This thing is sounding more and more manufactured with each passing day. Mysterious calls to "watch out"? Could the cops come up with a flimsier excuse?
And now it looks as though the commission established to handle the abuse cases will shut down because they no longer have the records. That'll help the victims!
I've got to say it one more time, though. The Church has so badly mishandled this whole abuse problem that it has created an atmosphere of distrust that works right into the hands of its enemies. The Church leaders need to come clean with everything. They can redact enough information to protect the victims identities while still providing the transparency that would put a stop to the public pillorying. And if the information opens the Church to suit, fine. Better to lose the assets than to lose the faith.
"Four days after a series of police raids of Catholic institutions in Belgium that drew sharp criticism from the pope, the reason for the unusually aggressive operation has emerged: a formal accusation that the church was hiding information on sexual abuse lodged by the former president of an internal church commission handling such cases.
...Investigators are now analyzing more than two truckloads of seized documents, many related to 475 complaints lodged with the sex-abuse commission after the resignation in April of a popular bishop who admitted that, early in his career, he had molested a boy.
The former head of the commission, Godelieve Halsberghe, said in an interview with a Flemish newspaper, Het Nieuwsblad, that she had gone to the authorities after receiving a call from a man who did not identify himself and warned her in French to “watch out” for herself and to secure the documents she held on about 30 cases she had handled during her tenure at the commission, from 2000 to 2008.
Ms. Halsberghe, now a retired magistrate, has long been critical of the church’s efforts in Belgium to confront its past. Alarmed by the phone call, she took the documents in her keeping to the authorities and warned them that the church might be hiding others. On Monday, she declined to accept calls." New York Times
"A Catholic Church-backed commission of inquiry into clerical sexual abuse in Belgium has announced it is shutting down in protest at police raids.
Commission head Peter Adriaenssens said the commission had been used as "bait" by state prosecutors.
Offices were searched last week and all of the panel's 475 case files removed.
Many of the files removed contained information from alleged abuse victims who had spoken in confidence.
Mr Adriaenssens, a child psychiatrist who only took over eight weeks ago, expressed concern at what could have motivated the authorities.
"They could only act in that way with the sentiment that we were in the wrong or that we were trying to conceal the cases," he said.
"This while I made a point of working in complete transparency.
..."I'm mostly shocked for all these people who gave us their trust," said Mr Adriaenssens.
"And up until [Wednesday] evening, if they'd asked me is it possible that they [the police] would arrive and take everything away, just take everything away, I would have reassured them [that this would not happen]."
He added that people who had spoken to the commission in confidence were "panicking".
"We received e-mails, telephone calls in the past few hours from people who are panicking about what will happen with their private details," he said
"Will their parents find out? Will they read their story in the newspapers? Will their spouse, who wasn't really aware, now find out via the media or the justice department?" BBC
"A panel appointed by the Catholic church to investigate clerical sex abuse in Belgium is shutting down after police seized all its files during a raid last week, the group's chairman said Monday.
Peter Adriaenssens, a child psychiatrist who chaired the panel, said authorities betrayed the trust of nearly 500 victims who had made complaints over the past two months to the church panel and blamed state prosecutors for pursuing victims too traumatized to speak to police.
"We were bait," he said.
The panel was shutting because it had no files to work from, Adriaenssens said. On June 24, police raided its offices, seized documents and computers from the Belgian archbishop's office and opened a prelate's crypt in a cathedral." NPR
Of course it is. BP and the government know the truth about what's coming. The cleanup show is just to keep everyone quiet as long as possible until reality hits home.
I'm thinking that if the timing is just right, when all hell breaks lose in the Gulf the administration will declare martial law and postpone the elections it is bound to lose. That might be a crazy thought but I keep thinking that this crisis is just about right if one were looking to enact whatever rules need to be created to solidify control of the country.
Or, maybe I'm just a paranoid hysteric.
"A former oil worker quit in disgust after she said the cleanup was all cosmetic. WKRG News reported:
Former oil clean-up worker Candi Warren says she signed up to make a difference, but soon found out the work of cleaning the beaches was all cosmetic. That’s what she was told, she says.
Warren says she knew that when crews worked during the day, the tide and surf buried oil overnight. But they were forbidden to dig it up. She quit in disgust three weeks ago despite the $18 per hour pay.
She said she was told to only clean the surface of the sand, that this is all cosmetic. She was on a crew at Gulf State Park where tourists go. She says it has priority so as to make it look like the beaches are clean.
Warren says she believes money is being wasted on the crews and says “At some point the real clean-up will have to begin, but I’m afraid the money will be gone.”
She used a shovel and dug down six, eight, maybe twelve inches into the sand to show us the layers of oil close to the shoreline." Gateway Pundit
"Since shortly after oil began spewing into the Gulf of Mexico two months ago, relief wells have been discussed as the ultimate solution, their success in permanently plugging the runaway well deemed a foregone conclusion.
But BP and government officials are now talking about a long-term containment plan to pump the oil to an existing platform should the relief well effort fail. While such a failure is considered highly unlikely, the contingency plan is the latest sign that with this most vexing of engineering challenges — snuffing a gusher 5,000 feet down in the gulf — nothing is a sure thing." New York Times
Then this:
"BP has confirmed its 45-ton blowout preventer is tilting sideways up to 15 degrees. Rogue scientists (the ones not working for BP or the government) point to tilting as evidence of a severely weakened well, and warn it could fall and crash the entire rig through the ocean floor.
A massive sinkhole could either shut down the leak or make the disaster much worse. BNET summarized theories on The Oil Drum from optimistic to apocalyptic:
-Benign rockslides at nearby canyon walls, coupled with “natural bridge” formation, plug the oil leak.
-An exposed reservoir opening bleeds 150,000 barrels of oil a day daily until natural hydrostatic pressures from above and below the surface equalize — think two opposing teams in a tug-of-war running out of energy and calling the game a draw — turning off the leak.
-Weakened sand and salt layers above the reservoir simply collapse, turning a wide area of the outer continental shelf sea floor into an underwater sinkhole that could bleed 2 billion to 3 billion barrels of oil into Gulf waters. In addition, seismic-shock tremors roll in all directions for miles, with an unknown effect on other nearby fields, especially BP’s Thunder Horse (18 miles) field and Shell and BP’s Na Kika complex, located in Mississippi Canyon Block 474 (approximately 15 miles south-southeast of the blowout)." Clusterstock
I noticed that this week BP started to lay the groundwork for the failure of the relief wells in news articles in newspapers and in the electronic media. So many experts have been saying for months now that the relief wells won't work because the casing has been destroyed that I knew it was just a matter of time before the truth had to be told. Even the report of the blowout preventer tilting sideways was mentioned about two weeks ago. I posted it somewhere on this blog.
The jig's just about up in the Gulf. This blowout won't and can't be contained. We are on the verge of a disaster unlike anything we've ever experienced. The environmental and economic impact of this is unimaginable. Life in America and around the world has been irrevocably changed.
"Fr. Tom Euteneuer, author and head of Human Life International (HLI) told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) that he stands with the pope and unconditionally condemns the actions of police as “a massive violation of confidentiality” of victims who had confided in Church authorities, and a “brutal police action” against the Church.
At the same time, however, he pointed to the years of public antagonism by Belgium’s Catholic leadership to the Church’s sexual moral teaching that furnished the heavily secularist government with the excuse needed for the attack.
“How is it possible,” Fr. Euteneuer said, “to see this as anything but retribution for the sins of a church that has for the past four decades been in a state of continuous public dissent?”
The raids were denounced by Pope Benedict XVI who decried the “surprising and deplorable manner in which searches were carried out.” Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s Cardinal Secretary of State, launched a formal protest to the Belgian ambassador to the Holy See saying, “there are not precedents - not even under the old Communist regimes” for such treatment of the Church by secular authorities.
Fr. Euteneuer said that, “God sometimes allows the actions of pagans to punish and correct the abuses of His beloved people. Whatever the interpretation of the aggressive action of the police, let’s just take it as a wake-up call for a return to orthodoxy and fidelity to Christ.” Life Site News
I would like to suggest to the Vatican that it's time to stop playing legal games and quit dancing around the issue. The Church, through its representatives, has participated in evil, not just through the abuse problems but also in the political realm, abandoning the teachings of Christ for the madness of Marx.
The core teachings of the Church cannot be destroyed because they are protected by God himself. That doesn't mean that Priests, Bishops and Popes can't go off the reservation and distort the truth handed on to them. They can and they have.
God will not allow this to stand and it appears the time of reckoning may be at hand. The Church will survive, but it will be reduced in size and power, humbled before God and rebuilt to faithfully hand on the truths entrusted to it.
My guess is that this will happen with incredible speed. I think that to the extent that the Church fights this it will damage the faith of many because its struggles will be turned against it in the media. I really don't think that the Church leadership, for all their intelligence and sophistication, have the slightest idea of how to use the new media to their advantage, unlike their enemies, and it will be used to great effect against them.
I think that the best course of action is for the Church to be completely honest, open, humble and Christ-like in all its actions from this point on. It can't win the P.R. battle if it tries to play by the rules of the world. It has to allow God to protect it; not the attorneys.
Dark times are approaching. Pray for wisdom so that you may not stray from the truth. Assume everything you see, read or hear is a lie or distortion. Don't trust anything or anyone except those very few things you have seen proven. Stay with Peter and the Church. Focus on the Bible and the truth. Find those teachings that never change, that are held sacrosanct from the ebb and flow of history. Truth is not malleable. It comes from God and is part of God and God does not change. You'll recognize it if you'll only listen because it is written on our hearts. But we have to be open to hear it and that requires prayer and humility.
Begin to pull back from the world as much as possible. Try to let your life follow what God wants, not the dreams and hopes you've cherished and nourished for so long. We must decrease to allow God to increase. It's our only hope.
These are truly "the times that try mens souls", but this time we're playing for keeps. The choices we make from this point on will have eternal consequences, not just for the individual but for all those that surround him. We are part of a body and injury to one part will affect the others. We're not in this alone.
Below you'll find a reply to one of mypostsyesterday from my friend Ioannes atCommentarius de Prognosticisdiscussing the real, Old Testament dimensions of our current situation. He seems to be eerily in agreement with the assessment of Father Euteneuer in the article at the beginning of this post :
"I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand the Catholic Church brought this sad state of affairs on itself with failing to act decisively in cases of sexual abuse, immorality, heresy and apostasy among its own clerical members, so God in His infinite wisdom allows the State to intevene.
On the other hand I dislike the idea of the Church being beholden to the State. But when the Church screws up, then God sends His King Sennacherib and King Nebuchadnezzer to exact His will. For and because of their sins, Israel was deported into Assyria, and Judah into Babylon. If this happened to those people who were chosen by God as a birthright, then how much more so we who have (as St. Paul explains) been grafted as branches onto the vine that is Christ? Romans 11:18-24:
...If you do boast, consider that you do not support the root; the root supports you. Indeed you will say, "Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in." That is so. They were broken off because of unbelief, but you are there because of faith. So do not become haughty, but stand in awe. For if God did not spare the natural branches, (perhaps) he will not spare you either. See, then, the kindness and severity of God: severity toward those who fell, but God's kindness to you, provided you remain in his kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off. And they also, if they do not remain in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated one, how much more will they who belong to it by nature be grafted back into their own olive tree.
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Sometimes God uses Caesar's sword as a pruning fork. It ain't a'gonna be pretty."
We are going to see history made in the near future; the kind that ends up in holy books for future generations to read about. Prepare yourself spiritually, physically and mentally. And think about worst case, not best. Many of us may be asked to die for our beliefs as martyrs to the truth. Are we ready for this? Without God, we won't be.
Justices Expand Gun Rights
"The Supreme Court Monday extended nationwide the right to armed self-defense, a historic conclusion to an age-old battle over the meaning of the Second Amendment." Wall Street Journal
The headline and the fist paragraph say everything that needs to be said about the current, pathetic understanding of our natural law rights and where they come from.
The justices didn't expand our extend a damned thing. Our rights belong to us and all the government can do, albeit not legally or morally, without our permission, is to remove or restrict them. I don't need the permission of SCOTUS, the Congress, the President or anyone else to arm myself for defense, say what I want, practice my faith the way I see fit or to choose who I'll associate with.
The very idea that government in any way, shape or form grants us our rights is repugnant and evil. It serves the purposes of those that would control us to have us believe this monumental lie. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans have bought into it.
We have subsumed our individual liberties to benefit the few at the top with the power to control us. We've allowed this to happen because we like comfort and refuse to stand up to this evil because a cost will be exacted against those that do.
"The Vatican said on Tuesday it would prove it cannot be held legally responsible for the actions of a priest at the center of a sexual abuse scandal in the United States.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider a case on whether the Vatican has immunity over the sexual abuse of minors by priests, allowing a lawsuit filed in 2002 to go forward.
In a statement, the Vatican's lawyer, Jeffrey Lena, said when the case returns to a U.S. district court it would prove it cannot be held responsible for the actions of the priest as he was not a Vatican employee.
"The decision not to hear the case is not a comment on the merits of our case," Lena said, adding that the case would now go back to the district court in Oregon." Yahoo
Who's running this show? I understand that it may not be in the best interest of the Church, financially, to admit to any wrong doing, if any exists. That being said:
"For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel, shall save it.
For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?
Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Mark 8:35-37
I understand the concept of subsidiarity and the way the Church is structured. Each bishop is responsible for his diocese and has the power to do almost anything he needs to within certain guidelines. This is pretty much the way the states were supposed to function in our Republic. Most of the transferring of abusive priests was authorized and carried out by the bishops, without any direction from Rome. At least, that's what we've been told.
My guess is that things were just a bit more complicated and that some direction, whether explicit or implied, did come from the Vatican. Politics is politics and the Vatican's been at it longer than anybody else.
At the very least, evidence of Vatican knowledge of the abuse does exist and has been presented in public. In my mind, this opens the door to Vatican culpability in the abuse cases. The idea that the buck stops with the bishops is ludicrous. It is the responsibility, under the system of subsidiarity, of the higher authority to step in when problems are not being solved at the lower level. This is clearly the case inMatthew 18:15-17:
"But if thy brother shall offend against thee, go, and rebuke him between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou shalt gain thy brother.
And if he will not hear thee, take with thee one or two more: that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand.
And if he will not hear them: tell the church. And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican."
I believe that insofar as the Vatican refused to do its duty and intercede on the behalf of the abused when it was well aware that nothing was being done to stop the abuse, it bears some responsibility for this mess. How much responsibility? That's for the courts to decide.
If the Church continues down this path of trying to avoid any responsibility, when it is so clearly wrong and deceitful in doing so, it will destroy the faith of many, retaining its wealth while losing its soul. What are all the riches in the Vatican or the world for that matter when judged against the value of a single soul?
The Vatican needs to confess and take its medicine like men. You expect us to believe that we can confess and be forgiven yet still have to endure purgatory because of the just payment due for sin. Why can't you accept this same concept when applied to yourselves?
Or, maybe you want us to believe in two sets of rules; one for the people and one for the leaders. That sounds remarkably like the setup in Jerusalem about the time Jesus was crucified.
"A research team examining water within a five-mile radius of the leaking BP wellhead has found very high levels of methane.
When oil is extracted from the ground, it contains a large amount of methane. Excess methane is usually removed by engineers before the crude oil is refined.
The methane that is gushing from the broken well is dissolving into the seawater. Although methane occurs naturally in sea water, excessive amounts can encourage the growth of microbes. Microbes can deplete water of oxygen needed to support marine life.
"At some locations, we saw depletions of up to 30 percent of oxygen based on its natural concentration in the waters. At other places, we saw no depletion of oxygen in the waters. We need to determine why that is," said Texas A&M University oceanography professor John Kessler, who is part of the research team." Reuters
This is from the History Channel so take it for what it's worth:
So what is one to think of these raids in Belgium? I don't know anything about the law in that country. Maybe raids of this sort are not uncommon. Is it legal to hold people without charge while offices are raided and evidence gathered? Is there any proscription against drilling into tombs or similar methods? I don't know.
The one thing that I am relatively sure of, however, is that if the Church had, from the beginning, been willing to cooperate with authorities, not just in countries like Belgium, but everywhere there have been allegations of sexual abuse, these raids probably wouldn't occur. The fact of the matter is that the Church has gone out of its way to make life difficult for anyone trying to get to the bottom of this. Instead of opening the books and cooperating it has closed ranks and deflected criticism, counter-suing and using the courts to hide the truth.
We all know that sins were committed, laws broken and lives ruined. The Church needs to confess its sins openly, which it his in some cases, and then, as an act of penance, throw open the records and let the guilty be punished. It is doing more harm than good by trying to hide behind claims of protecting the innocent or maintaining confidentiality of the abused.
Get this over with and move on. This is what the Church tells the faithful all the time when it teaches about the sacrament of confession. The fact that it refuses to follow its own teaching casts doubt where none should exist.
"Pope Benedict denounced on Sunday as "surprising and deplorable" raids by Belgian police on Church offices and the home of a cardinal this week during an investigation into pedophilia by Roman Catholic priests.
In a letter to the head of the Belgian bishops conference, Benedict expressed his "solidarity" after Thursday's search of two Church offices and the home of a former archbishop, during which computers and files were removed and at least one tomb was opened.
Belgium's bishops, who were holding a meeting at the time of the raids, were kept incommunicado for nine hours while the searches were conducted.
"At this sad time, I wish to express ... my closeness and solidarity for the surprising and deplorable ways in which the searches were carried out," the pope said in his message.
"I hope that justice will follow its course while guaranteeing the rights of individuals and institutions, respecting the victims, (and) acknowledging those who undertake to collaborate," Benedict added.
The Vatican protested to Belgium on Friday, expressing "shock" at the way the raids were carried out and "indignation" at what it said was the violation of tombs." KNAU
"The Vatican has stepped up its criticism of raids by Belgian police investigating alleged child sex abuse, calling the detention of priests "serious and unbelievable".
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, said "there are no precedents, not even under the old communist regimes".
He claimed the priests were held for nine hours without eating or drinking.
Several buildings of the Belgium Church were searched on Thursday.
Bishops holding a meeting there were barred from leaving the premises for several hours.
"It was sequestration, a serious and unbelievable act," said Cardinal Bertone.
'Astonishment'
Police in Leuven seized nearly 500 files and a computer from the offices of a Church commission investigating allegations of sex abuse.
They also searched the Church's headquarters, the Brussels archdiocese in Mechelen, north of the Belgian capital.
Prosecutors have said the raids were over alleged "abuse of minors committed by a certain number of Church figures".
On Friday, the Vatican voiced "astonishment" at how the raids have been carried out, saying police had drilled holes in two archbishops' tombs.
The Vatican said the raids had led to the "violation of confidentiality of precisely those victims for whom the raids were carried out".
The Vatican has summoned the Belgian ambassador to the Holy See to voice their anger at the incident.
The Catholic Church in Belgium has apologised for its silence on abuse cases in the past." BBC
"Police officers raided the St Rambouts Cathedral in the town of Mechelen, north of Brussels, on Thursday acting on allegations that a cache of files concerning a sex abuse cover up was hidden in the crypt.
A Church spokesman confirmed that police officers opened the tomb of Leo Jozef Suenens, Belgian prelate between 1961 and 1979 and the grave of Jozef-Ernest van Roey, who was his predecessor as head of the Catholic Chrurh in Belgium from 1926 until his death in 1961.
"The tombs of Cardinals Suenens and Van Roey were drilled and a camera was pushed into them apparently to see whether there were any hidden documents," said Father Eric De Beukelaer, spokesman for the cathedral." Telegraph
"Is it really raining BP oil in Louisiana?
That might certainly be what some people across the world might believe.
For instance, here is a video found on Youtube entitled “Raining Oil in Louisiana”.
One watching the video would believe that oil was just pouring from the skies like cats and dogs.
A voice on the video says “it raining oil everywhere”.
He also says he is in River Ridge.
Anyone knowing the New Orleans area would surely know that River Ridge is hours away by car from any oil sighting.
Also, on the Youtube video there is a picture of what appears to be dead crabs near a water drain.
Crabs do not normally crawl the streets of a major residential area totally remote from any waters. And why would a crab just happen to land by a sewage drain dripping in oil?" Bayou Buzz
The article above is referring to a video that has gone around the net over the last few days and which I posted here. The author says the video is fabricated. Maybe it is. However, if you look at it the mass that he claims is a crab looks an awful lot like leaves to me. Could it be a crab? I suppose. But it could just as easily be something else.
And while River Ridge may be hours away from any oil sighting by car, if you look at amapit's about thirty miles to the Gulf, as the crow flies. Oil is lighter than water so I see no reason it can't be carried in the rain and would expect it to happen.
So the question remains whether the video of oil in the streets of River Ridge is true or not. I don't know for sure. The one thing I do know is that there is one hell of a lot of oil on the streets in that video. Even after a long dry spell around here, when the rains finally come and the oil washes of the roads, I've never seen anything like what's in the video.
If you've been following this story closely, not just in the main stream media but on the net, there is nothing in this video that will come as a surprise. Of course, if you've been following it that closely, you're the exception. Most are more concerned with McChrystal or the World Cup.
The ugly reality, the one that is apparently starting to be so obvious that even Chris Matthews is reporting on it, is that there is very little chance this blowout will be stopped. So, realistically, we need to face the fact and prepare. How? I don't have the slightest idea; beyond prayer. That is the only solution left.
If this is to be solved it will be through an act of God and it will be a sign for the world. I think that we are reaching a point where we are going to see a direct intervention by the Creator himself and the reason is that we are in perilous times. There is a separation going on, between the believers and those that don't. We will be given clear evidence so that faith isn't necessary for belief; we'll have seen with our own eyes. We will be given a clear choice so that the decision we make will be binding because we won't be able to say we didn't know. We will be held accountable for the decision we make.
So buckle up boys and girls and prepare through prayer. It is the only hope we have left.
Yeah, I know, I'm just getting all hysterical, again. This will become the story of the summer for much of the eastern half of America as hurricanes push oil laden rain over the continent. Water, air and the food supply will be contaminated with oil and dispersant.
This video was taken in River Ridge, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans.
I wonder what part of the picture we're missing here. It couldn't be possible, what with our President having his finger right on the pulse of the situation and all, that yet another federal agency is going to shut down the states in their fight to protect themselves from the oil?
The Governors had better grow a pair and do what they have to and protect their citizens. If the fed wants to send in the army to stop them, then fine. At least we'll know who stands where, with no more double talk.
"The federal government is shutting down the dredging that was being done to create protective sand berms in the Gulf of Mexico.
The berms are meant to protect the Louisiana coastline from oil. But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department has concerns about where the dredging is being done." WDSU
"...It is a dangerous game drilling into high pressure oil and gas zones because you risk having a blowout if your mud weight is not heavy enough. If you weight up your mud with barium sulfate to a very high level, you risk BLOWING OUT THE FORMATION.
What does that mean? It means you crack the rock deep underground; as the mudweight is now denser than the rock, it escapes into the rock in the pore spaces and the fractures. The well empties of mud. If you have not hit high pressure oil or gas at this stage, you are lucky.
But if you have, the oil and gas come flying up the well and you have a blowout, because you have no mud in the well to suppress the oil and gas. You shut down the well with the blowout preventer. If you do not have a blowout preventer, you are in trouble as we have all seen and you can only hope that the oil and gas pressure will naturally fall off with time, otherwise you have to try and put a new blowout preventer in place with oil and gas coming out as you work.
Obviously, the oil and gas pressure hasn't fallen off
In fact... it's increased.
The problem is that BP may not only have hit the mother of high-pressure wells, but there is also a vast amount of methane down there that could come exploding out like an underwater volcano." Petroleum World
I've been accused of hysteria for posting this sort of thing before. Oh well. Look, there is something terribly out of the ordinary in the way this blowout has been handled; from day one. I've had the feeling all along that there is a sense of futility surrounding everything that has happened. It's like the guys that know, really know what's about to happen have given up and are moving on to greener pastures. BP gives away $20 billion without a fight? Come on. If they thought that there was a chance of this thing getting fixed they'd fight this until the end of time. That's how oil companies and most other companies work.
The argument made in the above article makes sense to me. I've seen it or various forms of it since this thing started. Maybe it's because I'm a carpenter and I work with tools all day long but none of this seems mysterious. Pressure is pressure, no matter how much or how little. You can either control it or you can't. If you try to control it with inadequate means it will blow. Depending on how much pressure you're dealing with, the blowout can be minor or it can do extensive damage. And it will continue until it's overpowered or exhausts itself.
We can't control this thing and it's getting worse with every passing moment. At some point it will have eroded enough of the material in the bore that we will see a cataclysmic failure of the sea floor.
Hell is about to erupt in the Gulf.
"Methane bubbles from the sea floor could, in theory, sink ships and may explain the odd disappearances of some vessels, Australian researchers reported Tuesday.
The huge bubbles can erupt from undersea deposits of solid methane, known as gas hydrates. An odorless gas found in swamps and mines, methane becomes solid under the enormous pressures found on deep sea floors." MSNBC
"...and the third part of the ships was destroyed." Revelation 8:9
"Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), in an interview last week agreed that the rift over the federal health care bill between the bishops and the Catholic Health Association (CHA) exposed a major question concerning who speaks for the Church.
The cardinal’s recorded comments echo other reports. Last week, episcopal sources, who requested anonymity, told CNA that the cardinal lamented the rise of a “parallel magisterium” in the health care debate and blamed CHA and other groups for the passage of the bill.
...Later in the interview, Allen asked: “From your point of view, is this ultimately an ecclesiological question – who speaks for the Church?”
“Yes, exactly,” Cardinal George replied. “Our disagreement may be narrow, but it’s a narrow difference that has exposed a very large principle. It affects the nature of the church, and therefore it has to concern the bishops.
....According to these episcopal sources, the cardinal clearly remarked that Sr. Carol and her colleagues are to blame for the passage of the bill. The prelate also criticized as meaningless the president’s executive order allegedly barring abortion funding, saying that Sr. Carol was mistaken to think that the legislation is pro-life." Catholic News Agency
This is interesting. The good Cardinal seems to be accusing Sister Keehan of exactly the actions many of us have accused the USCCB of participating in. While I can't disagree with the assessment of Keehan's actions and their results, I feel compelled to point out that, by distorting the Church teachings on social justice the bishops are guilty of the same crime.
During the health care debate the USCCB consistently stood on the side of the Progressives, justifying the destruction of our natural law rights to private property and supplanting them with a new definition of a right to health care that has never been taught by the Church. They created a new magisterium here in America, overriding millenia of Church teachings to satisfy a political agenda.
This is like the pot calling the kettle black as the USCCB tries to divert blame from themselves and on to Sister Keehan. And while there's plenty of blame to go around and the Sister is far from innocent of the charges levied, one has to think that if the bishops had not spent the last hundred years here in America promoting Progressive causes the Sister Keehan's of the world would have never gained the authority they have within the Catholic American world.
As the Soros backed Center For American Progress pushes the President to focus on the Cap and Trade transfer of wealth scheme while the Iterior Secretary Ken Salazar does anend run around the courtsto reimpose the drilling moratorium in the Gulf which benefits Petrobras, a company which is one of the two largest investments in the Soros portfolio, one has to wonder; who's running this country?
The focus of the administration seems to be squarely on the Soros agenda while the oil in the Gulf continues to flow. It's easy enough to see the oil slick that is poisoning the waters. I wish it were as easy to see the money trail that poisons our government.
"Barack Obama will on Wednesday make a renewed push to spur the US Senate into action on climate change, saying the BP oil spill underlines the urgency for the country to lessen its dependence on fossil fuels.
The US president will host senators from both parties at the White House – including those who have proposed variations on a climate change bill – but analysts are sceptical about whether he can overcome the political impasse on a proposal that is seen as essentially a tax.
“The oil spill has dramatically increased the urgency for the need to act,” said Daniel Weiss of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. “But I’m not looking for any breakthrough at the meeting. I think President Obama wants to listen to various concerns and follow up on various ideas.” Financial Times
What will it take for the federal government to start enforcing the law? And how much more will it take to send troops to the border with the authority to cross it? At some point America either has to cede the border to the gangs or we have to go on the offensive.
Which brings to mind a similar incident about 100 years ago:
"The installation of the Venustiano Carranza regime in Mexico City did not result in lasting tranquility with the United States. Events became so chaotic that the State Department issued a warning to U.S. citizens living in Mexico to leave the country; thousands took the advice.
One of Carranza’s allies, Francisco “Pancho” Villa, turned against the new president, claiming with some reason that Carranza was not making good on his reform pledges. Villa himself was a rascally character, an enormous self-promoter and an occasional champion of the underprivileged. Villa was initially engaged in a struggle on behalf of the government against rival forces. He became the darling of Hollywood filmmakers and U.S. newspapermen by granting open access to his campaigns; some maintained that he actually staged battles for the cameras and the attendant publicity.
Villa's horizons broadened considerably when he began to seek control of the Mexican government for himself; his method was to weaken Carranza by provoking problems with the United States. On January 10, 1916 his forces attacked a group of American mining engineers at Santa Ysabel, killing 18. The Americans had been invited into the area by Carranza for the purpose of reviving a number of abandoned mines.
Villa’s men struck next on March 9, crossing the border to attack Columbus, New Mexico, the home of a small garrison. The town was burned and 17 Americans were killed in the raid. War fever broke out across the United States. Senator Henry F. Ashurst of Arizona suggested that “more grape shot and less grape juice” was needed, a none-too-subtle indictment of the teetotaling secretary of state William Jennings Bryan.
President Wilson abandoned "watchful waiting" and appointed General John J. (“Black Jack”) Pershing to head a punitive force of 12,000 soldiers to locate Villa — dead or alive. Carranza was not enthusiastic about the entry of an American army on to Mexican soil, and became even less so the farther south the soldiers moved. Despite several close calls, Villa always managed to escape the larger and better equipped invaders. An exasperated Pershing cabled Washington, “Villa is everywhere, but Villa is nowhere.” U.S. History
I'm not saying that we'll be any more effective against the drug cartels than Pershing (a good Missouri boy) was against Villa. But, if we're going to fight a difficult war against a well funded, entrenched enemy that has a significant home field advantage, why not do it in Mexico instead of Afghanistan?
Honestly, I don't care about Afghanistan. Get in, kill the enemy and get out. Bring the troops back home and go to war with the drug cartels, and Mexico itself, if need be. We could build a killing zone one hundred miles into Mexico from our border and tell the Mexican government that if we see anything so much as move in that area we'll bring the whole freakin' power of the U.S. military to bear on it.
Border problem solved. And if Mexico won't get with the program we'll force the issue. We don't have time for this silliness and even more importantly, we cannot tolerate some third rate, self styled Emperor with his private army pushing us around and shooting at our cops or bringing drugs and slaves into the country.
This is going to end in war inside America. Unfortunately, it will be the federal government invading the states that take the matter into their own hands because they've run out of options to defend and protect their citizens.
Looks like the religion of peace is at it again. The police chief has a lot to answer for here. Since when is it illegal to speak about religion in public in America? And how can exercising freedom of speech warrant arrests, the seizure of private property and the refusal to return it? Do you remember the oath you swore to uphold and defend the Constitution, Chief Haddad? Interesting fact; did you know that Haddad is the most common surname in Lebanon?
"Four Christian missionaries trying to convert Muslims were arrested and jailed Friday for disorderly conduct at an Arab festival in Dearborn, police said.
"We did make four arrests for disorderly conduct," Dearborn Police Chief Ron Haddad said Saturday. "They did cause a stir."
Nabeel Qureshi of Virginia and David Wood of New York, both with a Christian group called Acts 17 Apologetics, were arrested with two others after they were said to be causing disruptive behavior, police said.
The four, who were at the Dearborn Arab International Festival, were later released on bail." Freep
"In what some have described as police enforcement of Sharia law at the annual Dearborn Arab International Festival, last Friday night Dearborn Police Officers arrested four Christian missionaries and illegally confiscated their video cameras which were recording the events surrounding their arrests. The Thomas More Law Center, a public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, today announced it is representing all of the Christian missionaries.
Arrested on charges of Breach of the Peace are: Negeen Mayel, Dr. Nabeel Qureshi, Paul Rezkalla, and David Wood. Mayel, an eighteen year old female, whose parents emigrated from Afghanistan and a recent convert from Islam to Christianity, was also charged with failure to obey a police officer’s orders. She was approximately 100 feet away and videotaping a discussion with some Muslims when her camera was seized.
Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, commented, “These Christian missionaries were exercising their Constitutional rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion, but apparently the Constitution carries little weight in Dearborn, where the Muslim population seems to dominate the political apparatus. It’s apparent that these arrests were a retaliatory action over the embarrassing video of the strong arm tactics used last year by Festival Security Guards. This time, the first thing police officers did before making the arrests was to confiscate the video cameras in order to prevent a recording of what was actually happening.”
Thompson continued, “Contrary to the comments made by Police Chief Ron Haddad, our Constitution does not allow police to ban the right of free speech just because there are some hecklers. Not all police officers approve of the way their department treated these Christians.” Answering Muslims
This is the kind of stuff that makes a geeky history nerd of the Catholic persuasion all warm and fuzzy inside. I can't imagine how cool it must be the first to see something no one has seen for centuries.
"ROME — The earliest known icons of the Apostles Peter and Paul have been discovered in a catacomb under an eight-story modern office building in a working-class neighborhood of Rome, Vatican officials said Tuesday.
The images, which date from the second half of the 4th century, were discovered on the ceiling of a tomb that also includes the earliest known images of the apostles John and Andrew. They were uncovered using a new laser technique that allowed restorers to burn off centuries of thick white calcium carbonate deposits without damaging the dark colors of the original paintings underneath.
The paintings adorn what is believed to be the tomb of a Roman noblewoman in the Santa Tecla catacomb and represent some of the earliest evidence of devotion to the apostles in early Christianity, Vatican officials said in opening up the tomb to the media for the first time.
Last June, the Vatican announced the discovery of the icon of Paul — timed to coincide with the end of the Vatican's Pauline year. At the time, Pope Benedict XVI also announced that tests on bone fragments long attributed to Paul "seemed to confirm" that they did indeed belong to the Roman Catholic saint.
On Tuesday, Vatican archaeologists announced that the image of Paul discovered last year was not found in isolation, but was rather part of a square ceiling painting that also included icons of three other apostles - Peter, John and Andrew - surrounding an image of Christ as the Good Shepherd.
"These are the first images of the apostles," said Fabrizio Bisconti, the superintendent of archaeology for the catacombs, which are maintained by the Vatican's Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archaeology." Fox News
So BP, the regulating authorities, some of the investors and the Obama administration were aware that something was terribly wrong at the Deepwater Horizon site two months before the blowout:
"BP Plc was struggling to seal cracks in its Macondo well as far back as February, more than two months before an explosion killed 11 and spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
It took 10 days to plug the first cracks, according to reports BP filed with the Minerals Management Service that were later delivered to congressional investigators. Cracks in the surrounding rock continued to complicate the drilling operation during the ensuing weeks. Left unsealed, they can allow explosive natural gas to rush up the shaft.
“Once they realized they had oil down there, all the decisions they made were designed to get that oil at the lowest cost,” said Peter Galvin of the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been working with congressional investigators probing the disaster. “It’s been a doomed voyage from the beginning.”
...On Feb. 13, BP told the minerals service it was trying to seal cracks in the well about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast, drilling documents obtained by Bloomberg show. Investigators are still trying to determine whether the fissures played a role in the disaster.
...In early March, BP told the minerals agency the company was having trouble maintaining control of surging natural gas, according to e-mails released May 30 by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is investigating the spill.
...On March 10, BP executive Scherie Douglas e-mailed Frank Patton, the mineral service’s drilling engineer for the New Orleans district, telling him: “We’re in the midst of a well control situation.”
The incident was a “showstopper,” said Robert Bea, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who has consulted with the Interior Department on offshore drilling safety. “They damn near blew up the rig.” Bloomberg
What was their reaction?
"Tony Hayward cashed in about a third of his holding in the company one month before a well on the Deepwater Horizon rig burst, causing an environmental disaster.
Mr Hayward, whose pay package is £4 million a year, then paid off the mortgage on his family’s mansion in Kent, which is estimated to be valued at more than £1.2 million." Telegraph
"According to regulatory filings, RawStory.com has found that Goldman Sachs sold 4,680,822 shares of BP in the first quarter of 2010. Goldman's sales were the largest of any firm during that time. Goldman would have pocketed slightly more than $266 million if their holdings were sold at the average price of BP's stock during the quarter." Raw Story
It appears that those in the loop, the government, BP and at least two of its investors knew that the chance of failure at Deepwater were high. Their reaction to this information seems to be to get while the gettin's good, at least on the part of some investors, cover their ass on the part of BP and keep on partying on the part of the administration.
Maybe there wasn't much else they could do; Bp that is. But the government, that's a whole different ball game. If the government knew with a significant amount of certainty, and it appears they did, that we were on the cusp of a platform failure of historic proportions, they should have begun staging emergency equipment and implementing a plan to protect the coast. One of the few powers assigned the federal government in the Constitution is to protect the country. But what was the administration doing? They were focused entirely on health care and getting it shoved down our throats. Instead of fulfilling its basic Constitutional requirement to defend the country, the administration was intent on shredding that same document with their health care power grab.
And now, two months into this unparalleled threat to America and the world, what is the administration focused on? Shutting down oil drilling to further their ideological agenda and get cap and trade passed. They're perfectly happy to have all the various government agencies get in the way of the states in trying to mitigate the damage from the oil while offering very little in the way of solutions. The administration, instead of clearing the decks of useless government red tape so the emergency can be dealt with effectively is sending the Attorney General down to sue BP. Instead of partnering with BP to clean the spill they are extorting money from them and giving clear indication that they will put them out of business.
So while life as we know it slowly bleeds away the guys at the top, the ones with the power and control, are using their time to further consolidate their power and control. The administration is going to starve our economy of the energy it needs to grow and expand while at the same time it islending American taxpayers dollars to Petrobras in Brazil to pay for off shore drilling.And as Glenn Beck reported last night,George Soros increased his holdings in Petrobrasin February, just about the time the truth about the danger in the gulf began to surface. Soros and the Obama administration, tied together in Brazil. Is it possible that Soros was kept apprised by friends in the administration about Deepwater?
So America loses more of its supply of energy and countless jobs in the midst of a depression while Brazil, Petrobras and Obama supporter Soros all benefit.
And of course, Soros and his friends, many of whom are part of the Obama administration, would like nothing better than to see the Unites States reduced in power and influence. Are they killing two birds with one stone?
"Petrobras, Brazil’s national oil company, is preparing a $25 billion share issue for July, The Financial Times reported, in a move toward developing its “presalt” fields — so named because they are beneath thousands of meters of sea water, rock and a layer of salt. The fields have the potential of making the South American nation one of the world’s largest oil exporters." New York Times
So we won't be drilling for oil in America but our demand will still be there. We can't function without oil, and lots of it. It follows that whoever controls the oil controls America.
I don't know if this is true or not or if the person that wrote the story is qualified to make this assessment. That being said, what's a little more panic among friends?Go to Heliumto read the entire story.
"Disturbing evidence is mounting that something frightening is happening deep under the waters of the Gulf of Mexico—something far worse than the BP oil gusher.
Warnings were raised as long as a year before the Deepwater Horizon disaster that the area of seabed chosen by the BP geologists might be unstable, or worse, inherently dangerous.
What makes the location that Transocean chose potentially far riskier than other potential oil deposits located at other regions of the Gulf? It can be summed up with two words: methane gas.
...Documents from several years ago indicate that the subterranean geologic formation may contain the presence of a huge methane deposit.
None other than the engineer who helped lead the team to snuff the Gulf oil fires set by Saddam Hussein to slow the advance of American troops has stated that a huge underground lake of methane gas—compressed by a pressure of 100,000 pounds per square inch (psi)—could be released by BP's drilling effort to obtain the oil deposit.
Current engineering technology cannot contain gas that is pressurized to 100,000 psi.
By some geologists' estimates the methane could be a massive 15 to 20 mile toxic and explosive bubble trapped for eons under the Gulf sea floor. In their opinion, the explosive destruction of the Deepwater Horizon wellhead was an accident just waiting to happen.
Yet the disaster that followed the loss of the rig pales by comparison to the apocalyptic disaster that may come.
...According to worried geologists, the first signs that the methane may burst its way through the bottom of the ocean would be fissures or cracks appearing on the ocean floor near the damaged well head.
Evidence of fissures opening up on the seabed have been captured by the robotic submersibles working to repair and contain the ruptured well. Smaller, independent plumes have also appeared outside the nearby radius of the bore hole itself.
...With the emerging evidence of fissures, the quiet fear now is the methane bubble rupturing the seabed and exploding into the Gulf waters. If the bubble escapes, every ship, drilling rig and structure within the region of the bubble will instantaneously sink. All the workers, engineers, Coast Guard personnel and marine biologists measuring the oil plumes' advance will instantly perish.
As horrible as that is, what would follow is an event so potentially horrific that it equals in its fury the Indonesian tsunami that killed more than 600,000, or the destruction of Pompeii by Mt. Vesuvius.
The ultimate Gulf disaster, however, would make even those historical horrors pale by comparison. If the huge methane bubble breaches the seabed, it will erupt with an explosive fury similar to that experienced during the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens in the Pacific Northwest. A gas gusher will surge upwards through miles of ancient sedimentary rock—layer after layer—past the oil reservoir. It will explode upwards propelled by 50 tons psi, burst through the cracks and fissures of the compromised sea floor, and rupture miles of ocean bottom with one titanic explosion.
The burgeoning methane gas cloud will surface, killing everything it touches, and set off a supersonic tsunami with the wave traveling somewhere between 400 to 600 miles per hour."
Revelation 8: 8-9
"And the second angel sounded the trumpet: and as it were a great mountain, burning with fire, was cast into the sea, and the third part of the sea became blood:
And the third part of those creatures died, which had life in the sea, and the third part of the ships was destroyed."
"Mountains of rotting food found at a government warehouse, soaring prices and soldiers raiding wholesalers accused of hoarding: Food supply is the latest battle in President Hugo Chavez's socialist revolution.
Venezuelan army soldiers swept through the working class, pro-Chavez neighborhood of Catia in Caracas last week, seizing 120 tons of rice along with coffee and powdered milk that officials said was to be sold above regulated prices.
"The battle for food is a matter of national security," said a red-shirted official from the Food Ministry, resting his arm on a pallet laden with bags of coffee.
It is also the latest issue to divide the Latin American country where Chavez has nationalized a wide swathe of the economy, he says to reverse years of exploitation of the poor." CNBC
It seems to me that it should be apparent to anyone that can unbridle themselves from ideologically driven thought that Marxism always fails and capitalism generally works. Note I didn't say capitalism always works because sometimes people abuse the system. But outside of the occasional abuse, which system would I rather live under? The one where the evil capitalist profits by making sure that I have fresh food to buy because it benefits him and his business, or the enlightened Marxist system where some bureaucrat plays God and tries to manage the market to make sure I have fresh food based not on my needs but on government directive.
Caracas or Cleveland; Havana or Harrisburg. Decisions...decisions.
Government is moving towards the free market in Russia while in America it's buying up industries. Funny how attractive communism is to those that have never experienced it while it is something that those that have run away from.
I suppose theory trumps experience for the intelligentsia.
"Russia will scrap capital gains tax on long-term direct investment from 2011, President Dmitry Medvedev has said.
Mr Medvedev said that in terms of improving Russia's investment climate "we, I hope, are moving forward".
He also said the number of "strategic" firms, in which foreign investment is restricted and which cannot be privatised, would fall from 280 to 41.
Mr Medvedev has been promoting the idea of "modernisation", including diversifying the Russian economy." BBC
Elbridge Cleaver, as the Information Minister for the Black Panthers, worked to promote communism and destory capitalism in the '60's. He was forced to flee to Cuba after a gun battle between the Panthers and the San Francisco Police in 1968. Actually experiencing communism, instead of viewing it through the lens of theory led Cleaver to say this:
"During the eight years that I was absent from the United States, I underwent a change in my whole philosophy based on my observations," Cleaver told Ebony. "I stopped being a communist or socialist and developed an understanding and respect for free enterprise and the democratic political system.... I found the systems of dictatorships and communism to be absolutely unacceptable. Living in those countries put an end to my advocacy of communism." Answers.com
"I'd rather be in jail in America than free anywhere else." J Rank
Cleaver is probably not the best example of almost anything that I'd want my children to aspire to, yet his change of heart about the communist system is instructive. So many today are completely ignorant about the Constitution and our country and why we have the freedoms we have and what it takes to preserve them. They're willing to buy into greater and more intrusive government of the kind promoted by our current President with little or no understanding of the prison they're helping to build.
I'm watching many cheer on the extortion of $20 billion dollars from BP without ever once asking how the President gets the authority to act on his own volition to first extort the money, making threats through the Vice President and then to control the money he's extorted, creating a new position of Claims Administrator and filling it with Kenneth Feinberg. The government has no right to seize private property without due process and the Congress has the power of the purse. The President has no authority to control any money much less to create a clearinghouse to disperse his ill gotten gains. Extorting the money and then doling it out to his supporters is the Chicago Way, the way of corruption and destruction.
Most would say, "But BP deserves it. Look at the damage they've done." Maybe BP does deserve to pay this money, and maybe more. But that's for the courts to decide, not the imperial President. "But that would take too long. We demand justice now!" Fine. So the next time you have an argument about your property with the government I suppose you'll be more than happy to hand it over to them without any defense or recourse to the courts. Because, if they can do it to BP they can do it to you.
There is so much outrage about the blowout in the Gulf that I'm starting to wonder if this isn't the crisis they've been waiting for. I'm not saying it was anything more than an accident or negligence, but I'm thinking it is the perfect opportunity to tighten the screws. The emotion surrounding this tragedy opens the door to rash judgement on the part of the people, making them less vigilant and easier to manipulate. Why do you think that the President has slammed his foot on the accelerator with cap and trade, or whatever it's being called now? That's what his speech a couple days ago was about. There was no plan or solution presented regarding the blowout. It was a speech paving the way for green jobs and higher taxes; more intrusive government control of the economy. And through economic control it will control the people.
So as Russia moves towards more economic freedom and greater personal freedom we move in the opposite direction. Somewhere in the middle there's a sweet spot where our fascist system and their communist system will collide and join. The guys at the top will control everything and there'll be just enough "freedom" to keep the engine of commerce spinning along and the money flowing into their coffers. And the people will work and slave or die in the camps.
"In what one environmentalist described as "yet another public relations disaster" for embattled energy giant BP, CEO Tony Hayward took time off Saturday to attend a glitzy yacht race around England's Isle of Wight.
As social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook lit up with outrage, BP spokespeople rushed to defend Hayward, who has drawn withering criticism as the public face of BP's halting efforts to stop the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
Spokeswoman Sheila Williams said Hayward took a break from overseeing BP efforts to stem the undersea gusher in Gulf of Mexico so he could watch his boat "Bob" participate in the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race. The 52-foot yacht is made by the Annapolis, Maryland-based boatbuilder Farr Yacht Design." Huffington Post
"President Barack Obama ventured from the White House for some Friday night baseball with his daughters and brother-in-law as his hometown Chicago White Sox took on the Washington Nationals and their new star pitcher, Stephen Strasburg. Obama was seen sipping a beer, laughing and pointing out to his daughters things happening on the field." Charlotte Observer
Since not even one number offered up by either BP or the government has proven to be correct, take this for what it's worth.
"BP CEO Tony Hayward says the reservoir that feeds the gushing well in the Gulf of Mexico probably still holds about 2 billion gallons of oil.
Appearing before a House subcommittee, Hayward estimated that the reservoir tapped by the out-of-control well holds at least 50 million barrels of oil. At 42 gallons per barrel, that's 2.1 billion gallons.
According to government estimates of daily flow figures, anywhere from 73.5 million to 126 million gallons gushed from the breached wellhead—whether into the water or captured.
That means the reservoir likely holds 94 to 97 percent of its oil. At the current flow rate, it would take from two to nearly four years for all the oil to leak from the field if it can't be stopped." Breibart
"A Utah firing squad shot to death a convicted killer early on Friday in the third U.S. execution by that means since 1976.
Ronnie Lee Gardner, 49, was pronounced dead at 12:20 amMountain Time (0620 GMT) after being shot in the chest by a five-man firing squad at the Utah State Prison in Draper, a suburb of Salt Lake City, Steve Gehrke, a spokesman for the Utah Department of Corrections, told reporters.
Gardner was condemned to die for the murder of an attorney during a bloody 1985 escape attempt and chose the firing squad as his means of execution before it was banned by the state and replaced by lethal injection.
..."I find it barbaric," Bishop John C Wester of The Roman Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City said in an interview.
"If you're going to do the death penalty, lethal injection would be the more humane way," Wester said, adding in reference to the firing squad, "It emblazons in our consciousness the violence that guns wreck on our lives." DNA India
Gardner's daughter was on TV this morning and said her father chose the firing squad because he lived by the gun so he should die by the gun.
That, Bishop Wester, is not barbaric; it's just, and in it's own way, poetic. This was a man that understood the damage he had done and accepted the penalties due for his actions. This is the reason for the death penalty. It's not about revenge or retribution. It's about justice.
I used to be, when I was younger and much more idealistic, vehemently opposed to the death penalty. I no longer am. And it's the teachings of the Catholic Church that have brought me to my conclusion.
Society has a right to impose the death penalty.This is the teaching of the Church. John Paul II was opposed to it and when the Catechism was published he had his opinion included. And I don't disagree with his assertion that if society can protect itself from the criminal through means other than death, it should. The thing is, I've come to believe that by not acting swiftly and with justice by executing those convicted in capital cases we are doing society a grave disservice. This is because society will not be protected.
If we could take the person convicted of a capital crime and put him on a work farm with other lifers, and make sure none of them see the light of freedom ever again in their lives, then fine. Be we won't. We'll let him get all lawyered up, at our expense. We'll get the media and celebrities writing articles and going on TV spouting off about how the person is innocent or wasn't raised right or didn't eat enough green beans when he was a kid or some other psycho babble excuse for his reprehensible behavior. The killer becomes a celebrity and all the little killer wannabe's look up and admire his celebrity and how he's gamed the system. All the criminals he's in prison with will figure that the punishment for killing somebody isn't so bad because the celebrity in the next cell over is meeting with hot Hollywood babes and getting his name splashed all over the place. The lesson the cons and the wannabe's take away from all this is that there really isn't any serious punishment for murder so if you need to kill the victim of your next crime to cover your tracks, why the hell not?
Can someone please explain to me how this protects society?
Wouldn't we be safer if the killer knew that when he got caught he'd get a fair trial and if convicted he'd be allowed a review of the case by qualified attorney's and judges, which really shouldn't take that long, and if everything is in order he will be taken out the day after the review is complete and hung in the town square, in full view of the wannabe's? Don't you think that maybe the in your face reality of punishment, swift and sure, for the crime committed, wouldn't go at least some distance towards convincing some, maybe most criminals, that killing the victim to cover the crime may not be the smartest idea? Don't you think that the picture of that guy jerking and shaking and crapping all over himself at the end of the rope might just pass through their mind?
So until we figure out a way to keep ourselves safe from convicted killers, truly and completely safe, I say hang the bastards. I don't take this lightly and I wish it didn't have to happen but this isn't a perfect world. Life is hard enough when we all play by the rules. We don't have time to mess with those that won't.
Yep, the President's got his finger right on the pulse of this problem, doesn't he? He's in charge; he said so himself. Yet, he won't even talk to Gov. Jindal, even after he told him to call if there were any problems.
Maybe it was date night with Michelle.
"Eight days ago, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal ordered barges to begin vacuuming crude oil out of his state's oil-soaked waters. Today, against the governor's wishes, those barges sat idle, even as more oil flowed toward the Louisiana shore.
Louisiana Governor Jindal frustrated over decision-making red tape.
"It's the most frustrating thing," the Republican governor said today in Buras, La. "Literally, yesterday morning we found out that they were halting all of these barges."
Sixteen barges sat stationary today, although they were sucking up thousands of gallons of BP's oil as recently as Tuesday. Workers in hazmat suits and gas masks pumped the oil out of the Louisiana waters and into steel tanks. It was a homegrown idea that seemed to be effective at collecting the thick gunk.
"These barges work. You've seen them work. You've seen them suck oil out of the water," said Jindal." ABC News
"Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.): "I think we had to have someone say this is where you can go without limiting your criminal liability or civil liability.For instance, the question is brought up, pay for all of the health care for the people in the Gulf. No, but Ithink those who lost their job, then lost their health care would be legitimate." Real Clear Politics
That didn't take long, did it? The President forces BP to create a slush...I'm sorry, trust fund and almost overnight we hear justifications for its use to fund health care. It starts with paying for the health care of laid off workers in the Gulf but it will expand from there.
How can this happen? The government shuts down drilling in the Gulf and then extorts money out of a private company to pay for it. It's not even the government doing it, it's the President, acting on his own authority. When did he become King?
We must decide; are we a nation of laws, with the Constitution as the foundation, or have we become a nation with a ruler that sets the laws to satisfy his own ends?
The Constitution gives the power of the purse to the Congress. The President does not have any authority to create pools of money under his direction, managed by his political cronies with the title ofIndependent Claims Administrator. This is nothing more than the Chicago way. This money, ostensibly for the purpose of paying laid off workers, will be used as a source of funds to bribe and cajole. The supporters and causes friendly to the administration will get their cut while those that oppose it will find themselves hungry and cold, rejected as unworthy of government beneficence.
"Incoming Catholic University of America (CUA) president John H. Garvey has defended the freedom of Catholic adoption agencies to refuse to place children with same-sex couples. However, he also holds that the Pledge of Allegiance could be viewed as unconstitutional and may violate Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Freedom." Catholic News Agency
I'm sure that Mr. Garvey is a wonderful human being. Still, how can the use of the phrase "under God' be considered unconstitutional when the founders expressed the same sentiment over and over in their writings?
"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..." The Declaration of Independence
“The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principals of Christianity… I will avow that I believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”
“[July 4th] ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.”
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
-John Adams
“Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day [the Fourth of July]?" “Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity"?
-John Quincy Adams
“God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured in the Sacred Writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this. I also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel”
“In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for Divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered… do we imagine we no longer need His assistance?”
-Benjamin Franklin
"For my own part, I sincerely esteem it [the Constitution] a system which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests."
-Alexander Hamilton
“It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.”
-Patrick Henry
I could go on and on with this but you get the point. The Founders were religious (mostly Christian) and they all believed that a belief in God was essential to the governing of the country and the individual. Their genius was not in excluding religion from government but in seamlessly joining the two together in a way that still allowed for the free will exercise of religious belief by the people.
The claim that the phrase "under God" is unconstitutional is spurious and dangerous. It distorts history and leads to a conclusion that is not supportable. It is only through a recognition of the blessings bestowed upon this country by a benevolent God that we can come to give thanks and understand our place in the world.
The rejection of God in America has led us to the place we're at today. It's time we return to the belief in God that our Founders expected us to hold. The Pledge of Allegiance, as currently written, is an important tool to get us there.
"Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that the antichrist was coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. Thus we know this is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really of our number; if they had been, they would have remained with us. Their desertion shows that none of them was of our number. But you have the anointing that comes from the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you not because you do not know the truth but because you do, and because every lie is alien to the truth."
1st John 2:18-21
“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality”
Dante Alighieri
“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”
John Quincy Adams
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”
George Washington
“If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.”
Thomas Jefferson
" I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me."
Willard Duncan Vandiver
"The issue is, to use a sporting metaphor, whether in the game of life the government shall captain the national team or shall act as referee."
S. Harcourt-Rivington
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."