br />There are signs that the British are perilously close to the Gore/Bush mark. One of them is that bit of Clarence House nattering about the Prince's presence in combat creating "an additional risk to those he commands or himself." I don't know how many British soldiers want to "hold their manhoods cheap" but apparently someone at Clarence House thinks there are more than a few. Assuming the British won't degrade Prince Harry by a "photo op" tour of duty, he will be going where his countrymen are fighting, and dying, because the royal family must suffer for the people. That is a deep truth of human community and a law of leadership. Three of our last five presidential candidates neither learned nor obeyed it, although they didn't mind other men doing so in the Delta, Sarajevo, the Mog, and Fallujah. <br /><br />So Democracy gets a field goal for Kerry. Put Bob Dole on the field and the score's 10-7 against monarchy. But the season of Dole's glory has been long over. Perhaps it will begin again, when the country can value the obedience and service of more recent veterans.SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-1145846188803092352006-04-23T22:30:00.000-04:002006-04-23T22:36:28.813-04:00<b><u>Leadership Bowl Results: Monarchy 7, Democracy 3</b></u><br /><br />Prince Harry: <u><a href="http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18908670-401,00.html?from=rss">"If I am not allowed to join my unit in a war zone, I will hand in my uniform."</a></u><br /><br />Prince Andrew: <u><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1463979.stm">"The funny part is, that if this works, the missle will hit <i>me</i>!</a></u><br /><br />George Bush: "I ain't goin' to no war and git shot et."<br /><br />John Kerry: "I wonder if I can hit the White House from here."<br /><br />Al Gore: "Move a little to the right . . . no, don't look at my bodyguard . . . that's it, now say Cheese!"<br /><br />Bill Clinton: "I am writing this too in the hope that . . . [it] will help you understand more clearly how so many fine people have come to find themselves . . . loathing the military . . .."SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-1145218935763747352006-04-16T16:19:00.000-04:002006-04-16T16:22:15.773-04:00<b><u>Now the Green Blade Rises, Alleluia!</u></b><br /><br />Now the green blade rises<br />from the buried gain,<br />wheat that in dark earth<br />many days has lain;<br />love lives again,<br />that with the dead has been:<br />Love is come again like wheat that springs up green.<br /><br />In the grave they laid Him,<br />Love whom hate had slain,<br />thinking that never<br />He would wake again,<br />laid in the earth<br />like grain that sleeps unseen:<br />Love is come again like wheat that springs up green.<br /><br />Forth He came in quiet,<br />like the risen grain,<br />He that for three days<br />in the grave had lain,<br />quick from the dead<br />the risen Christ is seen:<br />Love is come again like wheat that springs up green.<br /><br />When our hearts are wintry,<br />grieving, or in pain,<br />Christ's touch can call us<br />back to life again,<br />fields of our hearts<br />that dead and bare have been:<br />Love is come again like wheat that springs up green.SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-1144429998380941422006-04-07T13:12:00.000-04:002006-04-07T13:19:59.166-04:00<u><b>Justice of the Petard Sort</u></b><br /><br />From today's headlines: <u><a href="http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1218040,00.html">Multimillion-selling author Dan Brown has won his court case against two authors who claim he copied their ideas.</a></u> Well, of course he did. And that's only just.<br /><br />Everyone knows that Brown was sued by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, authors of the hack work <i>Holy Blood, Holy Grail</i>, who claimed Brown borrowed their ideas for his hack novel, <i>The Davinci Code.</i> Both hack jobs claim that Jesus didn't die and rise from the dead, that He shacked up with Mary Magdalene somewhere in Gaul (now France), and that the whole thing is being covered up by ominously-portrayed Catholic organizations like the Vatican, the Knights Templar and Opus Dei. If that's not funny enough, here's another . . . .<br /><br />The main reason I think Baigent and Leigh lost is that they claimed to be telling the truth. In their wacked-out universe, <i>Holy Blood, Holy Grail</i> isn't an airport-rack potboiler, it's a monument to accuracy and diligent investigation. It's history. That's why they lost.<br /><br />If <i>Holy Blood, Holy Grail</i> is history, that means <i>The DaVinci Code</i> is historical fiction. Baigent and Leigh don't have any more reason to sue Brown for plagiarism than Shelby Foote, who wrote a history of the War Between the States, would have had to sue Michael Shaara for his novel about Gettysburg.<br /><br />Too bad Baigent and Leigh didn't admit <i>Holy Blood, Holy Grail</i> is really just a comic book without the pictures, a bad practical joke they played on everyone without a brain or the education required to use one. They might have scored some bucks. While an author like Brown can't plagiarize history, he can plagiarize a silly little made-up story. Pride goeth before a fall, or a goose-egg verdict, as the case may be.SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-1144358488850550552006-04-06T17:20:00.000-04:002006-04-07T10:28:24.866-04:00<u><b>Scientific Debunking of Biblical Truth: It's All About Eve</u></b><br /><br />Courtesy of <u><a href="http://moderncommentaries.blogspot.com/2006/04/no-bias.html">Amy Pawlak's blog</a></u>, I read <u><a href="http://www.physorg.com/news63367761.html">this story</a></u> about scientists questioning the miracle of Jesus walking on water. It wasn't miraculous, just "a brief blast of frigid air" that freakishly "descended over the lake" and created a miniature ice floe for our Lord to walk upon. <br /><br />First, there's the odd mental route by which scientific speculation on freak weather conditions instantly and logically leads to challenging the concept of divine intervention in human events. I have no quarrel with scientists studying "spring ice," as I have no quarrel with them studying ways to make Exxon another billion dollars. But is there a reason why the study of this natural phenomenon must suddenly, in what one must call a rather whimsical fashion, focus on the more sensational question of whether Jesus actually walked on water? <br /><br />There are reasons, but I'm not sure they flow from the pure springs of scientific probity. If I were a scientist at a state university, I'd prefer the general (and tax-paying) public to think of my work in terms of startling blows against superstition rather than Nietzsche's proverbial scholar, who spends his entire life studying the brain structure of a leech. It's easy to understand why Dr. Nof wants to get his work next to Scripture. Like Eve Harrington and Margot Channing, proximity to a famous subject gets one a lot closer to the center of attention.<br /><br />Sure enough, "this isn't the first time the FSU researcher has offered scientific explanations of watery miracles. As a recognized expert in the field of oceanography and limnology -- the study of freshwater, saline and brackish environments -- Nof made waves worldwide in 1992 with his oceanographic perspective on the parting of the Red Sea." Science loves patterns, and this is beginning to seem very scientific indeed. Would you like another martini, Miss Channing?<br /><br />But showing off is a motive unworthy of scientists, whose stock in trade is the image of disinterested objectivity, not "ring and run" silliness. And so Dr. Nof finds himself dug into the last refuge of the academic, the notion of ideas without consequences:<blockquote>"As natural scientists, we simply explain that unique freezing processes probably happened in that region only a handful of times during the last 12,000 years," Nof said. "We leave to others the question of whether or not our research explains the biblical account."</blockquote>Let's not mention that the biblical account has Jesus walking on water "<i>tossed with waves</i>." (Matthew 14:24). That's got to be pretty thick ice, to form on a storm-tossed lake. But if Scripture is just a bunch of fairy tales, the detail need not delay us from fetching Miss Channing a cigarette.<br /><br />"As scientists, we simply explain the unlikelihood of a child with blond hair being born into a family with dark hair. We leave to the child's father the question of whether his son is a bastard." Only people with a profound lack of respect for the subject of an opinion would consider such a trite explanation worthwhile. That this attitude would prevail on such an immense and varied phenomenon like Christianity suggests some unexamined and unworthy bias. <br /><br />"As historians, we simply explain the evidence suggesting that what people call "the Holocaust" might have been an exaggerated outbreak of cholera. We leave to others the question of whether or not our research explains Anne Frank's Diary." Some subjects are simply beyond this type of flippancy.<br /><br />When I wasn't a Christian, I knew lots of people who relegated Christianity to a light and flimsy place in human thought. Eventually it struck me that they behaved like people who live with a terrifying secret. They were ready, even eager, to accept any explanation so long as it kept them from opening that dreaded door. I found that "anti-witness" very intriguing. <br /><br />In the large spectrum of American life, I noticed, one could be anything, anything at all, so long as one didn't subscribe to Christianity. If one did that, one was simultaneously cast as unethical and a mindless prude, a gullible nitwit and the instrument of malevolent genius, an oblivious fantasist and a scheming opportunist. There was no pejorative opinion that couldn't be applied to Christianity, and the fact that Christianity could get hippies and Nazis on the same side of an argument suggested more about <i>their</i> absurdity than the alleged foolishness of the Cross.<br /><br />I also noticed the odd power of debunking exposes to persuade me in the opposite direction. "So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship: and they were afraid." John 6:19 (KJV). Dr. Nof posits something that happened "only a handful of times in the last 12,000 years" at the exact time Jesus decided to go out on the lake and meet the disciples. Not only that, but the freak ice managed to form in the exact spot lying between the shore where Jesus embarked and the point to which the disciples eventually rowed their boat. Further, the disciples had no idea where this ice floe ended -- they rowed to the spot <i>before</i> they saw Jesus. "Hey, guys, it's really stormy -- why don't we row toward the ice floe?"<br /><br />Even the FSU publicist is forced to admit, "Such a perfect combination of conditions . . . might well seem miraculous." Until, that is, the press release tells us that Dr. Nof's research indicates our Lord was something of a one-man ice age:<blockquote>In the last 120 centuries, Nof calculates the odds [of freak ice happening] as roughly once in 1,000 years. However, during the life of Jesus the prevailing climate may have favored the more frequent formation of springs ice -- about once in 30 to 160 years."</blockquote>Those odds may qualify as boring to FSU researches, but they strike me as every bit as amazing as the longer figure. <br /><br />Besides, why are we doing this in years? Dr. Nof doesn't say it takes years for freak ice to form. In fact, given his description of the event, I think it's safe to assume a six-hour window. Thirty years is 10,950 days. 10,950 days is 43,800 six-hour slots. A chance of one in 43,800? Throw in the timing of the ice to match the human choices involved (the disciples choosing to row, Jesus choosing to go out on the water) and the odds become considerably more than even the "long shot" figure of once per millennium.<br /><br />Perhaps I didn't (and still don't) have enough theology to appreciate the concern, but arguments like that never persuaded me to think that Christianity was in danger of contradiction. If anything, they persuaded me in the opposite direction. When I encountered this kind of "debunking," I thought it would be tremendous if Someone was actually <i>managing</i> all that, and doing it rather effortlessly to boot: The records available to us don't mention anything about a "History Do-Over" button (although in fairness it should be noted that FSU's history department has yet to be heard from). If naturalistic speculations like these are true, the events they describe seem like an amazingly intricate, incredibly elegant dance of God, man, and creation, one set within a larger dance of human continuity that makes the event meaningful and significant today. <br /><br />What are the odds of that "freak occurrence"? Before I believed, it seemed people who accepted the "completely random" perspective on the universe, as against the "intelligent design" perspective, eventually swallowed such an incredible number of "chances," and employed such a vast fund of "just-so stories" to shore it all up, as to make believing in the Virgin Birth seem like a humble exercise in common sense.<br /><br />Some "naturalistic" explanations of Biblical miracles are just plain ridiculous. Others aren't. Assuming this is the latter kind, I don't mind if the world wants to go "hee hee" and give Dr. Nof the Sarah Siddons Award for Tweaking Christian Noses. You can't believe in God without thinking hard about things, and Dr. Nof's research is as good a place to start as any.SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-1143570693425342882006-03-28T13:25:00.000-05:002006-03-28T13:31:33.436-05:00<b><u>Stephen and the Hand Family: Catholic Witness</u></b><br /><br />From Mr. Hand's website via <u><a href="http://www.ratzingerfanclub.com/blog/2006/03/urgent-prayer-request-jeremy-hand.html">Against the Grain</a></u>:<blockquote><u><a href="http://www.tcrnews2.com/Jeremy.html">We will be informing the hospital that while we approve the removing of all artificial life support sometime after Jeremy's pneumonia has cleared, we cannot ever approve any interruption or removal of a feeding tube which provides for the ordinary maintenance of life (the unity of body and soul). Thank you so very much for the caring of so many who wrote to help us work through these issues. Especially to my sometime sparring partners on the war and some other issues who rushed to help showing what beautiful men and women they are, sisters and brothers in Christ. And especially thank you for your prayers which Jeremy and we still need. I'll try to move on with TCR now as time permits.</a></u></blockquote><br /><br />God bless them all. Let's offer some prayers for Jeremy's miraculous recovery.<br /><br />Our Father, who art in Heaven<br />Hallowed be Thy name,<br />Thy kindgom come,<br />Thy will be done<br />on Earth as it is in Heaven<br />Give us this day our daily bread<br />and forgive us our trespasses<br />as we forgive those who trespass against us<br />and lead us not into temptation<br />but deliver us from evil. Amen. . . .SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-1143302893884085942006-03-25T11:05:00.000-05:002006-03-25T11:08:13.896-05:00<b><u>My Computer is Down</b></u><br /><br />The home computer I use for blogging is down. Two nights ago the monitor made a loud popping sound and stopped working. I think that means the video tube's burned out. I know it means I can't see anything. Right now there are two possible solutions: (1) Buy a brand-new computer and get divorced, or (2) something else. I think I'll go with something else. When I find out what it is, I'll let you know. Until then, there will be light or no blogging since I can't access the fifteen half-written blogs in my computer.SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-1142958923371686782006-03-21T11:35:00.000-05:002006-03-21T11:37:36.873-05:00<u><b>Belated Blogburst for Terri</u></b><br /><br />I was asked, along with many others who blogged about the judicial murder of Terri Schaivo, to remember her death with a blog post. Herewith my "salient" posts on the matter, which explain what her case meant in my view:<blockquote>March 31, 2005: <u><a href="http://secret-agent.blogspot.com/2005/03/mind-reels-as-everyone-knows-terri.html">The Mind Reels</a></u><br /><br />March 25, 2005: <u><a href="http://secret-agent.blogspot.com/2005/03/due-processing-terris-death-nb-updated.html">Due-Processing Terri's Death</a></u><br /><br />March 23, 2005: <u><a href="http://secret-agent.blogspot.com/2005/03/disgusting-theyre-arresting-child-who.html">Disgusting. </a></u><br /><br />March 22, 2005: <u><a href="http://secret-agent.blogspot.com/2005/03/brickbats-from-leftist-nationalizers.html">Brickbats from the Leftist Nationalizers</a></u><br /><br />March 21, 2005: <u><a href="http://secret-agent.blogspot.com/2005/03/lies-damn-lies-and-federalism-caving.html">Lies, Damn Lies, and Federalism</a></u><br /><br />April 18, 2005: <u><a href="http://secret-agent.blogspot.com/2005/04/more-blogging-for-now-some-drudgery.html">More Blogging; for Now, Some Drudgery</a></u><br /><br />October 27, 2003: <u><a href="http://secret-agent.blogspot.com/2003/10/note-to-jack-cade-first-thing-we-do-is.html">A Note to Jack Cade: The First Thing We Do, Is Keep Lawyers In Perspective</a></u></blockquote>SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-1142906684131017132006-03-20T21:04:00.000-05:002006-03-20T21:04:44.143-05:00<u><b>Prayer Request</u></b><br /><br />Received via email:<blockquote>Monday. The next 24-36 hours will be critical if my son, 28, is to avoid being designated "brain dead," or impaired which God forbid. Should he awake, even partially, it will remain to be seen what if any long term damage was done. Thank you for your prayers. He apparently vomited in his sleep, deep into the night after St. Patrick's day dinner with us and other visits with other friends Friday; it went into his lungs, causing a heart attack and depriving his brain of oxygen, causing also pneumonia, kidney failure, etc. His state was not discovered until the next day at 1 PM by my daughter who had stayed over at his apartment for the night. Previously she thought he was just sleeping. When she finally tried to stir him his lips were blue. His kidneys have rebounded somewhat but no improvement yet in the "higher functions of the brain" affecting coma. The question is how long his brain was deprived of oxygen. Needless to say our hearts are broken. He had just returned most sincerely to the Church, and our hearts were warmed Friday when he was the one who asked us to make sure we prayed together before St. Patrick's day supper. Is it possible he had too much alcohol after he left here? Yes. With his other friends we do not know. He only had a Guinness when with us. Some prescription drugs were found in his system. He was not depressed, but had been treated for an anxiety disorder. Quite to the contrary of depression; he spoke in joy about his new girlfriend and his future at work (he is an engineer). ---Stephen Hand </blockquote>SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-1142875766127318912006-03-20T12:28:00.000-05:002006-03-20T12:29:26.143-05:00<u><b>The French: C'est Stupide</u></b><br /><br /><u><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4812132.stm">Here's a story about French youths protesting new laws that would make it easier to hire and fire young workers. "Slave labour by the back door!" they cry, "If you take away our security, you'll pay!" On the Damoclean sword of at-will employment, one student adds, "You can't live with a knife at your throat."</a></u><br /><br /><u><a href="http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2006-03-20T163503Z_01_N20258421_RTRUKOC_0_US-ECONOMY-JOBS.xml&rpc=22">And here's a story about the eevil United States, a country where at-will employment terrorism has run amok, resulting in almost full employment. "We are approaching full employment and some employers are already dreaming up perks to attract the best talent," say tyrants.</a></u><br /><br />It's true I don't like a lot of things about American-style economics. But one of the good things that contribute to the greatness of American life is this iron rule -- if you don't invest yourself in what you're good at, your life and career quickly deteriorate into a series of short, sharp shocks. <br /><br />So here's a note to the French: Stop being so frightened of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. There was a time when you guys conquered Europe. There was a time (hell, more than one) when y'all were the intellectual leaders of the world. "If you take away our security, you'll pay," was not the motto of France in those days.SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-1142749034201996562006-03-19T01:16:00.000-05:002006-03-19T01:21:32.136-05:00<u><b>Helpful Suggestions for Police Officers</u></b><br /><br />With full recognition that there's another side to this story, I offer these tips to police about how to be obnoxious, pompous, and almost guaranteed to be taken to court on a ticket, treated to a screaming fit, or physically attacked by a stopped driver. These techniques were observed first-hand by me while serving as a police offier, and also gleaned from police reports as an attorney:<blockquote>-- Use patronizing terms like, "Buddy" or "Hon" when speaking to the subject.<br /><br />-- Deliver pompous and overblown lectures to the effect that anyone who does 53 in a 45 on a long stretch of speed-trap tarmac is a disgusting specimen of pseudo-parent who doesn't deserve to raise children.<br /><br />-- Follow the subject's car for two to three miles and then hit him with the lights and sirens when he turns into his own driveway.<br /><br />-- It's good officer safety to put your hand on or near the butt of your firearm when approaching a stopped car. It's ridiculous and offensive to keep it there through the whole stop without cause. If you can't tell whether you're in a threatening environment while you're going through all the motions of contacting the driver, returning to your cruiser to check license and registration with Dispatch, returning to the car, talking to the driver again, writing him a ticket, and then having him sign for the ticket, well, you probably ought'nt to have a gun in the first place.<br /><br />-- Deal with a driver's raised or exasperated voice by ostentatiously calling for "backup" for the sole and express purpose, not of serving your legitimate concerns for safety, but of intimidating the driver into being "nice." <br /><br />-- Make the driver get out of his car. Tell him you're giving him a warning, not a ticket. Then tell him you don't think he's being appreciative enough, and maybe he hasn't learned his lesson.<br /><br />-- When there's no manhunt or amber alert, act like you're doing a scene from <i>Hotel Rwanda</i>. Shine your maglite right in the faces of everyone in the car. Ask for everyone's ID, including the kids. <br /><br />-- Make the driver get out of his car. Notice the square object in his shirt pocket. Demand to see it "for officer safety." Then take a couple of cigarettes out of the pack of Marlboros and tell the driver you're checking for marijuana.<br /><br />-- Do everything you can to prolong and distract your contact from its actual purpose. Respond to every frown, every rolling-of-the-eyes, and instance of pique with admonishments to respect law enforcement, pay attention, shut up ("backtalk" and "sass" are particularly good words to use), and/or calm down.<br /><br />-- Be sure to invade the driver's personal space when speaking to him. Words delivered from a distance of eight inches in a low, menacing tone of voice will be sure to impress upon the driver not only the need to use his turn signal, but your own power and authority.</blockquote>If you'll follow these tactics you'll be guaranteed to make more arrests, have more fights, and show up in court on your off-duty time than any other officer you serve with.SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-1142089892119135472006-03-11T10:08:00.000-05:002006-03-11T10:13:21.946-05:00<u><b>Check It Out</u></b><br /><br />I've posted more in the past three days than I have in the past three months.<br /><br />The <i>Dossier</i>'s been noticed by the <u><a href="http://ncregister.com/blogs.php"><i>National Catholic Register.</i></a></u><br /><br />It's the new template (thanks <u><a href="http://www.ratzingerfanclub.com/">Chris</a></u>), including the Snarky Dog. I like the Snarky Dog. Looking at him, you just know he's the mastermind of the operation. (If you think I'm hallucinating, scroll down and look for yourself.)SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3922790.post-1142049343518666592006-03-10T22:55:00.000-05:002006-03-11T10:14:25.586-05:00<b>The <i>Guardian</i> Scratches Its Head and Sighs, <br /><u>"God: Can't Live With Him, Can't Live Without Him!"</b></u><br /><br />Courtesy of <u><a href="http://splendoroftruth.com/curtjester/">The Curt Jester</a></u> I read a recent editorial in the <i>Guardian</i> that brought to mind an <u><a href="http://secret-agent.blogspot.com/2004/08/letter-to-editor-august-8-2004-ms.html">earlier post in this blog about the same newspaper</a></u>, and the two articles coalesced into proof of Mark Shea's dictum that the history of secularism can be written in two volumes titled, "What Could It Hurt?" and "How Were We Supposed to Know!" Click on the links to the <i>Guardian</i>'s two articles and you'll see what I mean.<blockquote><u><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,12576,1279114,00.html">Volume I, the <i>Guardian</i>, 2004: What Could It Hurt?</a></u> Wherein our intrepid paper worries that backwards Italy might kowtow to "the Catholic church's stance that a woman's mission is to stay at home and breed." <br /><br /><u><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1725350,00.html">Volume II, the <i>Guardian</i> 2006: How Were We Supposed to Know!</a></u> In this installment, our incisive paper publishes an editorial bemoaning Britain's "falling birthrate," and praising women who "stumble towards their own private insights into the importance of mothering - to which they cling in the face of not just zero endorsement from wider society but active contempt."</blockquote>This is what one might call an "irony-rich environment," folks. <br /><br />Ms. Bunting's <i>Guardian</i> editorial is cogent, intelligent, timely, and just the thing the West needs to hear. It's also a mirror image of the Vatican "policies" denounced by the <i>Guardian</i>'s report in 2004.<br /><br />And yet, the <i>Guardian</i>'s 2004 editorial claims that <i>Catholicism</i> demeans women by preaching their enslavement as stay-at-home "breeders."<br /><br />So, if one follows the Vatican's "policies," and essays respect and awe of motherhood one is demeaning women as "breeders." On the other hand, if one follows Ms. Bunting's advice and essays respect and awe of motherhood, one is doing something very positive for women and society.<br /><br />I think the key is found in the fact that Ms. Bunting didn't say a word about God, Christ, or Catholicism in her editorial. If she had done so, the <i>Guardian</i>'s editors would have immediately realized that she was out to oppress women into being "stay-at-home breeders."<blockquote><b>Ms. Bunting:</b> "In other words, the self we are encouraged to develop through much of our education system and early adulthood is of no use whatsoever to a new parent. What use is that sassy, independent, self-assertive, knowing-what-you-want-and-how-to-get-it type when you fast forward five years to the emotional labour of helping a child develop self confidence? Once there's a baby in the cot, you need steadiness, loyalty, endurance, patience, sensitivity and even self-denial - all the characteristics that you've spent the previous decade trashing as dull or, even worse, for losers. Forget trying to work out your own feelings - you'll be too busy trying to work out those of your children; ditto self-confidence and self-expression."<br /><br /><b>The Vatican:</b> "Among the fundamental values linked to women's actual lives is what has been called a ‘capacity for the other.' Although a certain type of feminist rhetoric makes demands ‘for ourselves,' women preserve the deep intuition of the goodness in their lives of those actions which elicit life, and contribute to the growth and protection of the other. . . . This intuition is linked to women's physical capacity to give life. Whether lived out or remaining potential, this capacity is a reality that structures the female personality in a profound way. It allows her to acquire maturity very quickly, and gives a sense of the seriousness of life and of its responsibilities. A sense and a respect for what is concrete develop in her, opposed to abstractions which are so often fatal for the existence of individuals and society. It is women, in the end, who even in very desperate situations, as attested by history past and present, possess a singular capacity to persevere in adversity, to keep life going even in extreme situations, to hold tenaciously to the future, and finally to remember with tears the value of every human life."</blockquote>Can't you see the vast difference between these points? Ms. Bunting is talking about a certain and false feminist worldview that hinders or prohibits women from living their ‘capacity for the other.' She's talking about motherhood being the litmus test that separates economic and sociological abstractions and life-as-it-is-actually-lived. The Vatican, on the other hand, just hates women. It's there for anyone with eyes to see. Ms. Bunting is offering a respectable inquiry into the follies of Western secular materialism. The Vatican hates women.<br /><br />In fact, just don't even bother with the comparison and memorize this: THE VATICAN HATES WOMEN. That's why anything the Vatican says about women mentions God -- referring to "God" is just a trick to make women into "breeders." It's why the same things said without reference to God are responsible, thoughtful critiques of how we live and worthy to publish in the <i>Guardian</i>. <br /><br />If the Vatican would just leave God out of it, we could explore all these issues reasonably, free from the dogmatic blinkers (The Vatican Hates Women) that keep us from honestly and dispassionately (The Vatican Hates Women) examining (The Vatican Hates Women) modern (The Vatican Hates Women) problems (The Vatican Hates Women). <br /><br />Heck, we might actually decide to <i>respect</i> motherhood, so long as we don't have to kowtow to a bunch of eunuchs and their weird God-talk. Of course, it would help if we kept a few of those women-hating eunuchs around to tell us how not to be women-hating eunuchs. But that's God for you. Can't live with Him. Can't live without Him.<br /><br /><i>Postscript</i>: Nothing in the above should be read as a characterization of Ms. Bunting's opinions about religion in general, or Catholicism in particular. It's the <i>juxtaposition</i> of viewpoints that tells the tale here, not anything Ms. Bunting has said about faith, God, or Rome. Men who have abandoned or lost God will accept any good thing so long as they remain free to deny that it comes from His hands. What could it hurt? How were we supposed to know!SecretAgentManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04606108335112947516noreply@blogger.com0