Limestone Roof at WordPress

I write very awkwardly and always labor to draft just a couple of words so this will be short (and short on any reverential bull****). My BLOG was always a bit eclectic (just look at the tags) and some were critical of its lack of focus. I never worried about it though because I wasn't trying to sell ad space, build an audience or pretend that I was some kind of intellectual (talking tables - yawn). It was good fun and now Burgoyne has a diary of his Dad's life over a tumultuous 7 year span. And that's kind of where the story ends (er, begins).

So much of what I wrote on this BLOG is bunk and folly but I have NO regrets. In 7 years I've come full circle...gone back to basics...recommitted to a life of faith and believe wholeheartedly that man's ideology (of all smells) is bankrupt.

Some evidence...

Anti-Catholicism, Again

For almost 500 years now, Catholicism has been an available answer, a mystical key, to that deep, childish, and existentially compelling question: Why aren’t we there yet? Why is progress still unfinished? Why is promise still unfulfilled? Why aren’t we perfect? Why aren’t we changed?

Despite our rejection of the past, the future still hasn’t arrived. Despite our advances, corruption continues. It needs an explanation. It requires a response. And in every modernizing movement—from Protestant Reformers to French Revolutionaries, Communists to Freudians, Temperance Leaguers and suffragettes to biotechnologists and science-fiction futurists—someone in despair eventually stumbles on the answer: We have been thwarted by the Catholic Church.

More evidence (time immemorial)

Join with others in being imitators of me, brothers and sisters, and observe those who thus conduct themselves according to the model you have in us. For many, as I have often told you and now tell you even in tears, conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction. Their God is their stomach; their glory is in there "shame." Their minds are occupied with earthly things.

- Phil 3:17-4:1 or 3:20-4:1

and the Good News...

Thus says the LORD: Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings, who seeks truth in flesh, whose heart turns away from the LORD.

He is like a barren bush in the desert that enjoys no change of season, but stands in lava waste, a salt and empty earth.

Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose hope is the LORD.

He is like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream: it fears not the heat when it comes, its leaves stay green; in the year of drought it shows no distress, but still bears fruit.

- Jer 17:5-8


And...

The centurion and the men with him who were keeping watch over Jesus feared greatly when they saw the earth quake and all that was happening, and they said. "Truly, this was the Son of God!"

- Mt 26:14-27:66 or 27:11-54

(1) Let Greece Default

(2) Greek Mythology

(3) End Game in Greece

Making Sense of Our Fiscal Mess
The national debt was the top issue cited by voters when Gallup asked what the country's biggest problem would be in 25 years, but not everyone understands just how bad our country's finances are. After the first few trillions, people's eyes glaze over trying to count the zeros.

Labels: democrats, economics, obama, pelosi, reid

U.S. Men's National Team Unveils Home Uniform

Labels: soccer

INTERVIEWER: And it's come out just the way you thought it would?

WALT: No. I never thought about it in this way...It was one of those things...you just went ahead and one thing led to another.

>>Listen

Interesting Fact: JFK Airport was originally known as Idlewild Airport.

Labels: airports, disney

His model is unraveling in Europe...

On the edge of the abyss

Portugal's slow-growing economy, drastic loss of competitiveness and high public and private indebtedness are all weaknesses that markets might put to greater test.

If Portugal comes under intense pressure, contagion might then spread to Ireland, Italy or Spain, the other euro-area countries with some mixture of big budget deficits, poor growth prospects and high debts.

Labels: economics, obama

(1) Survey: 72% of Millennials 'more spiritual than religious'

(2) Anti-Catholicism, Again

U2 ESPN Soccer Ad

Labels: soccer

(1) Fairfield PAL Kite Flying Contest

(2) Rooney will be fighting fit for Finals

(3) I'm not even allowed in Mexico.

(4) Altidore apologizes for head butt

(5) New Age of Empires on the way?

Labels: baseball, disney, microsoft, soccer, weekend

We'll Meet Again by Vera Lynn is the song you hear as you leave The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror™ at Disney's Hollywood Studios™.

It's also featured in the animated short The Lady And The Reaper (must watch material).

Vera (the singer) is featured prominently in The Wall by Pink Floyd.

Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?
Remember how she said that
We would meet again
Some sunny day?
Vera! Vera!
What has become of you?
Does anybody else here
Feel the way I do?

The song is also cleverly included in the track MC: Atmos (1:14) on Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81 (Disc 1).

Under the volcano - John Brewin is an exiled victim of volcanic dust and chose to take in the delights of MLS.

Labels: soccer

Limestone will cease after May 1 because GOOGLE is dropping FTP publishing. Rest assured, Limestone will exist somewhere else (free from the shackles of GOOGLE) to continue blistering play-by-play of our socialist-in-chief and his merry band of henchman and enablers.

Also drafting one final post (a tribute of sorts). In the interim, enjoy 'Late Nate' (American Airlines). Keeping it random (a Limestone Roof tradition).

**UPDATE**

A Majority Think Obama is Heading Toward Socialism

A buried nugget in the New York Times poll today: Among the general public, by 52-38 percent, people think "Barack Obama's policies are moving the country more toward socialism."

The blogger with many visions™ is a genius (tiny g).

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

"...stripped of the gauzy romanticism of myth."

Labels: weekend

I've been taking a break. I am bored blogging about Obama because the blogger with many visions™ declared he was a socialist WAY before he began to demonstrate it on a day-to-day basis. Disaster.

Wrong Bill At The Wrong Time
ObamaCare and the downfall of the Democratic Party.

The real reason why ObamaCare is so unpopular is that it is proposing a giant expansion of the entitlement state precisely when this state everywhere is coming apart: here and abroad; at the federal level and the state; in the public sector and the private. Suggesting a giant government takeover of a sixth of the economy can't be a popular selling point in a country whose DNA has a programmed hostility to Big Government.

There are not enough taxpayers in the country or creditors in China capable of financing all these promises. Expanding this massive, multifarious entitlement state even more strikes most normal people as sheer lunacy--especially now that it is visibly coming apart at the seams.

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

Epic day at the MoMA on Saturday for the Tim Burton Exhibition!

Labels: weekend

Labels: bermuda, weekend

How about some T.S. Eliot?

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

Labels: weekend

Labels: soccer, weekend

Another Liberal Crackup (WSJ)
The real source of this mess is the agenda that Democrats have tried to ram through the political system. Far from offering new ideas to reform the welfare state or compete better against rising global powers, Democrats have with rare exception tried to impose the same spending, tax and regulatory agenda that failed in the 1960s, 1970s and 1990s. Mr. Obama was a new face promising new hope, but his ideas are as old as the average Congressional Chairman.

Related
Party Like It's 1773?

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

(1) The World's 18 Strangest Airports

(2) I Want It Now! The Fierce Urgency of Videogaming’s Future

(3) What It Looks Like on Saturday Morning

(4) Symphony No. 4 (Beethoven)

(5) Animator_vs__Animation_by_alanbecker

Labels: airports, weekend

Where are the Red Coats going? Not sure. My guess is they are being deployed on this Fung Wah bus to break up a tea party. They could also be touring great battlefields of the American Revolutionary War.

Labels: playmobil, weekend

(1) "Doggie Dentures" Pedigree Dentastix Ad

(2) Ovi nets 40th on beautiful breakaway (NHL)

Labels: weekend

(1) Good News in the Daily Grind: Your Coffee May Have Some Health Perks, but Can Brew Trouble in People With Certain Conditions

(2) Prepare to get schooled in my Austrian perspective.

(2a) How Obama got Keynes wrong

(3) Microsoft’s Creative Destruction

(4) "In essence, the conservative person is simply one who finds the permanent things more pleasing that Chaos and Old Night. (Yes conservatives know, with Burke, that healthy "change is the means of our preservation.") A people's historic continuity of experience, says the conservative, offers a guide to policy far better that the abstract designs of coffee-house philosophers." - Russell Kirk, The Politics of Prudence

(5) "It is not that I have already taken hold of it or have already attained perfect maturity, but I continue my pursuit in hope that I may possess it...forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize..." - Phil 3:8-14

Labels: economics, microsoft, quotes, weekend

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

Google discontinuing FTP support for Blogger blogs

"O Oysters," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.

- Lewis Carroll

Related
A long goodbye indeed.
45% for Obama, 49% Against – If Election Were Held Right Now

Labels: obama

The Obama Spell Is Broken: Unlike this president, John Kennedy was an ironist who never fell for his own mystique.

The curtain has come down on what can best be described as a brief un-American moment in our history. That moment began in the fall of 2008, with the great financial panic, and gave rise to the Barack Obama phenomenon.

Progressives pressed for a draconian attack on the workings of our health care, and on the broader balance between the state and the marketplace. The economic stimulus, ObamaCare, the large deficits, the bailout package for the automobile industry—these, and so much more, were nothing short of a fundamental assault on the givens of the American social compact.

Americans don't deify their leaders or hang on their utterances, but Mr. Obama succumbed to what the devotees said of him: He was the Awaited One. A measure of reticence could have served him. But the flight had been heady, and in the manner of Icarus, Mr. Obama flew too close to the sun.

Limestone Commentary
My declaration of the death of European-Style Socialism was way premature.

According to Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), the Obama budget is a "firm step toward transforming America into a collectivist society overseen by a social-welfare state."

This budget is about more than specific programs or policies. It is really about the American idea, and whether we want to move towards a European-style welfare state. I know that seems like those are big words, but those are the stakes. It is hard to come to another conclusion when you look at our debt and how we are spending. We are in a very dire fiscal situation."

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

"Whoever you are, whatever you're up to, that's what you need- a cup of coffee."

- Gordon Theisen

Related
Slang Terms and Nicknames for Coffee

Labels: quotes

What Don DeLillo's Books Tell Him (WSJ)

Wood Toys by Anna Mezenova

Landon Donovan: First EPL goal at Everton

Labels: books, soccer, toys, weekend

(1) Obama v. the Supremes: Alito wins the oral, and factual, argument.

The President's claim about "foreign entities" bankrolling U.S. political campaigns is also false, since the Court did not overrule laws limiting such contributions. His use of "foreign" was a conscious attempt to inflame public and Congressional opinion against the Court. Coming from a President who fancies himself a citizen of the world, and who has gone so far as to foreswear American exceptionalism, this leap into talk-show nativism is certainly illuminating. What will they think of that one in the cafes of Berlin?

(2) The Obama Contradiction: Washington is sick and broken—and it can solve all our problems.

As the TV cameras panned the chamber, I saw a friendly acquaintance of the president, a Republican who bears him no animus. Why, I asked him later, did the president not move decisively to the political center?

Because he is more "intellectually honest" than that, he said. "I don't think he can do a Bill Clinton pivot, because he's not a pragmatist, he's an ideologue. He's a community organizer. He mixes the discrimination he felt as a young man with the hardship so many feel in this country, and he wants to change it and the way to change that is government programs and not opportunity."

The great issue, this friendly critic added, is debt. The public knows this; Congress and the White House do not.


(3) Don't Rejoice Over Higher GDP Yet: U.S. economy grows at 5.7% clip, but next few quarters will be a slog.

The consumer is essentially frozen, Egan added, and even those with jobs are looking over their shoulder and holding back spending. One of the results is that credit unions are seeing an increase in savings, which inched up a tenth of a point to 4.6% in the fourth quarter, as households look to strengthen their defenses against future crises.

Labels: economics, obama, weekend

Victor Davis Hanson takes a look at where we are after twelve months of Obama.

Spoiler alert: It ain't pretty.

Obama simply does not have the popularity to carry unpopular legislation forward. Indeed, he is reaching a point where he may poll more negatively than his agenda does. "Let me be perfectly clear" and "make no mistake about it" are now caricatures.

So where are we at twelve months? Obama showed the country his vision of where he wanted us to go; he had both houses of Congress, a toady media, and enormous personal popularity — and he is getting nowhere. Why? Because most Americans are vehemently opposed to taking their country in the direction that Obama, Pelosi, and Reid would prefer.

Since Obama is both inexperienced and apparently a stubborn ideologue, I think all we will be left with when the novelty wears off is rhetoric and euphemism.

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

The Global Debt Bomb: Spending our way out of worldwide recession will take years to pay back--and create a lot of pain. (Forbes)

National governments will issue an estimated $4.5 trillion in debt this year, almost triple the average for mature economies over the preceding five years. The U.S. has allowed the total federal debt (including debt held by government agencies, like the Social Security fund) to balloon by 50% since 2006 to $12.3 trillion. The pain of repayment is not yet being felt, because interest rates are so low--close to 0% on short-term Treasury bills. Someday those rates are going to rise. Then the taxpayer will have the devil to pay.

Related
Figures on government spending and debt
News Flash: Entitlement Spending Grows Like Giant Cancer on U.S. Economy (via Instapundit)

Labels: economics, obama, pelosi, reid

The Fall of the House of Kennedy: The battle over who defines the work and institutions that make a nation thrive and grow. (WSJ)

"The central battle in our time is over political primacy. It is a competition between the public sector and the private sector over who defines the work and the institutions that make a nation thrive and grow..."

Labels: clintons, democrats, obama, pelosi, reid

Soccer
Fulham Football Club Provides Update on Clint Dempsey Knee Injury: U.S. Men's National Team midfielder Clint Dempsey will not require surgery on an injured knee, according to a statement from Fulham Football Club following an MRI evaluation.

Donovan open to staying with Everton beyond MLS opener

Baseball
A's prospect leaving baseball for call of the priesthood

You have got me walking up and down all day under those trees, saying to me over and over again, "Solitude, solitude." And You have turned around and thrown the whole world in my lap. You have told me, "Leave all things and follow me," and then You have tied half of New York to my foot like a ball and chain.

- Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain

Segway Polo, Anyone?
64 Things Every Geek Should Know

Labels: baseball, soccer, weekend

Scanned from A Picture History of Britain by Clarke Hutton.

Drawn to Plastocowell by Clarke Hutton and printed in Great Britain by W.S. Cowell LTD. at the Butter Market Ipswich

Related
School Prints 1947-51

"The spirit which pervades the published prints is of quiet celebration: they picture a world reassuring in its familiarities; a world of everyday work and occasional festivity. It is a spirit in keeping with the general optimism of the project. The best of these prints present images of perennial rural and small-town life: they are versions of pastoral."

Harlequinade (1946 England)

Labels: england, weekend

The States and the Stimulus: How a supposed boon has become a fiscal burden. (WSJ)

Keyword: Jimmy Carter II

Labels: obama, pelosi, reid

(1) The world's flags given letter grades

(2) Dr. Barber

(3) Highly Recommended: Let the Great World Spin: A Novel

Labels: books, weekend

That's all I got. That's all we get.

Labels: obama

Labels: playmobil

A Namesake Who Reanimated Disney (WSJ)

Roy E. Disney, the nephew of Walt Disney, was sometimes dismissed within the company as a dilettante. But he successfully fought a series of battles over the management of the entertainment company that bore his family name.

Mr. Disney, who died Wednesday at age 79, served at various times as a board member and an executive of the Walt Disney Co. Though he was often regarded as someone who relied on the family name for advancement, he helped engineer a company turnaround. And he flexed his muscle as a board member and heir to force the company to replace chief executives who he felt were not honoring his family's legacy.

Labels: disney, weekend

It's all over but the screaming and shouting. A country whose citizenry isn't outraged by this (see below) is a country that doesn't deserve what was bequeathed to it.

Mark Penn's two firms awarded millions from stimulus for public relations work

A contract worth nearly $6 million in stimulus funds was awarded by the Obama adminstration to two firms run by Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton's pollster in 2008.

Labels: history, weekend