A really excellent speech about modern liberalism. http://ping.fm/ofONu

Turns out, Champagne and Indian food go together. Made Chicken Kashmiri, had it with Bellecart-Salmon Demi-sec. Quite excellent.

I've just decided - I should flyfish more. Need to get the stuff out of storage!

I'm cooking: chicken fillets topped with Fois Gras and Fontina cheese w/truffle oil, fig confite reduction, potato gnocci, a light red.

I swear I could listen to Mary Margaret O'Hara for hours - except she doesn't have hours of song. http://ping.fm/a8FdX

Jesus and the fig tree(s)

Matthew: "In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he was hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the wayside he went to it, and found nothing on it but leaves only. And he said to it, "May no fruit ever come from you again!" And the fig tree withered at once."

Did Jesus kill the fig tree? Or was it sick in the first place? Persistence of sin until death works like this: death is the result. Why does God allow us to persist in sin?

Luke: "And he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, `Lo, these three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down; why should it use up the ground?' And he answered him, `Let it alone, sir, this year also, till I dig about it and put on manure. And if it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"

Merciful God pours out his very graces on even sinners (not that all grace is, strictly speaking, pleasant!), in the hopes of getting them to live again.

Mark: "On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples heard it."

In season, and out of season, He expects us to bear fruit.

Luke: "And he told them a parable: "Look at the fig tree, and all the trees; as soon as they come out in leaf, you see for yourselves and know that the summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near."

The flowering fig tree is a sign of life. The barren fig tree is a sign of death. Jesus, flowering after He died, shows true life - and definitely the most 'out of season' you can be: after the grave.

Matthew: "When the disciples saw it they marveled, saying, "How did the fig tree wither at once?" And Jesus answered them, "Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and never doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, `Be taken up and cast into the sea,' it will be done. And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.""

So, living faith is the sign of divine life: living faith doesn't start with us, but it starts with God. Doubt (that is, the rejection of the gift of Faith, not merely intellectual questioning) is the sign of death, and it is subject to judgment and death.

Evidently, the shortest joke in the world: "Venison's dear, isn't it?"

Renewed my membership at the MFA, woot.

I'm in ur storz, stimulating ur economeez.

So, it's the tax-free weekend, and I have absolutely nothing I want to buy. :(

Just cooked Mako Shark, in lemon-butter-caper sauce. (Too much lemon, one half to one stick of butter next time). Yum. w/Corn.

King Philip the Fair of France secretly ordered the dissolution and arrest of the Knights Templar on Friday, October 13th, 1307.

"A room without books is like a body without a soul."
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Top 10 Least Romantic Spots in Boston. http://ping.fm/tzNN8

My father, conning his boat.

World's End, Weymouth. Just get in the car with a couple of sandwiches, and drive: http://ping.fm/gY6qm

That place for a picnic was called World's End.

Lovely place for a picnic

Change of plans, BTW. We're touring the harbor islands - too choppy for a fun trip north.

Graves lIghthouse

Marina that should be. Darn autocorrect

A pretty day at the marinated.

Why is it so hard to find someone who's tall, pretty, devastatingly smart, conservativeish, Catholic, and unmarried? Oh - right. MA. n/m.

Headed out tomorrow on my father's boat to Gloucester. Should be fun, weather looks ideal.

"An act of love that fails is just as much a part of the divine life as an act of love that succeeds, for love is measured by fullness, not by reception." - Lokes

I learned a new way to be condescending to people...http://ping.fm/C4cI5

Rorate caeli desuper, et nubes pluant iustum. Drop down dew from heavens above, and let the clouds rain justice.

I've decided to now going by the nickname "Doctor Heteronormative". http://ping.fm/M3zrn

Danger: scattered thunderstorms for Sunday.

Of all the social networking sites I've been experimenting with, I sort of like myyearbook.com the best. http://ping.fm/1Bmwy

Picnic menu: lime-ginger cheesecake 4 dessert

Tron Legacy:could be awesome, could be awful. Hard to tell, I suspect the latter. http://ping.fm/frTEF

Planning for picnic this weekend.

Why is so much contemporary art awful? http://ping.fm/5Oa7l

Om's Carott Puree

3 lbs Carrots, peeled and cut
3 oz ginger, peeled and sliced
2 tbs salt
2 tbs sugar
Boil Carrots, ginger and salt.
Reserve 10oz of carrot-ginger liquid. Puree carrots and ginger while adding reserved liquid. Add sugar and an additional 1tsb salt. Cool in icebath.

Note: They ran final mix through a strainer, but my strainer was too fine-grained, I just got liquid out. Perhaps their pureer was better than my cuisenart.

Awesome: Mary Margaret O'Hara's rendition of Have No Fear. http://ping.fm/SPMKl

home with comfortfood - BananaChips, yum - headed to bed. mass tomorrow morning.

Didn't happen. Need moar alcohol

I pray God takes me home right now. Stroke, freak bus accident, something

at om in Harvard sq. Drinking st.Jane dark&stormy - its awesome

Tonight is the first night of the rest of my life - A new beginning but fraught with danger. I went to confession, thank God. Orate pro me.

"He who angers you, enslaves you." - proverb

"Good luck, Mr. Gorsky." http://ping.fm/8VePd

I'm considering becoming an insomniablogger. Only blogging those things that come to me when I'm supposed to be sleeping.

What I want is...

a zero or negative calorie snack that I can eat by the bushel and has interesting flavors.

I want Celerette: it's individually wrapped celery, like they do with string cheese, but infused with flavor.

Worchestershire sauce, Tabasco, anise, oregano, cinnamon, tea, curry, horseradish, mustard, peanut, BBQ carribean BBQ, ranch, vineagar, basil, onion, butter, wasabi, almond, vanilla, mint, allspice, cumin, ginger, pepper, lemon-pepper, chinese 5-spice, szechuan.

Limerence. My new word for the month. http://ping.fm/QwtTe

I <3 Amy Walker: http://ping.fm/7GCzM

This reflects my experience with designers: http://ping.fm/tF7z3

Testing ping.fm ~ This should go to all my social networking sites

Here's the October Surprise from the Dems: Why W. Doesn't Go To Church: Empty Pew

Why W. Doesn't Go To Church: Empty Pew

The RG finds this amazing - it's the October Surprise. Watch for it to break in a major way in the MSM.

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other." John Adams Oct. 11, 1798

The Right Gestalt will think deeply on this fascinating quote. It encourages you to do the same.

If I were the devil (by Paul Harvey)

WorldNetDaily: If I were the devil

Read it all the way through.

You might be a democrat If...

Dan K. O'Leary's Humor Section. The Very Best of Cal Poly College Life.

One more thing the RG would have liked to hear at the debates...

"Senator, for someone so nuanced, it seems to escape you that the War on Terror is international in scope. International means across national boundaries. You speak of it as if the War was just on Afghani Terrorism, and it's not. We have to go to the heart of where terrorists find succor - and it's not just a location, we are going to the heart of the ideas that give rise to Islamofascism.

Taking down Saddam and establishing a Democracy in Iraq, right there where God and everybody can see it, means that people can see that it can work for them, and will bring hope for a better future. Iraq, like Afghanistan, is a gut-shot to those who espouse the ideology that leads to terror. Democracy in Iraq will bring Democratic reforms in other countries in the region - a reverse domino theory. And the world will continue to become safer because of it."

The RG finds this rather funny...

The Fire Ant Gazette - A Midland, Texas Blog Published Continuously Since '02 | "Kerry's Nuisance Advisory System"

Right Wing News (Conservative News and Views)

The RG tells me they like This List from the Right Wing News (Conservative News and Views).

Things to say in the debate

The RG want GWB to say the following things, as appropriate, during the debates with JFK (no, the other one, the one whose running now).

"Would someone remind the Senator that he is running for the Presidency, and not Ambassador to France."

"Senator, does that make any more sense in French?"

"Senator, is that your final answer?"

"Sure, you say that now..."

"Senator Kennedy...sorry...Kerry. I keep getting you confused."

"Um...I'll have difficulty responding. That answer was too...ah...'nuanced' for me."

"You know, I think I know what they mean when they say you are 'nuanced'. Back in Texas, we have another word for it..."

"I remember when the media pundits excoriated me that the 'Axis of Evil' countries were not at all alike. They forgot to mention to you that Iraq is NOT Vietnam...and even I know that one."

"The entire media seems to have missed a key point: most of Iraq's WMD program was not _IN_ Iraq - they were in Libya. And we have them. 400 tons of Uranium hexaflouride, hundreds of tons of equipment. We would not have had them if Saddam was still in power."

"Senator Kerry, if you were President, Saddam Houssein would still be in power. The legacy of tolerating tyrrany should be not one that America should be willing to accept. Nor, as we learned on 9/11, can it afford to."

"Is the only source you have been listening to about Iraq the mainstream media? Their ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ philosophy radically affects what the American people see. While I regret every casualty, our troops are doing an amazingly good job in Iraq."

First Message from the Right Gestalt

We come in peace...

Well...okay, that's not true in the least.

We come in order to do battle with the evil Left Ideology - hardly rising to the level of a Great Gestalt, the parasitic Ideas of the Left live at the lowest level, like bugs, inflaming the worst parts of their host (pride, ignorance, selfishness, egoity, envy, cowardice, averice, gluttony, anger, sloth, entitlement) and devouring their best parts (selflessness, humility, dispassion, kindness, constancy, sanity, self-honesty), leaving mindless, addicted zombies, aching to get their 'fix' of more something-for-nothing, more false promises, and more kooky Left ideas, despite what it does to them in the long run.

The difference between the Left Ideology and the Right Gestalt is that We infect no one who does not choose to be infected. We don't prey on the dumb or the young. We don't cheat and indoctrinate others with a formidable wall of pseudo-logic that doesn't hold up to scrutiny: We don't need to make up facts, on the contrary, We thrive on facts.

We come to infect, but not take away. When you thrive, we thrive. The difference between the Left Ideology and the Right Gestalt is the difference between parasitism and symbiosis - they seek to dominate, We seek to help. The LI is opportunistic - they'll take anybody. The RG is selective - we'll take anybody willing to think, discrimate against foolishness.

The LI is shifty, hard to pin down, occasionally makes an end-run around us - it's capable of tremendous mutation (or apparent mutation). The RG is stable, based in solid Universal Truths and current and Historical Facts, which makes it slow to respond on occasion, but when it does it has sufficient checks-and-balances to be pretty sure it's in the best interest.

As you can see - this is a War - carried out on the battlespace in the minds of men, and it's a war that has been going on for a while, and will continue for a while more.

Join Us. Become part of the Gestalt, Fight the LI. We will try our darndest not to let your down.

The RG on Abortion...

The Right Gestalt wonders why, exactly, we are willing to prematurely deliver and spend much time and effort saving the life of a child who cannot continue in the womb, for some reason, but that same child could be killed in the womb without consequence, and wonders if the difference of if it's wanted or not by the mother should be the ultimate determinator of its end. Certainly, most of the children who have been aborted would be wanted by _someone_ out there, so it really comes down to the mother.

The RG wonders what is magical about birth, anyway? Gestation being 9 months, if the child is born at 8 months and you subsequently suck their brains out with a vacuum, it would be right to consider it murder, but not if you do it while part-way in the womb.

The RG wonders when it _is_ okay to kill a child. Certainly, the RG can conceive of pathological cases - if the life of the mother is threatened it would be self defense. If the child was going to be born with a congenital disease which will most assuredly kill them, and/or would make their lives a misery in the meantime, certainly the RG isn't going to say we should deny some kind of humane solution, no more than we would suggest passively torturing someone (say, by denying them food) who actually, for instance, murdered someone, before putting them to their rightful death.

It appears to the RG that the Left Ideation has infected it's hosts with the concept that an inconvenience is an injustice, and thus should be removed by any means, no matter what the side-effect.

The RG further wonders how there can be people who are against, for instance, medical testing on Animals, but who support the killing of children for selfish reasons.

The RG wonders about the 'privacy' assertion in connection to all this. It occurs to the RG that the LI thinks that murdering a person in the privacy of one's own home shouldn't be considered murder. It is reminded of the case of the cannibal in Germany, looking for 'the ultimate kick', who killed a willing victim and then subsequently ate him, was cleared of 'murder' charges and instead convicted of 'manslaughter' charges. Cannibal jailed for eating willing victim .

The RG feels that children should be protected, but that there are too many variables for it to make a hard-and-fast rule of law to preempt the practice in the appropriate cases: there should be a presumption of freedom to act, and of parents 'doing the right thing' in the edge cases - and there should be reckening for not 'doing the right thing'. So, perhaps people who choose abortion should be put, as a matter of form, under penalty for manslaughter, and if any of the DA or one of 13 people on a jury think that they had a good reason to do what they did, they should be let off, otherwise, not. The penalty of even a minimal sentence will serve the deterrent effect of putting the 'inconvenience' matter in perspective.