Archive for July, 2023

Serious Irony Alert Rapture and Bronny

Posted: July 25, 2023 by datechguy in catholic, Church doctrine
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Today I was thinking on what I was going to write when I saw yet another story about people thinking the “end times” or “rapture” will be this year.

Back in the 1970s, I used to joke that someone was going to write a book titled, Jesus Is Coming Back in the 1970s, only to publish a new and revised edition a few years later titled, Jesus Is Coming in the 1980s.

Little did I know that on January 1, 1988, Edgar Whisenant, a former NASA engineer, would publish 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988. Hundreds of thousands of books were sold or given away, creating a national frenzy.

There is actually a long history of this (think the Millerites who became the 7th day Adventists when they stopped predicting the day the world would end) you would think that Christ explicitly saying:

But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.

Matt 24:36

would have put an end to this but it hasn’t so the foolish and the grifters continue to play “the end is near” game.

When I saw that piece I tweeted out what I always say to those preparing for the end times and the great tribulation:

If you are practicing your faith properly then the end times will have no fear. So stop worrying about the world’s end times and live the type of life that prepares you for your own.

Less than one minute after I tweeted that out News broke:

For those who don’t know Bronny James is the son of LeBron James the greatest playing in NBA history who is currently active (I’d take Bill Russell over him as the Goat). His father is one of the richest and most famous athletes in the world. Thanks to his skill and hard word he has achieved great things ins sport and was in the posittion to give his family all the best of everything. It’s been widely assumed that he was staying in the NBA so that he could play his final year with his son after he was drafted.

I suspect he would give all of that up to reverse today’s breaking news.

I wish the best for young Mr. James and his family but let this be a big reminder that not a single one of us, no matter how rich, how connected or how famous is promised tomorrow so the best advice in the world remains this: Get Baptized, Go to confession! Get yourself right with God today because it may be too late tomorrow.

Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven.

Thank God for the Atom Bomb

Posted: July 25, 2023 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

With the premiere of the motion picture Oppenheimer, the nuclear naysayers are starting to creep back into the public arena.

Writing in Time, Mary Robinson, the pacifist former president of Ireland, says: “As a young woman, I marched alongside hundreds of thousands of protesters against ‘the Bomb.’ Now a grandmother, I am appalled that my grandchildren still face the same specter of nuclear war.”

When I taught journalism, I had students read two sides of the nuclear debate. John Hersey’s Hiroshima, which many consider the finest piece of journalism in the 20th Century, chronicles the lives of six people who survived the bombing. Hersey’s descriptive prose underscored the horrors of the atomic age.

The other side of the debate—and one few people understand—comes from Paul Fussell’s view from the front lines of Allied soldiers launching an invasion of Japan.

As a lieutenant in a rifle company, Fussell was poised to go to Japan after the Axis had surrendered. He notes that hundreds of thousands of soldiers like him were heading toward Japan in an attack that would take a year and cost one million casualties. That’s one million Allied casualties—most of whom would be Americans.

Fussell writes: “In general, the principle is, the farther from the scene of horror, the easier the talk. One young combat naval officer close to the action wrote home…: ‘When I read that we will fight the Haps for years if necessary and will sacrifice hundreds of thousands if we must always like to check from where he’s talking; it’s seldom out here.’ That was Lieutenant John F. Kennedy.”

Fussell notes that the Japanese government planned to launch counteroffensives with its two million soldiers, 10,000 kamikaze aircraft, and even young people and seniors to defend the islands.

When news of the attack on Hiroshima reached his unit, Fussell and his fellow soldiers almost couldn’t believe the news. He quotes from American historian John Toland:

…[W]ith quiet disbelief coupled with an indescribable sense of relief. We thought the Japanese would never surrender. Many refused to believe it. . .. Sitting in stunned silence, we remembered our dead. So many dead. So many maimed. So many bright futures consigned to the ashes of the past. So many dreams lost in the madness that had engulfed us. The survivors of the abyss sat hollow-eyed and silent, trying to comprehend a world without war.

Fussell returned to the United States and became a well-known scholar of culture and literature at the University of Pennsylvania. He died in 2012.

Despite his many noteworthy articles and books, “Thank God for the Atom Bomb” is the one most people remember.

Here is the entire article: https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/hf/iakh/HIS1300MET/v12/undervisningsmateriale/Fussel%20-%20thank%20god%20for%20the%20atom%20bomb.pdf

Five Thoughts Under the Fedora: Ayotte Ok, The Countdown Continues, That explains it, So does this, Channeling Lincoln in Foxborough

Posted: July 24, 2023 by datechguy in culture, election 2020, election 2024, elections, nfl, politics, Sports, under the fedora
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Kelly Ayotte is running for Governor in NH. It’s my opinion that she was one of the few victims on 2016 because the left knew they needed the same kind of “help” in NH that they later arranged in 2020 in counties from Arizona to PA.

My friends at the Grok are underwhelmed but my thought is she was an OK Senator and would certainly be a better governor than any Democrat out there, neverayotte folks not withstanding.

On a personal note Ayotte always gave me time and never ducked a question I asked, again the Grok guys know NH better than me but I’d take her for Governor like a shot over who we have in MA.

There are four days left if you want a sub from mighty subs in Needham MA as they prepare to close their door after 33 years.

My advice if you want to avoid lines and the risk of them running out of bread which happened every day this week. Get their by 7 AM or 8 at the latest. Believe me they’re worth it and you only have four more days.

Here is my video from 11 years ago

Mighty subs in year 22 of 33

Saw a tweet at instapundit that I had to answer, that tweet and my answer explains a lot.

People with power do what they do for a reason.

Speaking of explanations:

https://twitter.com/giftgab538/status/1683072436210921472

I always thought that it was interesting that the same folks who were attacking and censoring people like me who say election 2020 was rigged and stolen never had the thought of demonstrating that the counts and the ballots were on the up and up, which is what you do if you have run a clean election that someone questions.

I submit and suggest there is a reason for this.

Finally I’m really getting sick of the “Replace Bill Belichick” chorus on talk radio lately.

Now I confess I don’t know if Bill has a plan to get back to the playoffs or the superbowl or just to last long enough to get the all time wins record but I do know two things.

  1. Barring a lot of luck and major injuries all over the league nothing he could do in the next three years will get this team back to the Superbowl
  2. There is not a better coach available that has even an outside chance of achieving that goal in the time frame I just mentioned.

I’m reminded of when a newspaper editor came to Lincoln demanding the removal of General George McClellan Lincoln asked him who he thought should replace him, he received the answer “Anybody” and Lincoln replied that anybody might be OK for him but he needed SOMEBODY.

Until I get a name who can do better I think I’ll stick with Bill.

Bud Light, CMT boycotts betray a New York problem

Posted: July 23, 2023 by John Ruberry in business, culture, media, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

Another company, this time the CMT Network, finds itself in trouble by angering its base by going woke. Now both are facing boycotts. The Bud Light one has been devastating for what until recently was America’s best-selling beer.

Last week, CMT, whose core audience comprises of country music listeners, pulled the video for Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town.” The song, which was released in May with no controversy, decries the pro-criminal sentiments celebrated in big cities, like New York City, where CMT is headquartered, and it shows BLM and Antifa riot news clips as Aldean croons.

That was too much for CMT. 

Country music fans lean right. I am one of them, although I favor the Americana genre over mainstream country. Country listeners are likely to be the men and women who repair your car, service your air conditioner, or build your home. They may not have Ivy League degrees like Bud Light’s vice president of marketing, the on-leave Alissa Heinerscheid, but these “deplorables” are not dopes. And they aren’t Manhattan-style know-it-alls. 

I imagine, until the Heinerschied-led marketing debacle with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney, many country music fans drank Bud Light. 

As of this writing on the evening of July 23, Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” is the number one song on iTunes and it has been viewed 15 million times on YouTube. 

For Friday’s CMT Music 12 Pack Countdown, Aldean’s massive hit was not among the dozens of songs nominated for the final cut. 

Clearly, CMT is as out of touch with its consumers as much as Anheuser-Busch and Bud Light are.

CMT has Nashville offices but as I mentioned earlier, it is based in New York. Anheuser-Busch has its headquarters where it was founded 171 years ago, in St. Louis, although it is now owned by Belgian firm InBev. 

But Anheueser-Busch’s marketing offices are in Manhattan, where Heinersheid lives.

Would things be different now for Anheuser-Busch if Heinerscheid and her marketing geniuses were instead based in St. Louis? And while no one is coming forward from CMT claiming credit for pushing the “kill” button on Aldean’s video, my guess is that the decision came from someone at their New York headquarters. 

The anger that brought forth the Bud Light and CMT boycotts are byproducts of elites who are isolated from the consumers they are supposed to be experts on. 

Can these brilliant minds do their jobs from places like St. Louis? Nashville? Of course, they can. As they can in Cincinnati, Billings, and Oklahoma City. You know, medium-sized cities. To be sure, they’re not Aldean-favored small towns, but these other cities are filled with less sophisticated types than the “betters” that you find in New York City.

Oh, there are telephones, computer lines in those smaller cities. And there is this thing called Zoom.

However, Bud Light did farm out the Mulvaney campaign to an advertising agency thousands of miles from Manhattan.

It was to a firm based in suburban San Francisco.

John Ruberry, who regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit, was a bachelor’s degree in advertising from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He’s pictured here at Penn Station (correction Grand Central Station) in New York.

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