Say hello to the "Twins"

New York Post October 30, 2014

These two take twinning to the next level.

Sara and Emma Koponen, identical 25-year-old twins, are so obsessed with looking the same that they dropped about $24,000 for matching breast implants.

The now-big breasted Swedish women, who have since moved to Spain, went from A to E cups over the course of three separate boob jobs.

But the busty women aren’t just concerned about matching their chests. They also got lip injections so they would have matching smiles.

“’We are both addicted with modifying our bodies – but we have to make sure we both do the same things otherwise we won’t match,” Sara told Barcroft Media. ‘We are obsessed with surgery and the pursuit of perfection — for us there’s no such thing as too much.”

And to ensure that their bodies stay the same size, the dynamic duo works out daily at the gym for two hours and consume the same food at exactly the same time to maintain their weights.

The Koponen sisters obsess about more than matching their bodies, too. They share the same phone and wardrobe — but have yet to share a boyfriend.

Their end goal is to look like artificial dolls, with plans to get butt implants, dental veneers and nose jobs.

“The work we have done is for us — it’s not about getting men to like us, it’s about becoming our idea of perfection,” Sara said.

While the sky’s the limit for what he plastic-surgery-loving pair would do to their own bodies, they will never let their children follow in their footsteps.

“’I’m proud about how I chose to change my body but I would never let my own child do this to herself,” Sara told Barcroft. “’You will never be happier – that’s the point. You will always want more. If you start, you will never stop.”

Of course it's "Spooky"

New York Post October 30, 2014
He dressed like a Greek god — and he got a perk to match.

The Halloween costumes Mayor de Blasio and wife Chirlane McCray donned during Tuesday’s Halloween party at Gracie Mansion were paid for by a Brooklyn company that donated thousands to Hizzoner’s campaign fund last year.

Broadway Stages — which city records show funneled at least $25,000 through its employees to the mayor — rented the costumes from Abracadabra, according to a de Blasio spokesperson.

The ancient Greece-themed outfits cost about $350 to rent, according to the Abracadabra Web site.

Broadway Stages, which bills itself as a “film, television and music production” facility, helped arrange for the mayor to appear on the CBS drama “The Good Wife” after he took office.

“It was a blast,” de Blasio told The Times afterward.

Stages has been generous in other ways.

Salvatore Alaimo, one of its stage managers, forked over $4,095 to the mayor just one month before the general election, city campaign-finance records revealed.

Gina Argento Ciafone, the company’s president, was even more generous, donating more than $15,000 between 2010 and 2011.

A City Hall source noted that Broadway Stages also footed the bill for costumes worn by at least 100 kids from city homeless shelters who attended the party.

“The Mayor’s Office of Special Projects secures sponsors for all events. This allows us to host public events without using taxpayer money,” the source said. “This was not a gift to the mayor, but to Friends of Special Projects, which is a fund set up to support this programming."

“Just like in previous administrations, sponsors cover the costs of events,” the City Hall source added.

When asked why the mayor and his wife didn’t pay for their own costumes, de Blasio spokeswoman Rebecca Katz said, “Hundreds of kids enjoyed a very happy Halloween at no cost to taxpayers. As a liberal the Mayor feels that someone else should pay. That is the basis of his political philosophy that has served him so well. After all it takes a village to pay for the De Blasios."

When questioned as to why the party had such a grim theme in the era of violence and school shootings spokeswoman Katz said "Look any party that the De Blasio's host has to be spooky. So get over it."

Call the Mexican

So yesterday was supposed to be our day off. The one day off we get because we went to a six day a week schedule. We were going to laze around. Have a nice breakfast. Then a wonderful lunch. Watch some TV. Continue binge watching "Call the Midwife" on Netflicks. But it didn't work out that way.

We ended up having to "Call the Mexican."

I have been taking a blood thinner and I have to be careful about getting cuts and  scrapes. Every little one could be serious. I had one on my hand that bled pretty good for a while. I recently developed a scab on lower left leg that I had on idea how I got or where I got it from. It was just your normal run of the mill scab. So I went to take a nice hot shower. Not a good thing because it brings all your veins to the surface. I sat on the couch and I must have hit it on the Ottoman. It broke the scab. Blood starting shooting out across the room like I was a garden hose. You had to see it to believe it. On the floor. The fancy upstairs  rugs. The Ottoman and the couch. I was in a lot of trouble.

Mainly because I made a big mess.

You see this had happened to me before a couple of years ago. One of my varicose veins burst and I had to call the EMT's. So this had happened before. But with the blood thinners it potentially could have been much worse. I put direct pressure on it and Lisa called 911. She was freaking out as usual but that is to be expected. The guys came in and were very competent. They checked the wound and it had stopped bleeding. They tied me up and I was good to go. Except for the cleanup.

It was time to "Call the Mexican."

Morganna The Kissing Bandit Highlights!

This is the only "Flip" that counts....not that fancy bullshit

Freaking show-off

From Tim....a Video about the school his son attended.

Fr. Barron on the Synod on the Family

Call the Midwife....a pretty good show

In our continuing quest to find shows that are not CSI gore fests we started watching "Call the Midwife" on Netflicks. Several people have recommended it and so far it is been pretty good. Cool production values, good acting and excellent stories make it very worthwhile.

There is only one drawback. They seem to feature tunes from the 1950's and 1960's and I was singing along to all of them because I knew the words. The wife looked at me askance. I think she is realizing that I am fucking old. Just sayn'

"Who am I to judge.....but you people who are too traditional....you have a problem."

The Tablet Brooklyn's Catholic Newspaper October 26, 2014 

Excerpt:

Discussions in the synod hall had grown heated after the Oct. 13 delivery of a midterm report that used strikingly conciliatory language toward people with ways of life contrary to Church teaching, including divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, cohabitating couples and those in same-sex unions.

The summaries of working-group discussions, published Oct. 16, showed a majority of synod fathers wanted the final document to be clearer about relevant Church doctrine and give more attention to families whose lives exemplify that teaching.

The final report, which the pope ordered published almost at once after the synod’s conclusion, featured many more citations of Scripture, as well as new references to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the teachings of Pope Paul VI, St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.

Synod fathers voted on each of the document’s 62 paragraphs. All received a simple majority, but three failed to gain the two-thirds supermajority ordinarily required for approval of synodal documents.

Two of those paragraphs dealt with a controversial proposal by German Cardinal Walter Kasper that would make it easier for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion. The document noted disagreements on the subject and recommended further study.

The document’s section on homosexuality, which also fell short of supermajority approval, was significantly changed from its counterpart in the midterm report.

The original section heading – “welcoming homosexuals” – was changed to “pastoral attention to persons with homosexual orientation.”

A statement that same-sex unions can be a “precious support in the life of the partners” was removed.

The final report quoted a 2003 document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: “There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.”

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, told reporters that the absence of a supermajority indicated a lack of consensus and a need for more discussion but stressed that none of the document carried doctrinal weight. The synod’s final report will serve as an agenda for the October, 2015 world synod on the family, which will make recommendations to the pope.

Pope Francis said he welcomed the assembly’s expressions of disagreement.

“Personally, I would have been very worried and saddened if there hadn’t been these temptations and these animated discussions,” the pope said, “if everybody had agreed or remained silent in a false and quietistic peace.

“So many commentators, or people who talk, imagined they saw the church quarreling, one part against the other, even doubting the Holy Spirit, the true promoter and guarantor of unity and harmony in the church,” he said.

While reassuring the assembly that the Church’s unity was not in danger, Pope Francis warned against several temptations that he said had been present during the two-week synod.

One of the temptations he cited was that of “hostile rigidity” that seeks refuge in the letter of the law, “in the certainty of what we know and not of what we must still learn and achieve.” This temptation, he said, is characteristic of the “zealous, the scrupulous, the attentive and – today – of the so-called traditionalists and also of intellectuals.”

Another temptation for the synod fathers, the pope said, was that of “destructive do-goodism, which in the name of a misguided mercy binds up wounds without first treating and medicating them; that treats symptoms and not causes and roots. It is the temptation of do-gooders, of the timorous and also of the so-called progressives and liberals.”

Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a statement that he was “grateful that the clarifications and deepening of scriptural and theological reflection shine consistently” through the final report. “Now the real work begins!”

So what does he mean? Is he trying to play both sides? Hostile rigidity in the letter of the law vs. misguided mercy of timorous do-gooders? There are some mixed signals here. I would hope for some clarity so we know where he stands. Is he in favor of opening the sacraments to the divorced Catholics without annulments, living together couples and offering the sacrament of marraige to homosexuals. Or not. What is he saying here?

I must confess that he confuses me. I am afraid that he wants to allow all of the things that Cardinal Kasper tried to shoehorn into the final report but he backed off because of the opposition of the traditionalists. He has already demoted several conservative traditional participants. Perhaps he is waiting for a more opportune time to push this through. It remains to be seen.

Crack is going off the rails.....I ax you

The New York Post October 26, 2014
The self-radicalized madman who attacked four rookie Queens cops with a hatchet had more than just ­jihad on his mind — he also wanted to kill white people.

“He wanted white people to pay for all that slavery and all that racism,” the father of slain hatchet loon Zale Thompson, 32, told The Post Saturday. “I think he committed suicide — and he was taking one of y’all with him,” his father, Ralph Thompson, said, speaking through the screen door of the two-story Queens Village house where his unhinged son also once lived.

Asked if “one of y’all” meant white people,” the father said, “Yeah.”

“He just said, ‘They have to pay for all their unfairness,’ ” the father added. “Unfairness for the way they treat black people. He spent all his time on the Internet railing about white people and how they had to pay reparations for all of their white privilege.”

Zale Thompson, 32, was shot dead on a Jamaica, Queens, sidewalk Thursday after he lunged with a blue-handled hatchet at four rookie cops, striking Officer Joseph Meeker, 24, in the arm and Officer Kenneth Healey, 25, in the back of the head. Both those officers are white, as is the third cop. The fourth cop is a light-skinned Hispanic.

“I didn’t know it would get that serious,” the father said wearily of his son, a Navy veteran described by former friends as “bright” but radically pro-“black power” in his youth and a Muslim convert in recent years.

“I didn’t know he was going to carry on a mission on his own,” added the father.

Unconnected to any terror group or even any mosque, and with no criminal record in New York, Zale Thompson was unknown to law enforcement as a potential threat, police sources said.

But over the last several years, he was quietly becoming an ardent devourer of violent Islamic propaganda, police said.

“This guy spent every waking moment on the Internet,” said one law-enforcement source. Police are looking back as far as five years to see whether anyone else Thompson communicated with is a threat.

“He Googled the words ‘jihad against police,’ ” the source said of Thompson’s more recent activity. “He also looked up [news stories on] the two Canadian attacks” last week, the source added, referring to so-called “lone wolf” jihadist shooting of a ceremonial guard in Ottawa and a fatal attack on a soldier in Quebec.

ISIS extremists have been urging lone-wolf attacks on police and soldiers in Europe and the United States.

Following the attack, police brass on Friday ordered that foot patrols citywide be conducted in pairs.

“Strike their police, security and intelligence members, as well as their treacherous agents,” ISIS spokesman Aub Mohammad al-Adnani posted on Sept. 21. “If you are not able to find an IED or a bullet, then single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman, or any of their allies. Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him or poison him.”

Another extremist essay — titled, “To 2.6M Muslims in USA: A Call to Arms to Defend Islam and Avenge the Slaughter of Muslims” and published Sept. 16 — directly encouraged jihadi wannabes to attack cops.

“Knocking off a police, military or any other law-enforcement officer sends a chilling message to the so-called ‘civilians’ and fills their hearts with consternation,” it reads.

Zale Thompson’s own rants mirrored the hate-mongers’ rhetoric. “America’s military is strong abroad, but they have never faced an internal mass revolt,” he wrote on Facebook, where his page featured a photo of a Muslim warrior with a turban and sword. “They are weaker at home. We are scattered and decentralized, we can use this as an advantage.”

ISIS especially knows how to “hit a lot of different kinds of people’s buttons,” noted David Schanzer, director of the Triangle Center of Terrorism and Homeland Security at Duke University.

“It can be about violence or adventure,” he said. “It can be about the politics.”

Thompson’s downward spiral may have begun in the Navy. He enlisted in early 2001 and spent nearly two years stationed on California’s Ventura County naval base as a “Seabee,” a nickname for a construction-worker soldier.

A Navy source described Thompson as a “troublemaker” who “wasn’t a good sailor.” Suspected drug use and numerous unauthorized absences got him booted from the Navy in August 2003, the source said.

Thompson would be arrested in Oxnard, Calif., near his old base, five times between mid-2003 and early 2004 — twice for assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm and once for domestic violence, rec­ords reveal.

On another five occasions between 2003 and 2004, he was accused of ­domestic violence. The outcomes of those cases were unclear.

Neighbors said Thompson continued to claim he was “on leave” as recently as this summer. When neighbors would ask him how he was spending his time at home, “He said, ‘I’m reading the Koran. I converted to Islam,’ ” said one neighbor, asking his name not be revealed.  Recently he had a falling out with a bleached blond blogger from Wisconsin who he believed led him on. "I think he lost it because of some blond beyotch from Wisconsin with two gay sons. Or at least that is what he wrote about on his Facebook."

Meanwhile Saturday, Healey, the officer most seriously injured, continued his recovery in Jamaica Hospital.

“He wants to get strong, and is concerned whether he’s going to ever be a cop again,” said one source.

Bystander LaToya James, 29, struck in the back by a stray police bullet during the melee, remains at Jamaica Hospital. Her condition is unknown.

Talking baseball with Ted Williams Disembodied Head

"Welcome to another edition of talking baseball with the disembodied head of Ted Williams. Welcome Ted how are you feeling today?"
"Cold you fucking pissant. I am in a freezer for fucks sake."
"Right-o Teddy Ballgame thanks for that. So what do you think about the series so far?"
"I don't know. Why aren't they playing their best players. I haven't seen McCovey or Mays or even George Freakin Brett for Christsake! Who is this Posey Pussy? I don't understand!"
"Ok Ted thank for the sparkling analysis. It just proves that you are just as big a winner at commenting as you were at playing."
"Fuck you asshole! If I only had arms I would throw  a bag of frozen peas at you you fuckwad."
"Now back to the Sports Desk. I think another NFL player spanked his three year old or something."

True Yankees

Yankee fans have a dividing line when we talk about players. It is if you are considered a "True Yankee." A real representative of the team who buys into the teams concept and traditions. It's culture if you  will.

A True Yankee usually came up from the farm system but that is not always the case. Some people are easy. Jeter. Pettite. Mariano. Posada. Bernie Williams. Thuman. Whitey. Yogi. The Mick. Joe D.

Others earned it. Paul O'Neil. Babe Ruth. Reggie. David Wells. Don Larsen.

Some people will never be True Yankee no matter how long they are on the team or how good they play. Roger Clemens. Wade Boggs. A-Rod. They are interlopers.

I am not all that familiar with the two teams playing in the series tonight. At least the current compilation. I don't pay attention to the National League and I haven't followed KC because we so seldom play them. So I don't know who is the "True Giant" or "True Royal." Who is the guy who personifies the team. I guess it is the catcher on the Giants. But I am not sure. I would love to hear from fans of those teams. It makes it easier to figure out who to root for. Because to be honest I have very little interest in this series.

After I can back from Mass I went on the Internet......Imagine my chagrin when I found out where I ended up!

It was just a big sandbox with kids throwing shit at each other. Don't get me wrong. It is usually like this. But today it seems so out of control stupid.

I was tempted to leave a comment at the Macho Response to say how much I am enjoying the current stream of racist invective. I mean you have to applaud a true artist at work. But why open that can of worms.

I need to get a new hobby.

I can't believe it...he won't talk to his little blond friend

It is a pity when friends fall out. When the teacher can not sing and dance with his little blond friend.

What a pity.

Remember the days when they were friends. Those were the days!

Memories.  Misty Water Colored Memories of the Way We  Were!

I want some of what Nick is smoking

So I was killing some time at Turley's joint commenting on the Michael Brown situation. Sometimes I like to spout off about political stuff and Nick assured me that Turley's is a great place to comment.

One of the regular posters put this witty riposte in the comment thread:

Dredd

This reading assignment is for PC the S, yorkshire trooper pooper, and dogbuscuits.

You shall curtail your irrelevant, numnuts, braindead, and pukey nonsense and submit a report to knickers concerning this ancient history:

This seems to be about right. I don't know. What do the rest of you like  Pogo and DBQ think? I don't think this is really worth my time. Just sayn'

So you were thinking you could snooze a little....well not so fast buddy!

So we thought we could sleep after the fourteen hour photo shoot on our day off on Tuesday.

Not so fast.

At seven o'clock in the morning they started cutting down the two massive trees next door. It seems that our neighbor is finally pregnant and she didn't want a weed tree to spread pollen when her baby was born.

So they wood chipped for eight hours straight.

It has been a crazy week!

This past Monday we set up a photo shoot in the store. We needed to get some live models in our clothing to spice up our website. Also we need content for facebook and instagram and twitter to let people know about the new pieces that are coming in for fall and winter.

It is not easy to organize a shoot when you don't want to spend a bunch of money. So we had to work hard and use people who are just starting out and want the experience and the credits for their resume and their "book." That includes the models, photographers and the hair and makeup people.

We ended up using two aspiring models and a customer and one of our employees. This let Lisa plan out the shots and critique because she was not the model. So that worked out well.

We had to start at 8AM which is crazy for us because we are on a night time schedule and were up until 3AM the night before finalizing the details. There is so much that goes into a shoot. Matching the clothing to the models. Picking what to feature. Planning the logistics. A bunch of stuff.

You also have to make the photos fun. To make people want to buy your goods. We are going on another ecommerce site called Shoptiques which supposedly has a big international following. So these photo's were vital to giving that a fair shot. In the end we had a nice cross section of our customer base. Young. Old. Black. White. We hit all the bases. I hope that it will work.

This happened last week - Woman in Crown Heights

This happened last week. All of these little hipster girls have moved to nasty neighborhoods like Crown Heights and Bed Stuy and Bushwick. When the cops were able to roust the criminals it was marginally safe. But now the youtes are getting bold because the cops are laying back. They don't want to get jammed up so they are even lazier than usual.



Thus the result.



It is De Blasio time.

Who you gonna believe....Me or your lying eyes?

New York Daily News October 18, 2014
The Rev. Al Sharpton blasted a report that Ferguson, Mo. Officer Darren Wilson told investigators he pulled the trigger in self-defense when he fatally shot unarmed teen Michael Brown.

“Darren Wilson said he was in fear of his life,” Sharpton said Saturday. “The only gun there was Darren Wilson’s.”

The New York Times reported Friday that Wilson told federal officials the 18-year-old shoved him into his SUV and grabbed for his gun on Aug. 9.

Sharpton didn’t buy it.

“You are asking me to believe that a young man that was shot and knew he didn’t have a gun ran back at you, in toward a gun that already shot him?” he asked at his National Action Network headquarters.

Sharpton also drew parallels between the Brown case and the death of Eric Garner, the Staten Island man who died last July after cops placed him in a chokehold. He blamed officials for trying to influence public opinion on the cases. Evidence in both cases is being presented to grand juries to determine whether criminal charges should be filed.

“It is imperative, from Ferguson to Staten Island, that we let them know that we are not going to allow anything but a fair and just hearing of the evidence,” Sharpton said, surrounded by Garner’s widow, Esaw Snipes, and mother, Gwen Carr.“All this leaking and playing games with the public is not going to work,” he added.

Garner’s relatives are planning to join Sharpton in Ferguson for a four-day rally starting Oct. 31.

I just can't man...I just can't

Over at Turley's joint this dingbat called Linda tries to engage. She is obviously flying a false flag because she claims to be an Orthodox Jew but is all in favor of the homosexual agenda. Seriously? It is just not worth engaging such people. I don't know how Nick does it. He has a lot more patience then I do. Just sayn'

"Who am I to judge...oh and all of you Traditional Priests...You're Fired....I love Donald Trump!"

Buzz Feed News October 18, 2014
A top cardinal told BuzzFeed News on Friday that the worldwide meeting of church leaders coming to a close in Rome seemed to have been designed to “weaken the church’s teaching and practice” with the apparent blessing of Pope Francis. 

Cardinal Raymond Burke, an American who heads the Vatican’s highest court of canon law, made the remarks in a phone interview from the Vatican, where a two-week Extraordinary Synod on the Family will conclude this weekend. An interim report of the discussions released on Monday, called the Relatio, produced a widespread backlash among conservative bishops who said it suggested a radical change to the church’s teaching on questions like divorce and homosexuality, and Burke has been among the most publicly critical of the bishops picked by Pope Francis to lead the discussion. 

If Pope Francis had selected certain cardinals to steer the meeting to advance his personal views on matters like divorce and the treatment of LGBT people, Burke said, he would not be observing his mandate as the leader of the Catholic Church. “According to my understanding of the church’s teaching and discipline, no, it wouldn’t be correct,” Burke said, saying the pope had “done a lot of harm” by not stating “openly what his position is.” Burke said the Pope had given the impression that he endorses some of the most controversial parts of the Relatio, especially on questions of divorce, because of a German cardinal who gave an important speech suggesting a path to allowing people who had divorced and remarried to receive communion, Cardinal Walter Kasper, to open the synod’s discussion.

 “The pope, more than anyone else as the pastor of the universal church, is bound to serve the truth,” Burke said. “The pope is not free to change the church’s teachings with regard to the immorality of homosexual acts or the insolubility of marriage or any other doctrine of the faith.” Burke has publicly clashed with the pope since Francis took office in 2013, and he has come to represent the sidelining of culture warriors elevated by Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict and as the top doctrinal official under Pope John Paul II. Burke, who caused controversy while bishop of St. Louis by saying Catholics who voted for politicians supportive of abortion rights should not receive communion, went on Catholic television in 2013 to rebut remarks Pope Francis made to an interviewer that the church had become “obsessed” with abortion and sexuality to the exclusion of other issues, saying, “We can never talk enough about that as long as in our society innocent and defenseless human life is being attacked in the most savage way,” Burke said.

While Francis famously responded to a question about homosexuality in 2013 by asking, “Who am I to judge?” Burke described homosexual “acts” as “always and everywhere wrong [and] evil” during an interview last week. In the interview with BuzzFeed News, Burke confirmed publicly for the first time the rumors that he had been told Francis intended to demote him from the church’s chief guardian of canon law to a minor post as patron to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. 

“I very much have enjoyed and have been happy to give this service, so it is a disappointment to leave it,” Burke said, explaining that he hadn’t yet received a formal notice of transfer. “On the other hand, in the church as priests, we always have to be ready to accept whatever assignment we’re given. And so I trust, by accepting this assignment, I trust that God will bless me, and that’s what’s in the end most important.” When the pope first took office, his pivot away from an emphasis on questions of sexuality were more a matter of personal tone rather than changes in church policy or personnel. There were rumors that he was trying to oust the man chosen by Pope Benedict to head the church’s office responsible for doctrine, Gerhard Müller, but last winter he instead elevated him from archbishop to cardinal.

When word that Burke was on his way out began circulating last month, it signaled that Francis would take major steps to reshape the church. It coincided with the selection of a new archbishop of Chicago, Blase Cupich, whom Catholic progressives celebrated for positions like breaking with the American church hierarchy when it withheld its support for President Obama’s health reform law over questions of abortion and contraception. Internal discontent among conservatives inside church leadership began to simmer over in the weeks leading up to the synod. Just before it began, Burke, Müller, and other senior cardinals published a book in several languages attacking the ideas laid out by Cardinal Walter Kasper on allowing those who had divorced and remarried to receive communion in a speech heartily praised by Pope Francis. It broke into open revolt at the midpoint of the synod, following publication of a document presented as a summary of discussions but that conservatives said misrepresented the debate by including passages on “welcoming homosexual persons” and discussing some of Kasper’s proposal on divorce. The backlash appeared to have been especially strong from the English-speaking world, which includes a large number of African and American bishops; in an apparent attempt to mollify anglophone conservatives, the Vatican released a new translation of the report that changed the phrase “welcoming homosexual persons” to “providing for homosexual persons” and made other small changes, while leaving the versions in all other languages unchanged. The report is now being revised with feedback from small-group discussions held this week, and a final version is scheduled to be voted on on Saturday.

Burke said he hoped that the committee writing the new report will produce a “worthy document,” but said his “trust is a little bit shaken” by the language in the interim draft he said lacks “a good foundation either in the sacred scriptures or in the church’s perennial teachings.” But there seems to be little middle ground between Pope Francis’ worldview and Burke’s. Francis was president of the Argentinian bishops conference when that country passed a marriage equality bill in 2010 and reportedly tried to convince his colleagues to support a civil union proposal instead. He lost the internal battle and gave voice to the hard-line consensus that the law was “sent by the devil.” The fight over the bill left the church appearing out of step with the beliefs of many in Argentina, a country where 76% identify as Catholic but only 38.2% went to church in 2005, per the most recent data available from the Association of Religious Data Archives.

While Francis has shown no sign he supports overhauling the church’s teachings that homosexuality is sinful, he seems to have taken from this experience a desire to downplay conflicts over sexuality in order to broaden the church’s message. But, Burke said, the church must always call a “person who’s involved in sinful acts … to conversion in a loving way, but obviously, like a father or mother in a family, in a firm way for the person’s own good.” There cannot be “a difference between doctrine and practice” on questions like homosexuality or anything else, Burke said. “The church doesn’t exclude anyone who’s of goodwill even if the person is suffering from same-sex attraction or even acting on that attraction,” said Burke. “If people don’t accept the church’s teaching on these matters then they’re not thinking with the church and they need to examine themselves on that and correct their thinking or leave the church if they absolutely can’t accept. They’re certainly not free to change the teaching of the church to suit their own ideas.”

And so it goes. Pope Francis is of course well within his rights to remove conservative traditional prelates who do not agree with his ultra liberal views. This is an action that cannot be attributed to media interpretation. It is the attempt to silence a conservative Catholic voice by shunting him aside when he dared stand up for traditional Catholic doctrine. Actions not words. By these we will get to know him.

In his actions he shows us how he feels about traditional Catholics and those who follow and revere the Church teaching in this matter. Brick by brick he builds a record. Those who stand strong and are out spoken about morality will be punished. Those who sign on to moral relativism and hedonism will be advanced. "Who am I to judge." I mean it is not like he is the Pope or something.

"Doncha Know Who I Am.......Wait....It's Because I am Black!!!!!!"

The ex-con boyfriend of top City Hall aide Rachel Noerdlinger made a point of mentioning her name, her title and that she worked for the mayor's wife as he challenged several parking tickets in two hearings before city judges.

In one hearing, Hassaun McFarlan also argued “the police lied” and singled him out “because I’m black and I drive a nice car” in issuing the summonses against Noerdlinger’s Mercedes Benz as he used it earlier this year. McFarlan dropped Noerdlinger's name in a Sept. 24 proceeding before Administrative Judge Marisa Miranda.

“So Rachel gave you permission to come in?” Miranda asked, according to a recording obtained Friday by the Daily News. “That’s right,” McFarlan said. “She, um, she’s the chief of staff for the First Lady of New York City, so she ...” The judge cut him off. “I don’t care about that,” she said.

McFarlan also brought up Noerdlinger and named Mayor de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, at a July 9 hearing. Who’s Rachel Noerdlinger?” Judge Blueth Bromfield asked. “She’s the owner of the vehicle,” McFarlan said. “You’re the operator?” “I’m always the operator,” he said. “She’s the chief of staff of the First Lady Chirlane McCray. So I’m basically the driver.” Bromfield was unfazed. “OK. What’s your address?” she said. McFarlan, 36, sought the hearings to contest five parking tickets he received using 43-year-old Noerdlinger’s white e350 Mercedes Benz.

The July hearing got testy quickly, when the judge grilled McFarlan on what evidence he had in challenging a $115 ticket for parking at a fire hydrant.

“Is it evidence into consideration that the police be lying?” he said. At another point, McFarlan said, “The police lied. I didn’t do what they accused me to do.”

He also suggested that he was singled out because of his race.

“I’m black and I drive a nice car. I’m not driving an old piece; I drive all exotic cars. And I’m young. Every time I get out I’m having this problem. I got 20 tickets against me,” he complained.

“You being a black woman, I don’t know. Maybe you might have some understanding,” he told the judge.

Despite his protests of being railroaded, none of the tickets were issued by cops; they were written by traffic agents.

The judge was skeptical of his racial profiling claim.

“Generally, parking violations, you’re not in the vehicle,” she said. “They don’t know what color you are.”  McFarlan would not give up. “People are getting shot every day in the city and they are giving me a ticket? C’mon, that’s crazy. It makes no sense,” he said.

McFarlan — who has served time for manslaughter and drug trafficking, and has been busted for pot — then compared his plight to police brutality victims whose complaints are not believed. “Police assault (people) and people didn’t believe (the victims) until they saw people on tape getting assaulted by the police. It happens,” he insisted.

The judge was unmoved. She upheld all four parking summonses.

If there is a weasel in the pumpkin.......

It must be time for a "Best of Lawnboy" on the Gardening Channel. Just sayn'

Youtes in Coney Island show why they are animals

New York Post October 18, 2014

A Brooklyn 9/11 memorial dedicated to the memory of those who sacrificed themselves to save others was vandalized Friday night, according to police.

Authorities discovered the disgraceful act at the Brooklyn Wall of Remembrance in Coney Island’s MCU Park — home of the Cyclones baseball team.

Three laser-engraved portraits of the city’s finest took the brunt of the paint attack, but fallen police officer Moira Smith – the only female member of the NYPD killed that day – appeared to be singled out.

“This is extremely personal,” City Councilman Mark Treyger told the Post. “There is some evidence left behind that we hope will bring whoever’s responsible to justice.”

White paint was found crudely smeared around the 38-year-old hero’s picture, which was created to honor the 13th precinct cop.

Treyger is confident that whoever is responsible for the vandalism will be found.

“There are some security cameras here,” he said.

The granite wall features the names and images of 346 FDNY firefighters, 37 Port Authority officers, 23 NYPD officers, a K-9 rescue dog named Sirius and others.

It was New York’s first 9/11 memorial erected to honor the city’s fallen.

"One of us.....Gobble Gobble!'

I just want to thank all of youse guys who comment here. I am very humble and grateful for all of you who participate here. Commenting or lurking you are a class act.

I must admit that I have to laugh that every other comment at a couple of prestigious blogs is made by an out and out lunatic. Every other comment on the Evil Blogger Ladies joint is by the racially insane Crack Emcee and every other comment on Turley's blog is by the execrable Inga in one of her many guises. It is pretty freaking funny.

The new store has kept me really, really busy and I  haven't been able to keep up the posts the way I would like to the last few weeks. We are doing a big photo shoot on Monday to put all of our stuff on our new website and another e-commerce site that we have signed up with to promote our stuff. So we have been going non-stop. So much so that we are now opened six days a week with only one day off to get everything done. It is hard because we get exhausted. We are both sick and not as strong as we used to be so at times we drag ass. When we get home I am just not up to posting and being creative. So I just have to hit it when I can.

Thank you for your patience but most of all thank you for your participation.

You are one of us. Gobble, Gobble.

"Who am I to judge them.....I will just take their money.....but you parishioners here to pray......not so fast!"

New York Post, October 17, 2014

How about holding your Sweet Sixteen at the sweet Sistine?

Pope Francis is allowing the endangered Sistine Chapel to be rented out for a corporate event, with the proceeds to benefit the needy — while at the same time cracking down on visitors to the world’s most famous church.

Porsche will be the first to hold an outside fundraiser amid Michelangelo’s fragile frescoes. The luxury German auto giant is offering an exclusive tour of Rome, including a concert inside the chapel, at a cost of more than 4,000 euros ($5,100) a pop.

At the same, the Vatican said Thursday that it would cap the annual number of visitors at 6 million to protect the Renaissance masterpieces from the tourist hordes.

Dust, sweat and human breath have damaged the 500-year-old paintings, including the famous creation scene of God’s outstretched arm giving life to Adam.

Antonio Paolucci, head of the Vatican Museums, said “radical intervention” was needed to preserve the paintings, prompting the Vatican to install new climate and lighting systems to cut down on heat, humidity and dust.

“I am convinced that the Vatican Museums, in particular the Sistine Chapel, have reached the maximum number of visitors possible,” Paolucci said at a news conference to introduce the new lighting and climate systems, according to Reuters.

While Porsche is touting the event on its website, Paolucci downplayed suggestions that the chapel would be regularly rented to outsiders.

“The Sistine Chapel can never be rented because it is not a commercial place,” he said Thursday, according to a US Catholic report.

Reposting a great post by Father Martin Fox

“We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has ever experienced. I do not think that the wide circle of the American Society, or the whole wide circle of the Christian Community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-church, between the gospel and the anti-gospel, between Christ and the antichrist. The confrontation lies within the plans of Divine Providence. It is, therefore, in God’s Plan, and it must be a trial which the Church must take up, and face courageously…”

--then-Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, 1976. Source here. (Note: in researching the source of this, I found this about a slightly different quote here.)

Reposted from "Bonfire of the Vanities" the excellent blog of Father Martin Fox. I know most of you read it but if you haven't gone there yet please check it out. He keeps us honest.

Demented Nurse danger to herself and others

Drudge Report October 15, 2014
Cops arrested a nurse in northeastern Wisconsin in connection with the deaths of as many as 38 blog commenters , whom she might have killed because she found them — or their relatives — annoying, officials said.

Police have the cellphone of Inga Batta Binga, 72, which included a photo she snapped a few months ago of her giving a thumbs up next to a blogger who had died moments before after engaging in a five hour flame war on a legal blog.

“I can assure you in that all my professional years of seeing shocking photos, there were few such as these,” prosecutor Alessandro Mancini said.

Batta Binga, who lives in the town of Madison was taken into custody over the weekend and booked for the alleged slaying of  a 78-year-old commenter, who died from an injection of potassium after battling the murderous nurse for the past six months in various venues.

The internet police had thought that Nurse Batta Binga had been controlled and quarantined as she had focused her blogging activities on a nerdly law blog where she was in a constant bare knuckled mud bath fight with a elderly retired private detective who has fought with her in various venues across the internets.  However much like Ebola her virus can not be contained and might effect other parts of the interwebs. Therefore extreme care must be taken and the Center for Demeted Blogger Control advises that anyone reading her insane demented howling should wear protective garments at all times.....

Developing...........

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No comment news....news you can not comment on because of the thought police.

BBC October 13, 2014

Halfway through the Vatican synod on the family, Pope Francis has scored a first quiet victory.

He has convinced many Catholic Church leaders to moderate their formerly strongly critical language about gay unions, and to admit that homosexuals may have "gifts and qualities to offer".

The tone of a preliminary position paper drawn up by about 200 bishops after a week of closed-door discussions shows compassion and understanding not only towards people in single-sex unions, but also to heterosexual couples who live together without marrying and divorced couples who enter a second marriage without bothering to obtain a Church annulment.

The bishops made it clear that there can be no change in basic Catholic teaching on the permanence of the marriage bond, and insist that a valid marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

But Pope Francis's change of emphasis on concentrating upon positive rather than negative aspects of human sexuality seems to have won over many bishops attending the synod. Pope Francis who  is a favorite of non-church goers and people are not Catholics famously said about gay people "Who am I to judge" to the applause of non-believers through out the world. He is also reviewing the chuch's stand on abortion of which he has been quoted as saying "Waddayagonna do?"

His predecessor, Pope Benedict, referred to homosexual relationships as "intrinsically disordered" in a Vatican document written in 1986 when Benedict was chief theological adviser to Pope John Paul II.

There will be no vote at the end of the Vatican meeting on Sunday. Proposals will be drawn up by a committee of cardinals and bishops chosen personally by Pope Francis.

Most of them support his more merciful and compassionate attitude towards couples who find Church teaching on some aspects of family life, such as artificial contraception, hard to accept.

After a year of discussions in the wider Church, the synod will reconvene in Rome in October 2015 to finalize its recommendations on possible changes in Church discipline. The Pope will remain free to accept or reject them.

The synod is in fact a purely advisory body without legislative powers in the Church. Pope Francis has said he would like it to share more fully in Church governance and has already changed some of its debating rules to enable more cut-and-thrust discussion and less formal speech-making.

The meeting has so far been more of a brainstorming session than any previous such meeting.

The Pope's encouragement to his cardinals and bishops to speak their minds freely may have been heeded by participants, in the knowledge that direct quotes of what they said would not end up on the front pages of newspapers around the world.