Free Republic

I’m logging in to clear something up about Pell.

He was pot into the Vatican Bank by Pope Benedict XVI to work on cleaning it up. Francis ousted him from that. He’s knows too much. That’s why Pell. He needed to be silenced.

I've been off this board for a number of years, but I need to respond to this:

You do not know that the shooter wasn’t schizophrenia. That is a disease that comes on suddenly in the early 20s. He may not have been diagnosed, but we’ll never know.

If his brain is autopsied they will. The cells in the brain message centers of schizophrenics are disordered. In normal brains, they go the same direction in a line. At least, when I did a lot of research on the disease years ago, that was the case. I can't imagine it's changed. Whichever mental illness or disorder this young man had was definitely NOT under control. I do hope a national discussion on mental illness will result from this incident, but I'm not holding my breath.

Please, take the plunge. Actual faith and what you do with it is a matter of free will and personal convictions. What is taught, should be and usually is taught with tons of theology behind it. It's not off the cuff. and really, Pope Leo XIII wrote an encyclical in 1891 called Rerum Novarum that says what the Church teaches on this better than anything else does. In fact, his encyclicals should be required reading for all of us. He was, by far, one of the best popes in history.

This sort of stuff has been going on for centuries. One thing you realize as a Catholic is that the Vatican's reach is more limited than the media would have you believe. What they really do to screw things up is appoint huge mistakes as bishops. And the majority of them really don't know much about money. Every now and then you find one, but it's not a standard job requirement.

With all due respect, Your Holiness, as a Catholic in good standing, um, your expertise is faith and morals. It would be more helpful to teach, preach and write regarding how those who are money people can most morally go about their jobs in a free market with laws to protect property owners (just like Pope Leo XIII wrote in the 19th century). Without a global gold standard, anything else is just not going to treat money as anything more than a commodity no matter who is in charge.

What annoys me isn't just that the new washer (large-capacity top loader) mixes cold water in with the hot, it has no choice on rinse other than an extra one. Everything is rinsed in cold, even dish towels (this is where the real bugs are).

I wouldn't worry about line drying. All the way around that's a non-issue, but not having high enough wash temps, especially for towels, sheets and kitchen items, is.

I spend an awful lot of time in the west end and the Central West End.

What the writer doesn’t say is what the police say to the would-be victims. The city cops are pretty cool, but....

When President Obama announced his latest "jobs initiative" last week, it looked a lot like his 2009 "stimulus," which spent hundreds of billions to build and upgrade roads and bridges to no economic avail.

Well, if the cash was actually spent - which a lot of it wasn't - this argument needs a little rebuttal. The bridges and roads that were built in the 1940's and 1950's and haven't been seriously upgraded since then do need work. And not just the local ones, the interstates (which everyone uses) do need work. Bridges that carry I-70, I-10, I-55 and many others get a lot of stress daily and the fatigue will kill them. I live in a metropolitan area on a state line where four interstates come across the backbone of the interior waterways on one bridge. Of all the bridges in this area - and there are a lot of them - it's in the worst shape. Fortunately, the states worked out a deal with some federal help and there's a new I-70 bridge under construction that's going to take a lot of the pressure off. That's INTERSTATE 70, one of the three that goes across the country and is used extensively by trucks to transport goods nationwide, thus continuing commerce.

BTW, also in my neck of the woods, it's the far 'burbs where the crime wave is. Here in the inner-ring, the criminals tend to stay in their own 'hoods. It's different, but life doesn't go by a script.

Good and gracious God, please speak to Justice Kennedy about all this. The man is going to make this a cliffhanger.

Wow? It shouldn’t need to be said. At one time, we were taught to behave this way.

There is a sign inside that says, “Please, observe our customs. Gentlemen, please remove your hats. Please silence cell phones and other electronic devices. A respectful silence is to be maintained at all times.” We haven’t gotten to the point that the Europeans have, having wardrobe checkers at the door, but I have a feeling it’s coming.

“The sacrifice of being respectful and dressing appropriately, not like a slob, is part of the price.”

Those are mans conditions, not Gods.

Actually, according to the saints, the Blessed Mother, etc., through apparitions that we Catholics recognize, those ARE God's conditions.

I guess the point that beach wear is just not appropriate is lost. For gentlemen, nice pants and a polo or button down shirt is just fine. For ladies, no cleavage, nothing skin tight and be covered past the elbows and knees. How hard is that?

Would you keep someone from seeking salvation because they weren’t wearing a suit?

The sacrifice of being respectful and dressing appropriately, not like a slob, is part of the price.

Being a member of the Cathedral parish here which is one of the tourist attractions, we see everything - and I mean everything. Yesterday, I saw an Indian family where the women were dressed in beautifully colorful saris, a college aged girl in a decent shirt, but the shorts showed too much thigh. There’s always people who are obvious tourists in shorts and t-shirts, women wearing skin-tight anything and everything with entirely too much cleavage. It’s hard to do something about it when they are only in the church for one Sunday. The regulars, generally, aren’t so casual other than the medical people who come in scrubs either just before or after a shift. And then, that’s more decent than a lot of the visitors. Personally, since we have a huge collection of choir robes, I think we should hand them out at the door. Maybe then the people will get the message.

As someone who goes to Mass in a skirt that hits mid-shin and shirts that have sleeves with a jacket because it’s cold in there (I swear there’s a “hang meat” setting on the AC), this is pretty ridiculous. The US does have a very casual society and in this case, the spillover is starting to bite back.

I’ve been saying this for a long time. Lippmann, Bernays and Ivy Lee did more to convince the American public that black is white, good is evil and experts are always right than any other people in history.

Yes, that’s it. Thank you.

There’s a crucifix in Lucca, I think, that’s at least this old and the image is similar. The eyes bulge a little, and the face is much closer than anything Rembrandt did.

If this is all they’ve got on Perry, they’re grasping for straws.

Yes, that’s right. All three poodle sizes are shown in the same cut. That’s field dress.

I think the whole “poofy hairdo’s” that you see in the dog shows have sort of ruined their true nature. (I know some people like it but I think it is silly).

There's actually a method to that madness. Poodles are technically water retrievers and they don't shed like the vast majority of retrievers do. So, to keep the coats from matting, at one time they were shaved all the way down, but that caused arthritic problems with the joints. So, what we see in dog shows is called "field dress" as hair is left over the joints that need to be kept warm in cold water.

When it comes to the purebreds, there's always a method to the madness, although, I can't quite figure out what Shih Tzu wants bows in his hair. Most of the rest of the toys are shown natural. And don't let these little guys fool you. We have two toy dogs and they are the biggest meat hounds you've ever met.