Killian Is Coming Home Soon, Very Soon

Here's a snap of grandad visiting with the little man in the hospital preemie ward recently.

And here's the wee lad, as of today. He's rather a stout little fellow now, wouldn't you say?

Praise be to God! He will be coming home soon. Thank you all for your many prayers on Killian's behalf. May God reward you.

Killian Patrick, my 7th grandchild, the son of my son Timothy and his wife Nina, was born 3 months premature. Here are some previous updates.

16 Anti-Theft Gadgets to Deter Thieves

I'd like a couple of number 7s, please. The rest of the list is available here.

For those who have difficulty waking up in the morning, this alarm tone might help

I didn't know you could do this with an iPhone

I want one.

Please? Someone?

Full of Sound and Fury; Signifying . . . Nothing

This visual metaphor depicts something I've witnessed countless times over the last 23 years of engaging JWs, Protestants, and Mormons and their attempts at biblical arguments against the Catholic Church. At first glance, some of their claims might seem plausible but, upon closer inspection, they simply collapse.

Examples of paper-tiger Protestant arguments that fall flat can be found in debates such as “Does the Bible Teach Sola Scriptura?” and “What Still Divides Us?”

I didn't know you could do this with Legos

Calvinists are swarming over on Free Republic

Things are getting a little fidgety over in Calvinland, at least within the Sovereign Calvinist embassy to Free Republic. The Great Reformed Ping List is underway again, complete with some obligatory tub-thumping and chest-beating about their enemies' "anthropomorphic rantings" and how their solas are being "mightily assailed," etc., etc.

It's kind of fun to watch (bad Latin grammar and all), but still, it's sad to see good people become so hopelessly entangled in the errors of the Calvinist religious system (some of which are quite ably refuted here, here, and here).

Exurge, Calvinisti, et judica causam tuam...

Arise (some older mss still read 'Swarm'), O Calvinists, and plead your cause. The doctrines of grace are mightily assailed by those who would proclaim with their father, “I will be like the Most High.” Set forth the biblical case for a sovereign God who is jealous for His glory. Disallow through disputation (and lampooning when needed) the damnable errors of those who have refashioned the great sola doctrines into a salvation-helper gospel that exalts the fallen will of man.

From every corner, in every thread exalt the right of God to do whatsoever He pleaseth. Be not dismayed by persistent anthropocentric rantings. Blessed are you when they revile you for the sake of the truth. Happy are ye when the Servetus card is played and the strawmen are paraded before you for He who is enthroned in heaven reigns.

Google is for Dhimmies

Robert Spencer from Jihad Watch shows how Google automatically offers viciously derrogatory search suggestions on phrases such as "Christianity is" (I also found it does the same for searches on "Catholicism is," "Pope Benedict is," and "the pope is"), but it does not do the same when someone searches "Islam is." In fact, as Robert points out, type in "Islam is" and Google suggests . . . nothing at all.

Draw your own conclusions.

If horses ran the world . . .

"You're late for work again, Smith. Mr. Ed wants to see you in his office immediately!"

Okay, as long as we're in the mood for some Shatner, feast on this

Daddy-O William Shatner's Beatnik Interpretation of Sarah Palin

Radical Feminist Theologian Mary Daly Dead at 81

This just in from The National Catholic Reporter:

Feminist theologian Mary Daly died Jan. 3. She was a radical feminist philosopher, academic, and theologian who taught at Boston College for 33 years. Daly consented to retire from Boston College in 1999, after violating university policy by refusing to allow male students in her Women's Studies classroom.

May the good Lord have mercy on her soul. Let's all remember her in our prayers. Many of you know about her and her legacy. For those who do not, you can read more about her here and here.

I note without further comment that, at her particular judgment, she was judged by a Man.

The Time of Your Life

One heartbeat at a time . . . moment by moment . . . inexorably . . . imperceptibly . . . you are moving toward that final moment which God has appointed for you when the last grain of sand will fall through the hourglass of of your life.

Will you be ready when that moment arrives?

"Take heed, watch; for you do not know when the time will come" (Mark 13:13).

Tempus fugit. Memento mori.

Will The Next War Be Fought Over Water?

I am a Southern California native, born and raised. When we were in our mid 30s, my wife and I moved our family to the beautiful countryside of Central Ohio, and the very first thing we had to adjust to -- not the weather or the fact that there are no mountains -- was how green everything is here: lawns, plants & bushes, trees, everything. And, at least where we live, no one I know of has a sprinkler system to keep his lawn emerald green. Mother nature handles that chore quite well enough, at least She does here in Ohio.

But not so in Southern California, where there is simply no such thing as a green, living plant or lawn without a sprinkler system or a garden hose keeping it that way. You want something to grow? You gotta water it regularly. If you don't, your lawn will quickly develop the rich yellow-brown hue of terminal desiccation. Some, like folks on fixed incomes in retirement communities, dispense with the cost and effort of watering altogether and just put in a rock yard. No fuss, no muss, and no water required. (It saves money, and water, but try playing a round of golf on an 18-hole rock lawn.)

The reason water is such a big deal in Southern California is the opposite of why it's no big deal here in Ohio. There's plenty of H2O here in the Buckeye State, plenty of rain, plenty of snow, plenty of water everywhere you go. But Los Angeles? Orange County? Riverside? San Diego? They sit in an arid zone and most all the water consumed there must be brought in from out of the area. It costs big bucks to keep Southern California properly supplied with water, and with upwards of 23 million inhabitants there (about twice the number of people in a region roughly the size of Ohio), can be difficult as well as costly.

What would happen to all those people, one wonders, if for some reason they ran out of water?

The following article on the leftward-tilting NPR website considers that very possibility and raises some disturbing possibilities, wars over water included.

While I'm fairly certain that California will never go to war with Ohio in order to acquire water, even so, California will have a dire problem on its hands (even by California standards of dire problems) if, someday, the well runs dry.

"The lesson of history is that in the tumultuous adjustment that surely lies ahead, those societies that find the most innovative responses to the crisis are most likely to come out as winners, while the others will fall behind. Civilization will be shaped as well by water’s inextricable, deep interdependencies with energy, food, and climate change. More broadly, the freshwater crisis is an early proxy of the twenty-first century’s ultimate challenge of learning how to manage our crowded planet’s resources in both an economically viable and an environmentally sustainable manner. By grasping the lessons of water’s pivotal role on our destiny, we will be better prepared to cope with the crisis about to engulf us all. . . . (continue reading)

Related: "Three Reasons That Violence Could Erupt" over water.

Strange Buildings of the World. Surprisingly, No Modern Catholic Cathedrals Made the List

Most of these edifices are pretty weird. Some are aggressively, stupidly weird. A couple (# 6, for example) are actually rather appealing. And some are reminiscent of certain modern cathedrals that have been inflicted on us built in recent years.

What do you think?