Good news on the local pro-life front October 3, 2014
Posted by Tantumblogo in Abortion, Basics, contraception, Dallas Diocese, disaster, error, foolishness, General Catholic, scandals, secularism, self-serving, sexual depravity, sickness, Society, Spiritual Warfare, Victory.comments closed
I posted last week that a major provision of Texas House Bill 2, passed with great controversy in summer 2013, had been derailed pending a decision by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The provision in question was the requirement for abortion mills to meet minimal health and safety requirements associated with other ambulatory surgery centers. The fact that mills across the nation have not had to meet such requirements, which have resulted in horror- and filth-filled abattoirs like Kermit Gosnell’s, is an enormous scandal. But the abortion industry and its religious supporters in the demonrat party have long fought to keep mills from having to meet those requirements, knowing they would eat so far into the abortionist’s bottom line that many would give up the practice. And that is exactly what has unfolded in Texas, with a large number of mills formerly open in the state already closed due to this and other provisions of HB2. But this provision was a very key one, one that was expected to result in the closure of most mills, or, at the least, the termination (to use a term they like so much) of the butchery in most of them.
Well, late yesterday, the Fifth Circuit struck down a lower court’s ruling barring the implementation of the health and safety standard (made by a reliably leftist Austin judge). I am told that as a result of this decision, the only mills performing abortions in the Dallas Diocese will be the new Planned Barrenhood supercenter in South Dallas (continuing their long history of blatant racism), and Curtis Boyd’s Southwest Women’s Baby Murder Factory (TM). In the DFW metroplex, there will be one more, Planned Barrenhood in Fort Worth. So, the area will have gone from 7 to 3 mills as a result of HB2, a major advance. Unfortunately, Planned Barrenhood’s new facility will probably be large enough, and have enough abortionists, to meet the large local demand. And, the abortionists have gotten smarter, it will be almost impossible to counsel women at both Southwest and PB’s new place, due to clever arrangements regarding parking and access. I understand PB may build a tall fence to keep pro-lifers from even seeing people coming and going from the mill. Of course, it might also be to hide the usual bloody condition of women leaving mills, as we’ve seen many times outside Robinson’s mill.
So, some good news, tempered with the knowledge that abortion will remain around, even as it becomes less available. It is likely HB2 will result in the saving a good number of lives.
What next for pro-life legislation in Texas? I don’t know, but hopefully there will be more legislation moved forward in the next session. Statewide, HB2 will result in well more than half of all mills closing. Vast swaths of the state will now not have a mill within hundreds of miles. It will be interesting to see how this develops.
And please pray! That is the only way we will ever see this constant sacrifice to satan of God’s creative miracle finally stopped.
Make close friends with your guardian angel October 3, 2014
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, Christendom, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Interior Life, Liturgy, sanctity, Spiritual Warfare, Tradition, Virtue.comments closed
Yesterday was the 3rd Class Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels. While some might scoff, our guardian angels are great protectors and aids to us who can have an enormously beneficial influence on our natural and supernatural lives. When I read the hymn below last night from Vespers, I thought it communicated some important concepts: the reality of constant spiritual warfare, our angel’s ability to move us towards virtue if we cooperate a little with the angel and Grace, protection from natural calamities of all kinds, a constant source of aid and companionship for us in this sometimes lonely travail. Like Our Lady, our guardian angels are always there to be our advocate and helper. So pray to your guardian angel frequently, and seek their aid. They are there specifically to help you attain Heaven! And they can do so much more besides.
The hymn sung in plain chant, translation from Baronius Press Latin/English Breviary below:
We sing of the Angels, guardians of men, that the heavenly Father has given as an additional help to our weak nature that it may not yield to enemies ever ready to attack.
For since the traitor Angel fell headlong to his destruction and was rightly deprived of the honors that once were his, he has been on fire with envy and endeavoring to hurl to their destruction those that God is inviting to Heaven.
Therefore fly to us here, ever-watchful guardian, and ward off from the land entrusted to your care all spiritual illness and everything that denies its people peace of soul.
Loving praise be forever given to the Holy Trinity, whose power rules the threefold fabric of the world and whose glory and kingdom lasts for all eternity.
Amen.
A thought that came to me last night at Mass….. October 3, 2014
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, disaster, episcopate, error, foolishness, General Catholic, secularism, Society, the return.comments closed
….it may not be a very good thought, but here it is nonetheless. Certainly, the world has always been afflicted with wars, famines, plagues, and all the evils that our fallen nature and creation can provide. But it does seem there are some things going on that could be interpreted as warnings, and I wonder if that warning might not be one intended quite specifically for the One Church Christ founded? At present, we are seeing persecution and vile attacks against Christians on a level not seen in a century or so, since the Turks unleashed great evil against Christians, Greek and Armenian, in the 1910s and 20s. But worldwide, there are more martyrs now than in a very long time, and Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world by a very wide margin. We also have this plague breaking out of Africa and possibly spreading to who knows where at this point. And there are of course always many wars.
Again, I want to stress that I am neither predicting “end times” nor am I saying anything definitive, it’s just a thought. I only touched on a few of the major crises, but many of them seem to have aspects that could be interpreted as bearing on the Church. I am very concerned over this Synod, and I know that is coloring my thinking. But I thought it might be worth mentioning and discussing.
So……that’s it. Just another sign of how far off my rocker I have fallen?
First Friday at the Carmelites TONIGHT (10/03/14) October 3, 2014
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, Dallas Diocese, Eucharist, General Catholic, Grace, Interior Life, Latin Mass, North Deanery, religious, sanctity, Tradition, true leadership, Virtue.comments closed
Join the good nuns of the Carmel of the Infant Jesus of Prague and Saint Joseph as they storm Heaven with their prayers during ALL NIGHT ADORATION tonight, 10/03. There will be Mass (TLM) at 8p and 3a. The vigil ends with NO Mass at 7a. Confession before and sometimes after both TLMs.
All details in the flyer below. Please come!
Allnightcarmelites_october 2014
MJD, who is always so kind to send me these reminders, wanted me to share the below:
St Peter the Apostle – Dallas
Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament begins at 5:30 PM
Father Edward will recite the Rosary in Latin during adoration at 6:45 PM
Benediction before Mass starting at 7 PM
Flightline Friday: training for Doomsday October 3, 2014
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, Basics, Flightline Friday, foolishness, fun, non squitur, silliness, Society.comments closed
Sorry, Joanie, you’ll just have to put up with it.
I had so many potential topics for this Flightline Friday I almost couldn’t decide which one to post. But I stumbled a whole bunch of SAC videos from the late 80s (and other times) and my choice was made for me.
So back in the good or bad old days, depending on your persepective, Strategic Air Command kept a large portion of bombers cocked on alert. This was to provide at least some minimum retaliatory force that could launch very quickly in that worst case of nuclear warfighting scenarios – the mythical “bolt from the blue” (meaning a sudden attack with no warning). During the 50s and 60s, SAC took this mission very, very seriously, and after the advent of ICBMs, which reduced warning time from hours to minutes, a sizable force was kept in the air 24 hours a day, 365 days a year during the 1960-68 Chrome Dome missions. But the growing expense of the stupid and useless Kennedy clan war in Vietnam, a couple of accidents involving nuclear armed aircraft, and a creeping lassitude with regard to strategic warfare, led to the cancellation of Chrome Dome and the general decay of the alert force during the period 1968-78. While there were still bombers armed, cocked, and on alert, response times dropped and mission readiness was not what it maybe should have been.
But when the US defense establishment began to realize, from the late 70s on, that the Soviets had gained a substantial superiority in ICBMs and were nearing parity in SLBMs, and then of course with the Reagan revitalization of national defense, such matters began to be taken more seriously again and the number of alert aircraft and training missions with fully armed B-52s, FB-111s, and B-1s increased. Thus, many of the videos below. This continued until the unfortunate disestablishment of SAC in 1992.
That background behind us, some terms relevant to the below. First, historically, bombers were parked in parallel lines on a large apron at bomber bases. But that was found to create problems with mass 
launches, being an inefficient arrangement and the source of more than a few accidents. It was found that a herringbone type arrangement, as shown in the photo at right. This was called the Christmas Tree. When the alert was sounded, crews would rush out of the mole hole, or Readiness Building, and either sprint to their bombers or board crew trucks to take them to those farther away. Once the aircraft were started and began to move down the taxiway to the runway, the elephant walk would start. This was so named because the B-47 and B-52 in particular, fully loaded with fuel and munitions, moved very ponderously and resembled elephants parading to someone with some imagination. The bombers (and, very frequently, co-assigned tanker aircraft) would launch in what was termed Minimal Interval Takeoffs, or MITO. The goal was 15 seconds +/- 1 between each aircraft, although I did read the 509th SBW at Pease would launch at 7.5 second intervals using parallel runways. The overall goal was to have all aircraft launched within 10 minutes of the alert being sounded.
The number of alert aircraft varied, but a typical launch might see 4-6 bombers and 3-4 tankers. Most Christmas Trees accommodated 9 aircraft. When the bombers launched, they would veer off on widely separated headings. This is because it was known the Soviets, in a mass missile attack, had many warheads reserved to pepper the approach and departure areas around major bomber 
bases, trying to catch departing bombers, thus destroying as much of the alert force as possible. I’ve never been able to find out just how far out from the base they might drop such warheads, but given that each SS-18 “Satan” missile had ten warheads, they could cover a pretty good area. One big advantage of the B-1 is that it had an “alert button” the crew could hit when entering the crew hatch at the bottom of the aircraft. This would self-start all engines and most major systems within 2 minutes of being hit. This reduced start up time by half, at least, over the B-52. Given the Soviets strategy of shooting the bombers down with ICBM warheads, a couple of minutes could be the difference between escape, or not.
Again, all the below was oriented primarily towards the really fearful bolt from the blue strike. Under more sensible scenarios, when tensions built over some crisis and finally resulted in a nightmarish exchange (when one flies, they all fly, there is no such thing as a limited exchange), the alert force and every other aircraft possible would be distributed, well ahead of need, to many temporary operating fields in small groups, making targeting the bomber force that much more difficult. There were many dozens of such Emergency War Order relocation fields, some quite surprising.
One big problem with MITO launches was the fact that the B-52 and KC-135A aircraft were really underpowered, using 2nd generation jet engines. To try to gain more thrust, they used water injection to cool the air entering the engine, increasing its density and permitting more fuel to be burned. But doing so resulted in horrendous clouds of thick black smoke, as you will see below. By the second or third aircraft, ships were travelling down the runway in essentially zero-zero conditions. It took some bravery to keep plowing ahead towards V2, assuming the aircraft in front of you hadn’t broken, crashed, or anything else.
Enough with the blah blah, videos of the alert force in action:
First, to give you some overview of the procedure, this scene from the 1963 movie A Gathering of Eagles starring Rock Hudson and Rod Taylor. Yes, it is incredible that Hollywood used to make movies that were not sneeringly dismissive and hostile towards everyone and everything related to the armed forces. It took some bravery to film that scene with those guys right next to the runway with bombers rushing by! If one of them had broken, it would have been curtains for Rock and Rod. The bombers below are, I believe, B-52Gs with AGM-28 Hound Dog cruise missiles under each wing. The bombers would actually use the Hound Dog engine to help get off the ground, and the missile could be refueled from the bomber’s fuel in flight:
The following video shows start cart action, start sequence, a bit of the elephant walk, and then a whole bunch of MITOs from 3-31-89 and 1988. Looks like most of the wing launched at different times on 03/31/89, must have been a very busy day at Blytheville AFB, AR:
Ah, Wurtsmith AFB and the 379th Bomb Wing, I know thee well. The great B-52G, cut to pieces in the early-mid 90s. One of the main aircraft in the video is carrying at least 12 AGM-86B cruise missiles, and possibly another 8 internally, or 12 AGM-69 SRAMs, or free fall bombs. But usually the G by this time carried nothing but cruise missiles.
More beautiful B-52G/KC-135A action from Wurtsmith, this one from very late 1989. Who could have shot these videos?
So how do they do today? Not so good. Of course, tensions are a lot less, but in this “MITO” at Minot a few years back, the 5th BW only managed intervals of 30-60 seconds:
Alright, one more. This movie below was made by SAC back in 1958. It’s not very realistic, or if it was for that time, sheesh have things changed. But I know better, this was very dumbed down for a non-professional audience. Still, some interesting footage and you can see how the dynamic radically changed with the introduction of missiles. Too bad we never implemented a countrywide ballistic missile defense system, something eminently achievable then as is now. Defense is inherently moral, but liberals don’t like the idea:
OK one last link. When I first saw this back in ’01 I about had kittens but apparently this is legit. It’s from the Natural Resources Defense Council, and there were a bunch of details in here I thought classified, but which no longer are. Anyway, the warplan here is absolute junk but there are all kinds of very interesting bits if you are interested in understanding how a nuclear war might be fought. I was not aware how incredibly hardened missile silos had become until I read this. Apparently the former Peacekeeper silos now used for Minuteman IIIs are over 60,000 psi. If you do read the paper below, check out p. 45. A similar map for the US from an counterforce exchange looks like this:
The Russians and Soviets always had a tremendous advantage due to their enormous landmass. The paper is here.
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