Archive for July, 2023

It’s [Bracket away Jesus Talking About Hell] week at your Local Catholic Parish

Posted: July 23, 2023 by datechguy in catholic, Church doctrine, culture
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Fr Lou: Hmm. Sadly, movies and TV have filled our heads with images that are largely metaphorical. Not meant to be taken literally. I’m not here to hurt you, Edward. I’m here to help you. To put you at your ease. Make sure you’re comfortable. Personally, I’ve never met a demon. I’ve never been part of an exorcism, nor do I expect to be. Many of the things that bother us are just our own fears and disordered thoughts.

Nefarious (though James): [Suddenly calm] So… You… You don’t consider demonic possession to be a possibility?

Fr Lou: Our understanding has evolved beyond that.

Nefarious: Huh. Well, I appreciate you telling me that. I feel… I feel much better. And, Lou, I was wrong about you. I should’ve had you come and visit sooner.

Fr. Lou: I am glad that we’re all getting along. Would you like me to stay?

Nefarious: No, we’re done.

Nefarious 2023

One of the most basic teachings of the church is that the mass is the mass and the sacraments are the sacraments even if the priest who preforms the mass or delivers the sacraments is a lukewarm, priest or a bad priest or even an unbelieving priest. Thus the mass obligation doesn’t disappear if the priest you have isn’t up to snuff, one just has to be careful to know their catechism so as to accept the sacraments and any should teaching while reject anything contrary to church teaching that might be thrown in.

But sometimes the problem isn’t so much what is preached being contrary but what is not taught at all and the next two weeks are a good measuring stick along those lines:

Today’s Gospel for example is the parable of the sower and the weeds:

Jesus proposed another parable to the crowds, saying:

“The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off. When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well. The slaves of the householder came to him and said, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ His slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest;
then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.”‘”

Matt 13:24-30

Now that passage above will be read in every catholic parish in the nation, but the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has, for some reason, made the rest of the full Gospel scheduled for this week “optional”:

He proposed another parable to them.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants. It becomes a large bush, and the ‘birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.'”

He spoke to them another parable.

“The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour
until the whole batch was leavened.”

All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables. He spoke to them only in parables, to fulfill what had been said through the prophet:


I will open my mouth in parables,
I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation
of the world.

Then, dismissing the crowds, he went into the house. His disciples approached him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” He said in reply,

“He who sows good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the good seed the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all who cause others to sin and all evildoers. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears ought to hear.”

Matt 13:31-43

What jumps out at you right away in the part of the Gospel that is “optional” is Jesus explicably talking about those who “cause others to sin and evil doers” being thrown into the fiery furnace, in short, Hell.

So the USCCB is giving parishes the option to duck away from a core teaching of the church. Why? Perhaps because it might be off putting to those who sin or cause others to sin (think of all those pro-abort Catholics out there) who might otherwise think twice and want to give pastors the option to skip it.

“But DaTechGuy” you might say, “It’s the middle of summer and it’s a long gospel. If it’s a hot day perhaps a shorter Gospel might be better in a church without AC.” Well one might give that innocent interpretation to such options , that is if next weeks’ Gospel didn’t do the same thing with the following passage from Matthew’s Gospel mandatory on the joys of the kingdom of heaven:

Jesus said to his disciples:

“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant
searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.”

Matt 13:44-46

And this part about eternal punishment “optional”:

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind. When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away. Thus it will be at the end of the age. The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. “Do you understand all these things?”

They answered, “Yes.” And he replied,

“Then every scribe who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.”

Matt 13:47-52

Those extra five verses doesn’t make it a very long Gospel, but they again explicitly talk about damnation of the wicked and the USCCB has again made them “optional” in this post Vatican II world.

I’m sure there are many Fr. Lou’s out there who aren’t comfortable reading that Gospel or teaching about it because it challenges the congregation to see themselves in the light of truth and that just won’t do. I guarantee you that those are the parishes that have short or non-existent lines for confession every week because nobody there ever sins and has to worry about hell.

My advice is this: if you find yourself in such a parish, find another if you’re able. If you’re not then go to Mass and take the sacraments where you are but make it a point to read all the bracketed text and find a good solid outlet either online or on radio or TV with solid Catholic teaching to feed your soul.

Whoever has ears let them hear.

On clouds, fires and data

Posted: July 22, 2023 by navygrade36bureaucrat in opinion/news, Uncomfortable Truths
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Because I run a business installing network equipment, security cameras and offline storage, my business phone number rings all the time with someone wanting me to sell their latest stuff. Most of the time its a cloud-based service, and I politely tell the person on the phone my clients aren’t interested in cloud based…anything. One person challenged me on this about a year ago, saying that I simply didn’t understand the technology.

Remember, I have a bachelors in electrical engineering, AND a masters in electrical engineering (with a 100+ page technical thesis), AND quite a few industry certifications, plus many, many years working in this field. To say I was insulted is an understatement. Rather than rage on the guy, I simply replied “All that cloud means is my data is on someone else’s computer, which gives someone else control of it, and my clientele don’t like that.”

Now, I still use cloud services for some storage and a lot of network access. It’s convenient and makes it possible to open the garage door while you’re on vacation so your neighbor can borrow your posthole digger. But I don’t depend on it. If the internet goes down tomorrow, I still have access to my data locally, still can see my security cameras, and still can operate my doors. False accusations can’t stop any of my stuff from working.

The one big thing that cloud services offer is security from fire. If your house burns down, you can still pull all your files from the cloud. And well, by the featured image, you can guess what happened.

My mom called me yesterday to tell me my dad’s shop caught on fire. Thankfully the firefighters got there in time to keep it from spreading to the rest of the house. But his shop is where all his business paperwork, business computer, Veteran’s Affairs paperwork, and plenty of other important items are stored. It’s a mess.

THANKFULLY, I had set them up with a QNAP Network Attached Storage (NAS) a while back. While I don’t know if my dad had scanned and backed everything up, most of his files are there. He lost at least two external hard drives and his computers, but the NAS is in a different part of their house and wasn’t affected by the fire.

The current theory (pending a complete investigation) is that a recent string of power surges damaged a power strip, causing it to smolder and then catch fire. My parent’s home lost a refrigerator, stove, microwave and other appliances after 3 days of surges and power loss affected their area due to ongoing storms. The NAS is plugged into a UPS with a monitoring cord, so it shuts down gracefully during extended power outages.

Which brings me to my main point: you should be thinking NOW about your data. If everything you have is in the cloud and the cloud company decides it hates you because you’re a conservative, or because the FBI thinks you’re a terrorist for being a traditional Catholic, or because you support Donald Trump, or because you opposed people brainwashing your children at public school, that company could wipe everything, or simply hold it hostage, like some kind of bitLocker scam. The cloud makes it deceptively easy to place yourself at the mercy of tech giants that want to keep you under their thumb. On top of that, you need to protect yourself from natural disasters as well, and the most common item that breaks is an external hard drive. It’s very easy to forget about the drive in a fire, or leave it somewhere where water can damage it.

My go-to setup is a local NAS hooked up to your robust home network with a VPN for remote access. You get the benefits of storing all your files in one spot and making it easy to access them from multiple devices, while also being able to remotely access them. If you needed to do it on the cheap side, it would cost about $500 dollars for the network and between $500 to $1000 for a NAS. You don’t have to be a tech person either, nowadays the network and storage solutions are well documented and the companies are typically more than happy to help you set it up. I am partial to Ubiquiti for networking gear and QNAP for storage, but there are a variety of companies you can use. You can even setup your device to backup to the cloud, but otherwise store your data locally, getting the best of all worlds. It’s more important that you think and plan accordingly now so that when these disasters happen, whether man-made or natural, your data isn’t affected.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

I’m Old Enough to Remember When Barnicle & Co Said Gay Marriage Wouldn’t Affect Your Marriage…

Posted: July 22, 2023 by datechguy in culture
Tags: , ,

…And now less than 20 years after the Massachusetts Supreme Court redefined Marriage by a 4-3 vote and Mitt Romney did all he could to let it ride to keep himself as a viable presidential candidate in the eyes of the deep state Democrats are doing this:

As reported by Fox News, the “Amend the Code for Marriage Equality Act” was introduced by Congresswoman Julia Brownley (D-Calif.), and would change many existing laws by removing “husband” and “wife” from pre-existing text.

Less than 20 years and the left is openly trying to do what they pretended for years they had no intention of even thinking of.

Now granted the GOP is unlikely to let this pass but they will not control the house forever.

If you are surprised by any of this then you’re a fool.

I Guess if the Money is Right the US is Safe Again

Posted: July 21, 2023 by datechguy in Uncategorized

I was slightly surprised to see this at Gateway Pundit:

Trans influencer and biological male Dylan Mulvaney appears to be trying to cash in on his newfound infamy after sparking a national Bud Light boycott this summer by soliciting speaking gigs on college campuses.

“Booking speaking opportunities for the upcoming 23/24 school year and would love to come visit,” Mulvaney told his 1.8 million followers in an Instagram Story on Wednesday, according to a report by the New York Post.

I’m slightly confused, I thought that the US was such a dangerous place for Dylan Mulvaney that he had to retreat to the safety of the land of Alpacas?

Apparently the prospect of getting far leftist universities to pay large sums of money and the knowledge that the violent protesters who have harassed conservatives on campus across America with the support of their administrators would welcome him with open arms are a great cure to those fears.

Unexpectedly of course.

Closing thought, we have a capitalist system and if Mulvaney can coax five or six figure speaking fees from sucker colleges there is no reason for him not to do so. It’s a reflection on the colleges, not on him.

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