What is a bomb?

Hamlet:

There's letters seal'd, and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd—
They bear the mandate, they must sweep my way
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
For 'tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petard, an't shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines
And blow them at the moon.

Hamlet Act 3, scene 4, 202–209

A petard was a bomb, in this case one that blows up prematurely and does in the one who is placing it.  It was a little bomb, used to breach gates in Late Medieval warfare, and its name, petard, comes from the French which means, believe it or not, "fart."  You know how that French food is.  Perhaps that line about "your aunties" in Monty Python and the Holy Grail had some real tactical significance after all.  At least they had body metaphors back in the day, instead of the lifeless abstraction of war language we use today.

Vatican, Air Strikes, Jesus

Who would Jesus conduct "limited air strikes" on?

If the French Press Agency is right, the Vatican has now given its support to American "limited" air strikes to "save Yazidis and Christians" threatened by the armed forces of ISIS who have militarily conquered parts of Northern Iraq.

Letter to my pastor

Dear Father Shaun,

You were not at Mass this morning; and a guest priest presided.  But as the leader of our parish, I must address this to you.  I hope you will share it with other members of the staff, even though what I am about to say may not be well-received.  I am writing you with a grievance about today's Mass, and what I say, though it will be unavoidably pointed, is offered in the spirit of Christian fellowship and with personal rancor for no one.

Why Christians Ought to Care About Scarcity, Dependency, and Relocalization

At one point in the film Titanic, the character Thomas Andrews (who was the naval architect who designed the ship) is talking with J. Bruce Ismay, the chairman of the steamship line that owned the Titanic.  Ismay is incredulous about Andrews' pronouncement that the ship will sink in less than two hours.

ISMAY:  But this ship can't sink.

ANDREWS:  She's made of iron, sir.  She can . . . and she will.  It is a mathematical certainty.

The Pro's

Just saw an article that is making the rounds about an American Christian doctor who explains why he will perform abortions.  People circulate the article because it is a hot button, and American Christians circulate the article because we are just as polarized around the topic of abortion as everyone else in American society.

Hondo Hillary - 1

"Why has there never been a coup in Washington, DC?"

"There's no US Embassy there."

               -Latin American joke

Picketty's Provocation

Post-marxish writer Mike Davis, author of the superlative Ecology of Fear, once remarked at a conference, "Socialists have predicted eleven of the last three recessions."  Self-help philosophical idealism gives rise to similar proclamations of the power of positive thinking.  Recessions, the unstated reasoning goes, are good for "revolutionaries," because when the contradictions of capital are doing their worst, public education by an enlightened vanguard will cause the masses to flock to the banners of the left, and at some point, these flockings will build into the perfect storm that will overthrow the present and unjust order.