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The Catholic Underground

Thanks to Bishop Herzog, Diocese of Alexandria, LA

I’m glad to say that my bishop has posted the comments of Cardinal Rigali, which condemn the erroneous statments of Speaker and supposed Catholic Nancy Pelosi, on the front page of the Diocesan Website.

Thank You Bishop Herzog and all of the US Bishops who have stood up and made their voices heard on this despicable issue!

iPods in Iraq, Apple helping the War Effort

via TUAW & MacDailyNews

When U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan need to communicate in Iraqi Arabic, Kurdish (spoken in north Iraq), or Dari and Pushto (Afghani languages), they can reach for an iPod.

Vcom3D, working with troops from the U.S. Army 10th Mountain Division, designed a software product called VCommunicator Mobile that uses the iPod to display a phonetic translation, “speak” a phrase through an attached speaker, display the phrase in local writing, or demonstrate hand gestures that are common in Arabic.

The Army is fielding about 260 iPods and iPod nanos equipped with this system, with about 700 individual troops using the device in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Vcom3D chose the iPod platform for the system after realizing that both U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians owned or were familiar with Apple’s iconic media device.

Priest claims Marijana comes from God, may be telling truth. Film @ 11

Thanks to Jeff, the supreme master of finding crazy Catholic news.

Melbourne, Aug 30 (ANI): A catholic priest, who claims that his back yard full of cannabis plants is a gift from God, has been placed under constant surveillance by police. Father Cyril Papudov, of Petrich, Bulgaria, has been arrested seven times but police have never caught him actually cultivating the crop. He insists that the cannabis seeded by itself and is part of God’s gift of nature and nothing to do with him. “There has been a great deal of suspicion over the years about what is going on with these plants,” Daily Telegraph quoted police, as saying.

“He is a man of the cloth and so a lot of people don’t want to think badly of him but frankly if someone has a huge crop of cannabis in their back garden it’s highly unlikely they are just sitting there admiring its horticultural properties,” the police added.

Glorious!

Very Snazzy Blog Editor for Firefox

I’m enjoying a new blog editor that works for tumblr and a other blogs engines and that lives entirely inside Firefox. It’s called ScribeFire, very slick. Take a look at it.

The Promise of Obama

Anne Hathaway initially refused to fall for U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama’s charms – because she had previously been let down by politicians with similar views to the Democratic leader.

The staunch Democrat believes the Illinois senator is the best person for the White House, and backed him by attending the Democratic National Convention earlier this week. But Hathaway admits she erred on the side of caution when Obama first became a public figure, because she didn’t know if she could trust him.

She tells Usmagazine.com, “I’ve been burned by politicians before that I wanted to believe in and just didn’t live up to it. And I was afraid to trust him and I was afraid to have hope when I first kind of became aware of him.” But the actress insists she soon changed her opinions on the popular politician, after he gave a moving speech on race. She adds, “I just said, ‘I can’t deny how I feel about you, Barack Obama. I want you to be the president. I want you in the White House’.”

via wenn.com

Sen. Barack Obama has impressed a lot of people and for that I give him credit – he’s an incredible charismatic guy who gets people excited about change. Here’s my problem, this young women who has recently received a graduate degree from a prestigious American University is convinced not by his platform, views, opinions or policy ideas. He has not put forth anything as a realistic platform except the removal of anything which resembles family values and the dogmatic ideal of ‘change’ (although without any direction, see also). She is convinced not based on anything other than a moving speech… from a guy who seems to have no problem allowing the election to become American Idol:The Presidency…

By the way, the definition of demagogury is a political strategy for obtaining and gaining political power by appealing to the popular prejudices, emotions, fears and expectations of the public — typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda, and often using nationalist or populist themes. It’s worked before.

‘Educated’ Americans really are abandoning reason for madness… It’s my prayer that someone, anyone stand up and ask the people around not to drink the coolaid, otherwise Mike Judge will be both screenwriter and prophet.

Archbishop Chaput explaining Pelosi’s error

Archbishop Chaput explaining Pelosi’s error

Assault on Monks likened to “A Clockwork Orange”

Franciscan community at dinner assaulted in a manner reminiscent of the movie “A Clockwork Orange”.  Please pray for their health and the souls of the assailants.

via The Times in the United Kingdom [Full Story]

Vatican Speaks Out on Blasphemous Art.

A sculpture of a frog crucified in the manner of Christ holding a beer mug and an egg was criticized by both the German regional governor in whose province the sculpture is to be displayed.  The Holy See wrote in support of Franz Pahl, the governor, who has gone on a hunger strike to protest its placement in a Bolzano museum.  The sculpture is the work of late German artist Martin Kippenberger who died in 1997.

via MSNBC.com [Full Story] and a rather upsetting UPDATE via The Associated Press [Full Story]