Supreme Court Rejects Home Searches to Seize Firearms by Police Under "Community Caretaker" Doctrine

This 9-0 ruling by the high court is encouraging.

Points to Ponder:

The moment you give up your principles, and your values, you are dead, your culture is dead, your civilization is dead. Period. [Oriana Fallaci]

Pope Francis' process for investigating accused Catholic bishops clearly requires reform

I agree that lay experts are needed at every level on this because there needs to be a check on the clergy. Furthermore  lay expert involvement should be more than just recommended but instead mandated. Otherwise many bishops will simply ignore the recommendation.

Seahawks 2021 NFL schedule official release: Dates, game times, networks, more

Canon Law - Strict Interpretation Helps Avoid Harshness

A lot of apologist sources like to utilize canon law to push their agendas rather than seek to properly understand the principles of proper interpretation. For this reason, the above article written by a titan in the canon law world can be of aid in correctly understanding how various canons{1} are to correctly be applied.

Note:

{1} There is one typo which got missed before publication. Namely, the reference in the article to Canon 925 is actually intended to reference Canon 915. 

Here Is Why the Democrats Are Totally Panicked About the Arizona Audit

Queen’s speech: voters will need photo ID for general elections

To be blunt, only a complete moron has a problem with voters in an election having to provide photo ID. 

Democratic Death Watch: 'Biden’s agenda is pretty much dangling by a thread'

Vatican warns US bishops over get-tough Communion proposals

My father in law Frank Barone passed away a year ago this morning. If those who read these words would say a prayer for him, it would be most appreciated.

Eternal rest grant unto his soul oh Lord and may thy perpetual light shine upon him...May his soul and all the souls of the faithfully departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Points to Ponder:

A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever may be its theory, must be, in practice, a bad government. [Alexander Hamilton]

Pete Carroll and John Schneider are not who they once were

One year ago, I prayed this prayer for my father in law Frank Barone who was in the hospital. As today would have been his wedding anniversary to my mother on law Raffaelina Barone, I repost it anew at this time and request prayers for the eternal repose of their souls...

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light [Dylan Thomas (published 1951)]

It's empty now, no friendly face
And nothing lives within
I look around and I find no trace
To tell me what has been

So far I've come to find there's no one here
No life and fear
I came for nothing, they have gone
And nobody's home

I am contemplating a name change for this site. Whether it will be as an add-on to the current name or sonething different altogether, on that I do not currently know. But something will be changing, it is only a question of when on that front, not if.

I came to learn, perhaps to teach
But I can tell somehow
The world that I was sent to reach
Has got no future now

All things change and this site even in its nearly nineteen years of existence{1} has undergone numerous changes in layout, topics covered, etc. 

The one constant is that this site has served as a kind of journal of sorts where subjects of interest to me were published here. I referred to written projects once as writing photographs and this site in its older materials does serve as a kind of writing photo album. As with picture albums, there are non flattering shots in the book along with the more favouring ones but that is life. And life has a way of going on and in directions one does not expect. I have certainly had probably more than my share of that over the years. But I look at several things differently now than when this site began. 

Across the galaxy to spread the word
And no one heard
I came for nothing, I'm alone
And nobody's home

Muhammed Ali once said "a man who looks at the world at fifty the way he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of their life." I have certainly avoided that and thank God I am not like those who have not if which there are sadly, many.{2}

A requiem was never sung, no elegy was read
No monument was carved in stone in memory of the dead
For those who made this place do not remain
They feel no pain
A stranger fate was never known

This site started as a part of a community that basically does not exist anymore. Whatever one thinks of that or wishes, it is what it is. And for that reason, one must operate in accordance with what is and not on the basis of what one wishes. 

Notes:

{1} We debuted on August 22, 2002 and were in operation until an indefinite suspension in operations on December 19, 2009. We then resumed operations on April 4 2017 to the present day.

{2} To the degree I have avoided this is due to grace and I therefore cannot claim the credit.

Insomnia 3: Beyond Thunderdome!

As the rain tapdances on the roof and I lay wide awake, today's shipwreck is the SS America. Built in 1939 and launched in 1940 by United States Lines, the 723 foot 11 deck luxury liner had a brief stint before being commandeered by the military in 1941 after Pearl Harbor. Renamed the USS Westpoint, the ship served in many roles until discharged in 1946 when it resumed the name SS America under United Stated Lines and its luxury liner status. For a brief period, the SS America was the queen of the American fleet until 1952 when the much larger and faster SS United States was launched. 

The SS America remained in service cruising the transatlantic routes from 1946 until 1964 when it was bought by Chandris Group who renamed it the SS Australis. It then ran the circuit from Southampton, England to Australia from 1964-1977 when it was sold to Venture Cruise Lines in 1978 where it was renamed the SS America but attempts to relaunch the ship were an abysmal failure. Chandris Group reacquired the ship in 1978 renaming it the SS Italis where after a few renovations, it was chartered in 1979 for three 14 day cruises out of Genoa and Barcelona to Egypt, Israel, and the eastern Mediterranean. After those cruises, it was laid up in Piraeus, Greece in September of 1979. 

From there, the ship was bought by Intercommerce Corporation in 1980 and renamed the SS Noga underwent a dizzying array of name changes and plans for use while the ship was laid up in port. (Including converting it to a prison ship to be anchored in Beruit.) It was then bought by Silver Moon Ferries who got nowhere with it except to change one side of the ship to Alferdoss and after a busted bilge pump had to move the ship to avoid it sinking while it could be repaired. Once fixed, it was taken back to its original mooring place in Piraeus. The ship was then sold for scrap in the late 1980s but after they barely got started, the scrappers defaulted on their loans so they pulled out. So the now-named Alferdoss or Noga (no one knows which!) remained until 1993 when it was bought a final time.

Now the plans were ambitious: refit her to become a five-star hotel ship off Phuket, in Thailand. Despite years of drydock neglect, the hull was found to be in remarkably solid condition so her propellers were removed, the remaining funnel painted red, and she was renamed American Star. She left Greece under tow in late December 1993 but bad weather forced a return to dock. After things calmed down, American Star left Greece under tow. It was estimated that the tow would take 100 days but not long after, the tugboat and liner ran into an Atlantic storm and the tow lines broke. Six crew members were sent aboard the American Star to reattach the tow lines while two additional tugs assisted. The crew members were rescued by helicopter on January 17, 1994 while the ship was left adrift.

On January 18, American Star ran aground at Playa de Garcey, off the west coast of Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands. While the owners were furiously deciding what to do, the ships bow got wedged in a sandbar. Two days of pounding sea broke the hull in half and the ship was declared a total loss. The stern collapsed to port and sank in 1996 while the now section remained intact and deteriorating. 

The port side collapsed in November of 2005 which caused the remaining hull to break up and nearly collapse the ship to port side. In April 2007, the starboard side collapsed and the remaining wreck broke in half and sank at sea. A very small section of the bow and keel are visible now at low tide but after thirteen years of pounding waves, the remaining wreck of the once great SS America is no more.

Points to Ponder:

A renegade apologist can do grave damage to the Catholic Church and Her reputation. [Dr. Art Sippo (circa 2006)]

Briefly...

I have two principles which have long guided how I view economic matters of commerce and trade. The first is simple: Buy quality wherever that quality comes from. The second is a bit more complex: When you cannot for logistics or other reasons make a product yourself, do business with those countries who are your friends first and give them preference over more neutral nations which should get preference over those nations which have proven to not be trustworthy.

BREAKING: Sources Confirm Shock G Of Digital Underground Dead At 57 

"All right! Stop whatcha doin' 

'Cause I'm about to ruin 

The image and the style that ya used to 

I look funny 

But yo I'm makin' money, see 

So yo world I hope you're ready for me 

Now gather round 

I'm the new fool in town 

And my sound's laid down by the Underground 

I drink up all the Hennessey ya got on ya shelf 

So just let me introduce myself..."  

#RestInPeace "Humpty Hump"!

Points to Ponder: 

(On Banking and Investments) 

Does not the social function of the bank consist in making it possible for the individual to render his money fruitful, even if only in small degree, instead of dissipating it, or leaving it sleep without any profit, either to himself or to others? That is why the services that a bank can render are so numerous: to facilitate and encourage savings; to preserve savings for the future, at the same time rendering them productive in the present; to enable savings to share in useful enterprises that could not be launched without them; to make as simple and easy as possible the regulation of accounts, exchanges, commerce between the State and private organisms and, in a word, the entire economic life of the people. [Pope Pius XII: Address to Italian Bankers (circa April 25, 1950)]

Briefly...

On the Chauvin verdict, I thought second degree manslaughter was most likely, third degree murder feasible, and second degree murder would be unlikely. I was wrong on the latter, Chauvin was found guilty on all counts.