Flightline Friday: more early anti-ballistic missile efforts June 12, 2015
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, Flightline Friday, fun, history, non squitur, silliness, technology.comments closed
I haven’t done a Flightline Friday in quite some time. While most readers are probably quite happy with that, I’m not.
Some videos below of early US Army missile programs, focused on anti-ballistic missile (ABM) efforts. Don’t ever let some progressive tell you that defense against intercontinental ballistic missile attack is impossible: we’ve been getting skin-to-skin hits since 1962. The first video outlines the earliest US ABM program, Nike-Zeus. Using a highly modified and improved Nike Hercules missile, Nike-Zeus turned out to be pretty unworkable due to the huge number of different mechanically scanned radars required to execute long range search, target identification, missile track, target track, and other functions. Seven different mechanically scanned radars were necessary, and each set of radars could only guide one or two missiles in flight at a time. Not very efficient. It was planned to place a Nike-Zeus battery at each junction of the interstate highways. So, where I-70 crosses I-135 near Salina, Kansas – there would have been a Nike-Zeus battery there. But the program was cancelled before development could occur.
That’s because something much better was coming along in the form of Nike-X. The Nike-X program developed the world’s first massive phased array radars, which took all the functions of the much slower, less precise mechanically scanned (that means, radars that go around in a circle like you’ve probably seen) and put them into a large concrete, nuclear-hardened building. Electronically controlled, phased array radars could track thousands of targets (instead of one or two), discriminate decoys much better, and react far, far faster. They could support literally hundreds of intercepts near-simultaneously. Being electronic, all functions occurred much faster and required little manual effort (about the only thing that had to be done was to OK the release of the missiles, which would then occur automatically).
The first video gives you a nice history of Nike Zeus and shows some glorious footage of those massive, cumbersome mechanical radars. The second half of the video discusses the Pershing I missile, the Army’s main medium range ballistic missile from the early 60s to the early 80s (replaced by the infinitely more capable Pershing II).
The second video is unfortunately silent, but shows a lot of missile testing at White Sands from the late 50s and early 60s. Missiles shown include: German V-2, WAC Corporal, Nike Ajax, Nike Hercules, Nike Zeus, Spartan (an awesome, AWESOME missile), HAWK, and others. Many shots of missiles shooting down missiles are included. Sorry for the lousy noise.
I’m out. Have a blessed Feast of the Sacred Heart. You can eat meat to your heart’s content today if you are so inclined.
Mass Report: TLM at St. Pius X parish San Antonio June 12, 2015
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, awesomeness, Basics, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Latin Mass, Liturgy, sanctity, Tradition.comments closed
We assisted at Mass last Sunday at the sole diocesan TLM available in the San Antonio archdiocese at St. Pius X parish. The parish itself was reasonably well suited to the TLM. There is a permanent altar rail. While the church was unfortunately designed in that early 70s style with the altar actually sunken down, amphitheater style, below the pews, and with seating nearly 180 degrees around the altar, it wasn’t bad. There was a good amount of traditional Church art. There is an ugly high stucco wall behind the altar, but there is a proper high altar with a large tabernacle. As such things go, it could certainly be worse.
The Mass itself was a bit spotty. I guess they use a rotating series of priests there to offer the TLM, and it seems like they are a bit rough on some of the details. The priest missed a few little things like genuflections, handing off his biretta, etc. With a huge table altar in front of the high altar, some liturgical action is a bit crowded. I am not such a liturgical expert that I can tell if the maniple is tied wrong or if a really subtle thing is missed: I would say the mistakes were fairly obvious to one experienced in the TLM. But I certainly appreciate the effort. BTW, I had been forewarned, via commentary on certain internet forums, that the Mass would probably be a bit rough.
I also picked up that there is a deacon at the parish who is probably responsible for organizing the Mass and, quite possibly, being the driving force behind it being offered there. He gave the sermon, and it was very solid. Since this past Sunday was the External Solemnity of the Feast of Corpus Christi, he gave a sermon on the Blessed Sacrament, but spent quite a bit of time demonstrating how protestants – who claim to be guided solely by Scripture – bend and twist Scripture to their own destruction, especially with regard to John chapter VI and the entire detailed discourse on the Blessed Sacrament. It certainly impressed me as a sermon worthy of the traditional Mass.
There was a good sized crowd. I would estimate attendance at about 120. The women were dressed for the most part quite modestly. Most wore chapel veils. Men were generally dressed appropriately. Children were present in abundance and generally quite well behaved. I was pretty impressed.
We’ve been looking for a place to assist at Mass in San Antonio, since so much of my wife’s family lives around there. We had, over the past several years, arranged our visits so we could be home on Sunday. While the TLM is not executed with the panache and seriousness seen in the FSSP, I think we’ve found a place to assist at Mass on Sunday. Unfortunately, that seems to be the only TLM offered at present (it seems former twice-weekly daily TLMs are no longer offered?).
Some pics of the parish below:
If you’re in San Antonio, you might consider checking out St. Pius X parish. The TLM is at 12:10 pm. The only other option is the SSPX parish of St. Joseph with two Sunday TLMs. Aside from that, the only other parish I can really recommend (non-TLM) is Our Lady of the Atonement, which does offer a Novus Ordo in Latin on Sunday in addition to Anglican use Mass. Atonement is pretty high church, however, all Masses are offered Ad Orientem, all Communion is distributed kneeling and on the tongue, and the church itself is very beautiful. The choir is also excellent. I know some folks rotate between Atonement and the TLM.
Beyond that, San Antonio is…….I’ll be nice, and say not particularly blessed with reverent and orthodox liturgies.
The dancing, prancing, “gay?” Italian priest June 12, 2015
Posted by Tantumblogo in disaster, error, General Catholic, horror, Liturgy, priests, scandals, secularism, self-serving, silliness, the return, the struggle for the Church.comments closed
Fr. Richard Heilman of Madison, WI, who, coincidentally, has been offering Sunday TLMs recently, posted a video on his Facebook page of an Italian priest who really dances and prances – at the altar – to pop music during matrimonial Masses. I can’t embed Facebook videos into WordPress, but it did not take me long to find another video of the prancing priest on Youtube:
His prancing is not as wild there as it was on Facebook.
So there was also a video of an Italian news report of the above video on Youtube. And in some of the comments there, assuming I understood them correctly, it is claimed this priest is known to be quite out n’ proud. Some were even labeling him a pederast.
Not that Youtube comments are to be taken as a standard of reliability. Take it for what you will, but he certainly seems very comfortable really getting his groove on.
Ah, yes, the glories of the Novus Ordo. As Fr. Heilman noted, no wonder men are leaving the Church in droves. In his video, the groom looks somewhere between extremely embarrassed and mortified. I’m sure he just can’t wait to enter a Catholic church again.
Have the inmates taken over the asylum, or is Pope Francis getting exactly what he wants? June 12, 2015
Posted by Tantumblogo in abdication of duty, Abortion, contraception, disaster, episcopate, error, foolishness, General Catholic, Papa, persecution, rank stupidity, scandals, secularism, self-serving, sexual depravity, Society, the return, the struggle for the Church.comments closed
I have seen increasing coverage in the mainstream press over the last few weeks of the conflicts that are apparent even to secular observers within the pontificate of Pope Francis. And even some of these secular observers normally inclined to think it a good thing that the Church “modernize” a bit are beginning to express concerns over some of these things they’re seeing.
A case in point: you might recall the post I did a few weeks ago on the bitterly hostile invective directed at Catholic family groups by Archbishop Sanchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, upon receiving some quite mild questions regarding the suitability of giving major pro-aborts and population control zealots a platform to speak at the Vatican. One of Sorondo’s choicest lines:
The Tea Party and all those whose income derives from oil have criticized us…….Ban Ki Moon and Jeffrey Sachs don’t even speak of abortion or population control……. They speak of access to family planning and sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights…..
Which, anyone with a brain and even a toenail in the pro-life movement knows means……….abortion and population control. Family planning is the euphemism for population control, and “reproductive rights” always means abortion. Beyond that, Soronder’s rhetoric was flippant, disrespectful, dismissive, and far beneath his exalted station. It was, however, thoroughly progressive.
In fact, First Things studied some UN documents to prove, without a doubt, that when Ban Ki-Moon speaks of family planning, he means population control, and quite draconian population control at that. But when Margaret Archer, President of the Pontifical Council on Social Sciences saw the criticism in First Things, she absolutely exploded in what can only be termed a unhinged diatribe revealing both a very ill-intent and a thoroughgoing and radical progressive inclination (I quote at length, the diatribe takes the form of loaded questions directed back at First Things):
The nature of your questions [the questions from First Things] raises some very serious questions about your understanding of Catholic Social Doctrine.
1. Is your sole concern with human dignity confined to the period between conception and live-birth?
If so, this is a travesty of Catholic Social Teaching, whose concern is not confined to the newborn but extends to the development of all those potentialities and powers that exist only in potential at birth [OK, straight off, this is ridiculous. It is very possible to be concerned about both abortion and contraception AND all these other matters she introduces. But having concern over a “living wage” and all the rest doesn’t mean we have to traffic with abortion-promoters or pretend they are “on our side” when they promote such manifest evils]2. Why are you so totally uninterested in vicious practices, such as human trafficking that are an offence to the human dignity and right to life that you purport to defend?
……..Of course, your comments imply that you are a climate change denier, but I had to laugh at 18 years being cited as a reasonable period in which to measure such change. The most recent statistics now do show that 95% of natural scientists accept the contribution of emissions, attributable to human doings, as responsible. [Well, I find it laughable that you can find a link between supposed “climate change” and human trafficking. What makes female sexual slavery possible? Could it be abortion and contraception? There is a far firmer link between human trafficking and those evils, than there is with purported climate change. Notice the language – this woman is a thoroughgoing and radical modernist progressive, and yet she holds a high office at the Vatican? Mind, it gets much, much worse.]
3. Why do you direct a hate message to Bishop Sánchez Sorondo alone? [HATE message! To the modern left, to simply question them, let alone oppose them, is all the indication they need that you HATE them. This woman is a child.]
Various Cardinals were present at different meetings. Instead, blame me, blame PAS. [Umm……because HE is the CHANCELLOR overseeing the organization, HE is the one Church hierarch who ultimately holds responsibility in the Church for the behavior of this organization.]4. Why are we not allowed to speak to Jeffrey Sachs or the Secretary General of the UN?
Professor Jeffrey Sachs concentrated his talk on how we (PASS) could influence the Sustainable Development Goals about to be re-designated by the UN…….We should never forget that every Social Encyclical since Vatican II is addressed to ‘All people of goodwill’ – and that he showed himself to be. [Well, we could talk forever about the nature of the post-conciliar “social” encyclicals, and how they comport with the pre-conciliar encyclicals, and even the potential for disorder in those. But this is all appeal to authority and a logical fallacy, she never addresses a single one of the actual questions raised, he entire response can be reduced to: “Who are you to ask US, the exalted bearers of high positions in the Church, peon?”]
……The Secretary General is to be shunned too! Well, that was not the attitude of Pope Francis who invited him to a private Audience, immediately prior to our joint PAS/PASS meeting on 28 April – to discuss climate change and human trafficking. Do you really have a higher moral standard than the Pope? Or is your own minimalistic version of the Creed, consisting of the single item: ‘’We believe in the ethical depravity of abortion’ considered to be an improvement? [Again, I am shocked by the utter lack of reason contained in this response. Asking questions as to the wisdom of giving people who hold numerous views (and more than just abortion) antithetical to the Doctrine of the Faith a platform to speak from the Vatican, without correction or counter-presentation, providing them with enormous moral authority and seeming to praise them unequivocally, is indication of a “minimalistic version of the Creed?” She is basically shouting: “I’m a FAR better Catholic than you, who are you to question ME?”]
“I am appointed by the pope and responsible directly to him. I’m afraid that leaves you and your cohort out in the cold.”
Well, I think that sums up the new attitude in the Church! Get on board with the progressive paradigm or STFU. So much for the empowerment of the laity post-Vatican II! Oh, they just love to empower us, provided we are fully on board with their program, otherwise it’s go frank yourself, pewsitter, just pray, pay, and obey.
The author quoted at the top closes his piece with this: “But right now, Pope Francis looks like a substitute teacher, barely aware of the unseemly machinations in the back of his classroom — or barely in authority to stop them.”
Is that it? Is all this really occurring somehow either in opposition to Pope Francis, or is it occurring behind his back and beyond his control? Or was it Pope Francis who told progressives to “make a mess” in the Church? Is it Pope Francis, through his numerous insults directed at those who adhere to the pre-revolutionary practice of the Faith (sourpusses, neo-Pelagians, prometheans, those who adhere to a certain liturgical “fashion,” etc) who is creating the environment in which a haughty, dismissive, and utterly disrespectful attitude is displayed towards the most faithful Catholics?
As Dr. Archer notes, she was appointed by this Pope. Archbishop Sorondo Sanchez was appointed by JPII, he’s been around a long time, so read into that what you will. Even if all this sudden proliferation of extreme progressive views within the Vatican really is occurring beyond the Pope’s control, it certainly does seem that those progressive elements feel enormously liberated and empowered by this pontificate, in comparison to their behavior over the period 1978-2013. It’s 1968 all over again, and they are beside themselves with excitement.
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