EU Homeland Security Threat levels

ALERTS TO THREATS IN 2011 EUROPE:

1. The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide." The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability.
2. The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent events in Libya and have therefore raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.
3. The Scots have raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's get the Bastards." They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years. 
4. Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout Loudly and Excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides." 
5. The Germans have increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbor" and "Lose." 
6. Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels. 
7. The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy. 
8. Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to "She'll be alright, Mate." Two more escalation levels remain: "Crikey! I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend!" and "The barbie is canceled." So far no situation has ever warranted use of the final escalation level.

-- John Cleese - British writer, actor and tall person


A tip of the bowler to my brother and sister-in-law for the sharing this.

Quick read.

Best. Gift. Ever.

It's empty!?

Hooray!

Dead man speaking.

According to the New Testament, on the day between Jesus' death on Friday afternoon and his resurrection on Sunday morning, he descended to the dead in Hades. Why? Well, he was dead. But he didn't stay dead. Nor did he just play dead. He preached.

1Peter 3:19–20 says that Jesus "went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah…"

1Peter 4:6 says that the gospel (the good news) was "proclaimed even to the dead…"

In the Orthodox traditions, this is an important part of Pascha (the original name for the celebration of Christ's defeat of death, the name "easter" is actually of pagan origins) called Harrowing Saturday. The Roman Church, and the Protestant churches that came out of it, don't say much about this, even though the three creeds of Christianity (Apostles, Athanasian, and Nicene) all make it a primary tenet of the Faith.

Hades, being outside of time and space, is not a chronological place. It is reasonable to believe (if you can believe in reasonableness) that Jesus preached to all the dead of all time, and released from prison those who would follow. I know this to be true.

Why? Because he preached to me when I was yet a dead man... and he will yet preach to everyone. His sheep will then recognize their master's voice.

TGIF

    Those who think God did this almost incredible thing call it Good Friday because only an extremely good God could do a thing like that. All religions attempt to bridge the gulf between the terrific purity of God and the sinfulness of man, but Christianity believes that God built that bridge Himself. This particular Friday commemorates His deliberate action in allowing Himself to be caught up in the sin-suffering-death mechanism which haunts mankind.
    He didn't let it end there, for He went on, right through death. But the men who believe in Him can't forget the kind of Person such an act reveals. That's why they call it Good Friday.

    ... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982)
 CQOD 

Annoying host/presentation, great barbecue.

Watch the full episode. See more The Daytripper.

Don't!

Quotation: 

Every time the disciples started establishing rules—no children near Jesus; don’t let the crowd touch Jesus; don’t talk to Samaritan women; don’t let people waste expensive perfumes—Jesus told them to knock it off, and his rebuke was usually followed by a lecture that said, “You still don’t get it! We’re not substituting religious rules with our rules. We are substituting religious rules with Me!” Jesus kept saying “Follow Me,” not “follow My rules.” So most of us have spent our Christian lives learning what we can’t do instead of celebrating what we can do in Jesus. 

... Mike Yaconelli (1942-2003), Dangerous Wonder, Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress, 1998, p. 53 (see the book)

Source: CQOD

Who's on first?

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

“I see no God up here”, Yuri Gagarin - 50 Years... this isn't happiness.™

Speaking as a Communist Party icon, of course.

Please wait.

Like...

"I have become like a vulture in the wilderness, like an owl among the ruins."

- Psalm 102:6

Nonconformity in exurbia.

I live in an exurban new-urbanist "planned community", where all the houses conform to a century old design language called "American Craftsman" with a muted and narrow color pallet of dusty pastel earth tones, and all the houses have front porches and white (vinyl) picket fences. The HOA is very restrictive. Regimented nostalgia-tinged order.

I'm a rebellious sort. To differentiate myself from my neighbors, I subscribe to a daily newspaper. I appear to be the only one on my block. I expect the HOA to send notice.

iBest

Best photo I've ever taken with my iPhone 3GS. The pits at Smitty's Market in Lockhart, Texas.

Good shot.

The door is ajar.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

- John Updike, "Seven Stanzas at Easter"

Empty Religion

We need to listen again to the biblical criticism of religion.  No book, not even by Marx and his followers, is more scathing of empty religion than the Bible.  The prophets of the eighth and seventh centuries BC were outspoken in their denunciation of the formalism and hypocrisy of Israelite worship.  Jesus then applied their critique to the Pharisees of his day: 'These people ... honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me' (Is. 29:13; Mk. 7:6).  And this indictment of religion by the Old Testament prophets and by Jesus is uncomfortably applicable to us and our churches today.  Too much of our worship is ritual without reality, form without power, fun without fear, religion without God.

--From "The Contemporary Christian" (Leicester and Downers Grove: IVP, 1992), p. 228.

- John R. W. Stott

The Man Without a Country

The Man Without a Country - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and...

The real Philip Nolan.

Confession is good for the soul.

I am a Centrist Christian Democrat (ick, for two parts of the indentifier).

Why? Because while I believe in mankind's innate freedom (Free Will), I also believe in mankind's innate freedom (Free Will).

Left to our own resources, we (mankind) will rape and pillage.  Any attempt at correction will ultimately fail. But try we must (to prevent rape and pillage).

Have a nice day.

See what big letters I am using?

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”

- Soren Kierkegaard

Martin at Matins.

For over 22 years, I have begun my morning on Tipperary Drive with a pre-dawn observance of the Daily Office, specifically Morning Prayer (Matins). Reading the Bible, prayer and making intercessions for those in need of prayer.

On most mornings, our 10 year old feline, Martin Luther Kitty, joins me (after his kibble breakfast).

This is the last day we will be doing this in this spot. A new routine begins to evolve starting tomorrow morning, in parts removed.

The Runaway Scrape, the Battle of Plum Creek.

Evangelism

Truth be told, Part 3

Truth be told, Part 2

"When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn't the slightest intention of putting it into practice."

- Otto von Bismarck

Seems simple enough.

1 John 4:20-21

Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

Seems simple enough.

1 John 4:20-21

Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

Then and soon.

6045 Bryan Parkway, Dallas Texas
A Craftsman-style home converted into a Cad Cod-style home (following a roof fire). This was my grandmother's house off of Swiss Avenue. I lived there, ca. 1950-1953, and again in 1968 (before heading off to college and worse).

1375 Fairway Drive, Kyle Texas
A Craftsman-style home built in 2004. There are similarities in my eyes.

This will be "home" effective end of the business day 12/31/2011. I wonder if the HOA will let me paint the door red?

How many fingers am I holding up?

Steak finger basket. Pure, wicked delight of my youth, with thick-cut fries and Texas Toast. The best I've had came from the old (pre-hipster) Scholz Garten next to the State Capitol in Austin.

Learn more below.
Steak fingers with jalapeno cream gravy | Homesick Texan

Not the prayer of Jabez.

Psalm 118:5-6

When hard pressed, I cried to the LORD;
  he brought me into a spacious place.
The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid.
  What can mere mortals do to me?

Snow-day chili

1886 Chili

2 lbs cubed beef (stew beef works well, or brisket), 1 inch cubes, not ground (won't stand up)
1.5 cups chopped red onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 oz chili powder (Pendery's is best, Bolner's Fiesta and Gebhardt’s are the best grocery store powders, or Adams, or your favorite bulk style… but no Durkee’s or other yankee powder.)
2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground Comino/Cumin
1 10oz can of RO*TEL Diced Tomatoes and Green Chilies (Medium)
16 oz beer (Spaten Optimator is best. WARNING! The use of any Budwieser, Miller, or Coors product can result in severe abdominal cramps and/or diarrhea.)
1 tbsp Black Strap Molasses
1 tsp Masa Harina (corn meal will work)
1 dried Ancho pepper, crushed
1 smoked Jalapeño (large), chopped

Sear beef until grey. Drain off liquid. Add all ingredients to pot (or Crock Pot) EXCEPT Masa Harina.

Simmer 3 hours.
Skim grease.
Mix Masa Harina into a liquid paste and stir in.
Simmer for 1 hour, or until meat is tender.

Garnish with chopped white onions and grated cheddar cheese if desired.
Serve with saltine crackers.  East Coast Liberals may use oyster crackers without penalty.

Serves 4 to 6 people. Adjust ingredients accordingly.

ACTUALLY TASTES BEST THE NEXT DAY AFTER SETTING IN FRIDGE OVERNIGHT.
WARNING! The use of any legumes in this recipe can result in intestinal gas, severe abdominal cramps and/or diarrhea.

For the love of McIntosh.

 

Before there was Macintosh (brilliantly engineered Apple computers from Cupertino, CA), there was McIntosh Laboratories (brilliantly engineered high-fidelity electronics from Binghamton, NY). Apple Computers voluntarily paid a licensing fee to McIntosh to use the Macintosh name, even though there was no infringement (Steve Jobs was a big McIntosh fan at the time). Mac love was big at Apple.

Whiners usually have the same gripes about both products. Whine on.

McIntosh Laboratories has now released a free app for iPhones and iPads that emulates the look of a classic McIntosh amplifier as a music player (big blue power meter, green on black type). It's free, and it's fun. Get it at the iTunes App Store.

Shaped charge.

Time's up.

As played at my friend Jim Neumann's memorial on December 29th, 2010.

Quartet for the End of Time
Fifth Movement
Olivier Messiaen

Ellen Rose, viola
Pam Swendig, piano

Here comes...

Watch, for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning, lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.  

Mark 13:35, 36


Merry Christmas!

to you and yours from

Michael (P.M.) and Linden (Lura) Summer

"The way I keep in touch with the world … is very gingerly … because the world touches too hard."

Don Van Vliet, January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010. R.I.P.

And yet another.

"We must be willing to accept the bitter truth that, in the end, we may have to become a burden to those who love us. But it is necessary that we face this also. The full acceptance of our abjection and uselessness is the virtue that can make us and others rich in the grace of God. It takes heroic charity and humility to let others sustain us when we are absolutely incapable of sustaining ourselves. 

We cannot suffer well unless we see Christ everywhere—both in suffering and in the charity of those who come to the aid of our affliction."

-- Thomas Merton (1915-1968), No Man is an Island, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1955; reprint, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002, p. 93-94 (see the book)

Today's crib from CQOD

"For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is—limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death—He had the honesty and courage to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. He has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it was well worthwhile."

--Dorothy Leigh Sayers (1893-1957)
Christian Letters to a Post-Christian World, Eerdmans, 1969, p. 14

Late Thanksgiving.

Stool samples.

Rise and shine.

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."


Acts of the Apostles 1:8
New International Version (©1984)



On November 28, 1984, reality intruded upon my superstition.

Bouncing around.

"Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom."

"Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good."

"In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant. My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known -- no wonder, then, that I return the love."

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

"Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it."

"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."

-- Soren Kierkegaard

Continuous prayer.

"If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough."

-- Meister Eckhart

Truth be told (dealing with realtors and such).

The Gardener

"I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves."

-- Ludwig Wittgenstein

Wake of the flood.

"A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them."

-- P. J. O'Rourke

The Birthday Boys: Day 2

The Birthday Boys: Day 1

Texas Rangers Co. “D” Uvalde

YEEEEEEEHIIIIYAAAAAYYYYHAAAAWWWWWWWWWW!!!

Historian T. R. Fehrenbach (IIRC) says the "rebel yell" originated with the first Texas Rangers, the loose conglomeration of lawmen who defended early Texas pioneers from the Apache and Comanche warriors, combining still remembered ancestral Celtic war cries with Native American war whoops. Terry's Texas Rangers (CSA 8th Texas Cavalry, whose core consisted of men from the Rangers) introduced the cry to the Confederate Army.

It's a yell earlier Texas Rangers used to great effect against earlier Yankees. The Rangers were also known as giant-killers, who wore out many a filly.

Say it with me, with gusto: "YEEEEEEEHIIIIYAAAAAYYYYYHAAAAWWWWWWWWWW!!!"

Shine on.

Buffalo Shuffle

My wife brought me a pack of Clark's Teaberry gum from The Cracker Barrel (the official place grandparents take their grandkids for a meal).

"Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the non-violent, the elegant and beautiful."


-- E.F. Schumacher

A revelation.

QUARTET FOR THE END OF TIME
Quatuor pour la fin du temps, for violin, cello, clarinet & piano, I/22
Olivier Messiaen
Tashi
(Richard Stoltzman, Ida Kavafian, Fred Sherry, Peter Serkin)

RCA Red Seal

Olivier Messiaen wrote this piece during World War II, while he was being held prisoner in a German concentration camp. It takes its inspiration from (among other things) the Revelation to Saint John.

The rather odd ensemble grouping is a result of the circumstance that the only musicians in the camp who were proficient enough to perform a work of his, were a violinist, a pianist, a cellist, and a clarinetist. Thus he found a quartet for the end of times.

got german kulture?

Church, mission, and truth.

"The Church is her true self only when she exists for humanity. As a fresh start, she should give away all her endowments to the poor and needy. The clergy should live solely on the free-will offerings of their congregations, or possibly engage in some secular calling."

“The knowledge of good and evil appears to be the goal of all ethical reflection. The first task of Christian ethics is to supercede [aufzuheben – cancel, dissolve] that knowledge”

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)

Lost and found.

Old habits die hard. Once you learn how to ride a bicycle, you never forget. The more things change, the more they remain the same. Deja vu. Ask me about the darkness that pervades Marfa, Texas.

Read nothing into the titles: THE OWL SERVICE

Honor.

I feel like the man who was tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. To the man who asked how he liked it he said: 'If it wasn't for the honour of the thing, I'd rather walk.'

-- Abraham Lincoln


Be always sure you are right - then go ahead.

--Davy Crockett

GM@5-7

"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity."

-- Frank Leahy

Decisions, decisions. Jordi Savall and Hespèrion XXI are coming to Texas.

Houston and Austin.

As we forgive.

via abandonedplaces

Barbed law fence.

NPR caught speading the gospel again.

Family, circa 1986.

Lake Texoma, 1986. Left to Right: Catherine, Anna, Linden, Michael (aka, PM), June and Ginger. Harry stayed back at The Cabin.

He to rescue me from danger.

Sad days and lonely nights...

Other than just striking the surface...

Fred Frith & Evelyn Glennie

What she said.

"We have to repent of our blindness, our lukewarmness, and our disobedience, and turn back to the central truth of Christ as Lord and Saviour; an ethical system will not save us here, nor a timid sentimentalism, nor an excited emotional return, nor a dilettante mysticism.

We have to find that deep contrition which is the condition of His abiding.

Repentance is not a mere feeling of sorrow or contrition for an act of wrongdoing. The regret I feel when I act impatiently or speak crossly is not repentance... Repentance is contrition for what we are in our fundamental beings, that we are wrong in our deepest roots because our internal government is by Self and not by God.

And it is an activity of the whole person. Unless I will to be different, the mind will not follow.

True repentance brings an urge to be different, because of the sense of the incessant movement of what I am, forming, forming, forming what I shall be in the years to come."

-- Florence Allshorn (1887-1950)

CQOD

Confusing Jesus, Christ, and Roman Catholicism... with vampires.

Author Anne Rice 'quits' Christianity

"Interview with a Vampire" author Anne Rice has turned her back on Christianity after becoming troubled by recent controversies surrounding the church.

The writer, whose gothic novel inspired the hit Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise movie of the same name, has been a follower of the faith for years and released her memoir, "Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession," in 2008.

But on Wednesday, Rice stunned fans on her Facebook page when she posted a note, which read: "In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control.

"In the name of... Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen."

Rice admits she has harbored doubts about her religion for the past two to three years following the revelations of certain scandals involving the church, particularly allegations of child abuse, and she felt compelled to make a personal stand by declaring she was no longer a Christian.

She tells the Associated Press, "I believed for a long time that the differences, the quarrels among Christians didn't matter a lot for the individual, that you live your life and stay out of it. But then I began to realize that it wasn't an easy thing to do.

"I came to the conclusion that if I didn't make this declaration, I was going to lose my mind."

Really, the issue is her confusing Roman Catholicism (or any denomination) with being a follower of Jesus the Christ. However, her mixing up vampires and the Vatican makes perfect sense.