Posts Tagged ‘datechguy's magnificent seven’

Report from Louisiana: Book your reservation for Fête-Dieu du Teche Now

Posted: July 25, 2022 by Pat Austin in catholic
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – August is upon us and for those in south Louisiana, specifically in Cajun country, that means it is time for the Fête-Dieu du Teche which celebrates the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and also commemorates the arrival of the Acadians in south Louisiana.

On August 15, for the past eight years, Catholics have gathered along Bayou Teche from Leonville (Pop. 2,127) to St. Martiville (Pop. 5,844) to participate in the 38-mile journey down the bayou in a Eucharist procession by boat. The day begins in Leonville with Mass celebrated in French at St. Leo the Great Catholic Church.

Then everyone loads into their boats; the Eucharist is fixed on a altar in the lead boat, under a canopy. Everyone follows by boat down the bayou to Arnaudville (Pop. 1,614) where everyone disembarks. First communicants dressed in white scatter rose petals from baskets and the Eucharist follows, to an altar on the bank at St. Francis Regis Catholic Church. Participants kneel, pray the Rosary and Benediction, and then are back on the boats to the next stop.

By the end of the day, they reach St. Martinville where they process through town to the church, St. Martin de Tours for benediction. Confession is available at each stop.

It is a sight to behold. I’m not Catholic; we are Episcopalians, and my husband likes to say we are “Catholic-lite.” But, we love attending the Fête-Dieu du Teche because face it, what’s not to love about entire communities engaged in prayer?

Last year, as everyone was getting back into their boats at Arnaudville, Steve and I walked over to the bridge so we could see the procession as they passed under us on the way to the next town. Smiling nuns with habits flying behind them waved up at us; the incense perfumed the air and then behind the laity came the families who followed along. All in all it is easy over a hundred boats.

As more people around the world learn about this event, it grows each year. This will be year eight. We already have our lodging reserved and will be there once again to witness the event. I love how this event brings families and communities together; I love how tied to their very Cajun culture this is, too. The journey to St. Martinville commemorates the journey their Acadian ancestors made in fleeing religious persecution all those years ago.

It is a glorious thing to see and I’d encourage anyone to see it if you have the chance. Joseph Pronechen wrote in some detail about the event here and the Facebook page is here. And there is a cool video here. I wrote about it last year on this blog which you can see here.

Pritzker meddled in GOP gubernatorial primaries

Posted: July 24, 2022 by John Ruberry in covid, elections, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

Amazingly, the quiet presidential campaign of J.B. Pritzker, a billionaire pol from the family that created the Hyatt hotel chain and more, continues. That says about the girth of Illinois governor’s ego and the threadbare status of the Democratic presidential bench, as the failures of the Joe Biden administration continue to mount.

Illinois, despite the influx of COVID bailout cash, remains a financial basket case. At best, Pritzker and his fellow Democrats have only chipped away at the state’s pension bomb. Illinois has the worst-funded public pension system among the states. In 2021 the Prairie State lost 122,000 residents, only New York and the District of Columbia, percentage-wise, saw a bigger population drop.

At Wirepoints, Mark Glennon, justifiably eviscerated Pritzker in his critique of the governor’s trial run of a presidential campaign speech given last weekend in Florida. Yes, Florida, the place that Democrats, including Pritzker’s wife during the worst period of the COVID-19 lockdowns, flock to, despite the governorship of Ron DeSantis, a man they hate. Oh, while in Florida–Pritzker was there to give the keynote speech at a gathering of Florida Democrats–he contracted COVID. I wish him well–as someone who was afflicted with COVID last month, I can say that it is not an enjoyable experience. 

I’m going to focus on just a couple of items from Pritzker’s dishonest Florida speech. “We honor the results of elections,” Pritzker said, obviously alluding to the Capitol Riot and its show trial investigation of it by the House January 6th Committee. In response Glennon retorted, “In Illinois, that would be elections based on the most gerrymandered map in the nation, which he approved in violation of what many regarded as his most important campaign promise – to deliver fair maps.” Yes, Pritzker repeatedly vowed as a candidate in 2018 to veto gerrymandered legislative and congressional maps. The Democratic supermajorities in the General Assembly–in place because of the 2011 gerrymandered map–sent to Pritzker’s desk new contorted legislative maps, which Pritzker signed into law. 

Pritzker lied–and free and fair congressional and state legislative elections in the Land of Lincoln died. But since Glennon’s article was posted, the Chicago Tribune revealed that Pritzker this year contributed $24 million to the Democratic Governors Association. That group spent millions on ads supporting the most conservative Republican candidate running to replace Pritzker this autumn, state Sen. Darren Bailey, who easily won the GOP nomination. Yes, I voted for Bailey. 

As with other races the DGA has meddled in, the group saw Bailey as the most conservative, or in their likely thoughts, the most extreme candidate. And presumably the easiest one for Democrats to defeat in November. But such a ploy might backfire. In another Republican gubernatorial primary race that the Democratic Governors Association meddled in, its preferred “extreme” candidate, Doug Mastriano, trails the Democratic nominee by only a few points. Yes, he can win, which has some Dems nervous. 

On the flipside, imagine the mainstream media uproar if Republicans funded the campaigns of a Bernie Bro socialist running in a Democratic primary. They’d cry, “Election interference,” and “This is undermining free and fair elections!”

A couple of times in my lifetime–on the presidential level–Democrats received the GOP general election candidate they were rooting for, Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Donald Trump in 2016. You know what happened.

Bailey, in deep blue Illinois, faces a tougher hurdle than Mastriano. But much can happen in the next four months, and Joe Biden’s continued mismanagement of the economy, the border–heck, his complete mismanagement of everything–may compel moderate Land of Lincoln voters to send a message to the Democrats. 

Are there enough such Illinoisans to send Pritzker packing? 

Not yet, as a recent poll tells us.

Because of high taxes, Illinoisans suffer from among the highest gasoline prices in the nation. Pritzker, under the guise of a tax cut, is forcing Illinois gas station owners to post signs informing motorists of the “tax cut,” which is really a delay in an inflation adjustment, suspending it until December. Gas station operators who refuse to post the required signage face a $500-a-day fine. Without the fine threat, Illinois grocers are also being forced to post similar signage about a one-year suspension of a one-percent sales tax.

If Pritzker prevails over Bailey, look for his presidential campaign to begin. It will fail. Pritzker is not a likable candidate–and Illinois’ standards are low. His flat speeches are drenched in condescension. Pritzker comes across as a sleazy closer at a Las Vegas timeshare presentation, a meeting that you only agreed to endure after being promised free show tickets and two glasses of wine “Sign here,” he’d say, “you won’t regret it,” as all 350 pounds of him leans into you.

But not even alcohol can make Pritzker more palatable. 

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Why we’re not solving the veteran suicide problem

Posted: July 23, 2022 by navygrade36bureaucrat in Uncategorized
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Spoiler alert: its because we’re solving the wrong problem.

You can’t walk around on a military base without being innundated with suicide prevention materials. Walk down any hallway and there’s a poster with the hotline number. Navigate to any DoD website and there is a 24/7 military suicide chat line linked at the bottom. Heck, even if you sit down to do your business in the bathroom, you’ll see a suicide prevention poster on the inside of the door.

Granted, the suicide rate in the military is rising. The military is composed mainly of 18-25 year old men, who traditionally have the highest rate of suicide. Combined with the stress of working in a job field where people actively try to kill you while you kill them, and you’d think that would spike the suicide rate. But for the longest time, despite the many years spent in Afghanistan and Iraq, military suicide was statistically lower than average.

From Suicide Rates Among Active Duty Service Members Compared with Civilian Counterparts, 2005–2014

Look at 2005-2008 here. The rate is far below what you would expect. You can look at the crude numbers here as well.

It’s obvious though that the rate was rising. If you look at combat deaths and the news, the United States had a nasty surge in combat deaths from 2009-2011. This was when we were trying to drawdown in Iraq and surging in Afghanistan. It would be easy to blame the added stress for the rise in suicide. But I’m not so sure. After the surge, the number of combat deaths plummeted, yet the military suicide rate continued to rise. The additional stresses of combat, once removed, don’t support the hypothesis that it caused the increase in suicide.

In order to have enough troops to surge, the military, particularly the Army, waived a lot of requirements, including physical standards and prior drug use. This means that instead of selecting from the best of the crop, you get a swath of people that look more like most Americans, which means you get the suicide rate of most Americans. Notice that the suicide rate plateaus and matches the average civilian rate.

This is further confirmed by looking at the most recent suicide rates. The rate slowly began rising again from 2018 until today, despite a continued decline in combat deaths. Now its rising again. What are we doing that might cause it to rise?

From DoD Suicide Report
From DoD Report on Suicide

If you look at my previous posts here, I’ve been complaining about the drop in standards and loss in direction for the military for a while now. The Army finally admitted it will simply be short 10,000 troops, but that it “wanted to maintain high standards” instead of recruiting more soldiers. To that I call BS, because they already lowered standards a lot in order to get to where they are at now.

Worse still, we’re cutting back on training. The Army softened its boot camp, which caused retention to go up, but likely didn’t help build soldier’s confidence. Most of the services have cut back on specialized training (the Navy in particular), so its harder for service members to feel like an expert in their field. Combine that with a refocus on things like “extremism training,” and military members can’t be faulted for feeling a bit adrift.

So we’re lowering entrance standards, which we have proof raises our sucide rate, AND we’re shortening and softening our training, making less capable military members (who, by the way, KNOW that they aren’t as capable). That’s a bad combination, and its the real reason behind the continued rise in suicide. It’s not that we lack the funding for suicide prevention programs. It’s that we’re solving the wrong problem.

Until we solve the standards problem, we can’t begin to prevent military suicide.

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.

And if you’re thinking about suicide, put it off for a day, watch this Jordan Peterson video, and then call a friend or a hotline. We’d rather have you around.

Green Energy Policies are destabilizing the world

Posted: July 21, 2022 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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The political left has demonstrated a remarkable affinity for replacing what actually works with what will bring about ruin and chaos  This is true when it comes to government policies, fiscal policies, or culture.  Wherever leftists gain control, nations collapse because of their intolerance for what has brought about prosperity and stability.

For well over a century fossil fuels have powered the world, bringing about the Industrial Revolution.  The Industrial Revolution brought freedom and prosperity to every nation which protected individual rights and property rights.

Free and prosperous people are difficult for tyrants to rule. Poor and downtrodden are much more pliant   Fear is also one of the favorite tools used by tyrants to rule over those who do not wish to be controlled.  Creating an imaginary extended crises and hyping it endlessly in the media has proved most effective in turning the United States into a nation populated by compliant sheeple.  That strategy was used by Democrats most effectively over the past two years in the form of the Wuhan Flu pandemic.  It made the theft of the 2020 presidential election possible.

Globalist elites have longed for decades to implement a one world socialist government.  That would mean stripping the rights away from everyone individual.  A significant portion of the world’s population would object to this.  Climate change is the crisis used to create the overwhelming sense of fear needed.   If these elites could scare us enough to agree to ban fossil fuels in most nations, that would collapse the world economy, making everyone so miserable they would submit to being ruled by tyrant elites who would run a global socialist government.  That is being implemented through a plan called the Great Reset.  In the United States the plan to implement the Great Reset is called the Green New Deal.

This article documents the havoc caused by one nation’s attempt to implement a green new style plan. Sri Lanka Crisis Shows Consequences Of Elites’ Green Revolution (thefederalist.com)

Sri Lanka, a small island nation in South East Asia, is on the verge of total political and economic collapse after its president’s “green” policies have brought famine to the island’s 21 million people. 

From the 1970s to 2020, with the help of synthetic fertilizers, Sri Lanka had become self-sufficient in rice production. However, Sri Lanka’s government fell under the spell of the “green” revolution promoted by Western liberal elites. In a now-deleted article published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), then Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe vowed to make his country “rich by 2025,” partially by adopting WEF-sponsored “climate change” initiatives.  

Advised by the Rockefeller Foundation, Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa promised to transition the nation’s agriculture industry to organic farming within ten years. In April 2021, he banned “the importation and use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and order[ed] the country’s 2 million farmers to go organic,” according to Foreign Policy magazine. The Western green revolutionists were so pleased that they bestowed Sri Lanka with a near-perfect Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) score of 98, much higher than the United States’ score of 51.

But Sri Lanka’s adoption of green policies brought nothing but disasters. Its rice production has dropped more than 50 percent, while domestic rice prices have increased more than 80 percent. Once sufficient in rice production, the nation has been “forced to import $450 million worth of rice.” In the words of Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Sri Lanka is experiencing “a government-created famine reminiscent of Mao.” 

And there is this article, Germany’s ‘Green’ Energy Disaster Is A Warning To The United States (thefederalist.com)

The move to “clean energy”—without nuclear—has accomplished three things:

1. It has prompted Germany, and the rest of the EU, to begin relying more heavily on Russian natural gas as it “transitioned.” Putin, who has begun demanding EU nations pay for their energy in roubles, is now able to undercut the European economy at will.

2. It has created the highest global electricity prices per household in the world. In 2019, German households were paying 34 cents per kilowatt-hour compared to 13 cents in the United States. The price of energy has doubled since 2000, when Germany first mandated decarbonization, an effort that forced energy companies to purchase long-term inefficient renewables at high, fabricated prices.

3. It has meant the burning of coal. Even before Russia began cutting off supply, Germany was more reliant on coal than the United States. This week, Germany’s Economy Minister Robert Habeck, who earlier this year rejected a European Union label of nuclear energy as “green,” announced that in an effort to avoid future gas shortages—because cars can’t run on wind—the government would incentivize the use of more coal-fired power plants.

Thanks to their version of the Green New Deal, conditions in the Netherlands are so bad mass protests are taking place, Media Ignore Dutch Farmer Protests To Protect Climate Fearmongering (thefederalist.com)

The government of the Netherlands seems to be willing to starve Europe to browbeat Dutch farmers about climate change, and American corporate media outlets are largely ignoring it.

The Netherlands is demanding its farmers drastically reduce their herds of livestock in order to eliminate 50 percent of the nation’s nitrogen pollution by 2030. That leaves just eight years for farmers whose livelihoods revolve around cultivating land and raising animals to figure out how they can keep supplying the continent with food.

Under the new “green” restrictions, many generational farmers say that they risk bankruptcy or being forced out of the industry altogether. Even the government has admitted that “The honest message … is that not all farmers can continue their business.” That’s why, for more than a month now, large numbers of these Dutch farmers have protested government policies forcing them to wreak havoc on the nation’s agricultural industry.

A disruption like this, to a nation that is the “largest exporter of meat in Europe and the second largest exporter of food overall after the United States,” will also likely exacerbate food shortages caused by the Ukraine-Russia war throughout the European Union and other parts of the world.

Joe Biden is hell bent on cramming the Green New Deal down the throats of the American people through executive order.   So far, the Biden regime has done tremendous harm to the American economy by closing one major pipeline and a large number of wells.  The economy would be ground to a halt if the Green New Deal is implemented?

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