Tag Archives: Morality

ENDNOTE: Sad sale

Posted on February 20, 2010 by | Comments Off

http://www.irishcentral.com/story/roots/finnegans_awake/n-irish-teen-sells-virginity-n-irish-paper-sells-ethics-82726137.html

Posted on Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 04:46 PM

Irish teen sells virginity; Irish paper sells ethics

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Essentially, and not for the first time, a teenage girl tried to sell her virginity to the highest bidder on an auction site. Apparently, a reporter for the Telegraph noticed the posting, contacted the girl to see if it was legit and then posed as a wealthy businessman to bid for the young lady’s virtue.

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[JR: Read this and just shook my head. How hard up can a girl be? I'll pray hard tonight that she finds her way. I guess not all technology is used properly.]

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ENDNOTE: It’s not “war”; it was murder

Posted on April 25, 2009 by | Comments Off

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2009/03/dayintech_0309

March 9, 1945: Burning the Heart Out of the Enemy from Wired Top Stories by Tony Long

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1945: In the single deadliest air raid of World War II, 330 American B-29s rain incendiary bombs on Tokyo, touching off a firestorm that kills upwards of 100,000 people, burns a quarter of the city to the ground, and leaves a million homeless.

*** and ***

Tokyo immediately burst into flames. The combination of incendiaries, the way they were dropped, windy weather conditions and lack of coordinated firefighting on the ground resulted in a firestorm similar to what occurred two years previously in Hamburg, and only a month before in Dresden. Temperatures on the ground in Tokyo reached 1,800 degrees in some places.

The human carnage was appalling; bomber crews coming in near the tail end of the raid reported smelling the stench of charred human flesh as they passed over the burning capital.

*** and ***

The firebombing campaign, coupled with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, are believed to have killed more than 1 million Japanese civilians between March and August of 1945.

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[JR: My Dad, an XO on a LCI, got to Japan and saw some of the destruction. He didn't talk much about it, except if he had a large supply of adult refreshment. I can remember one "discussion" with an uncle who was a WW1 vet. Before I got shoved out, I remember him saying: "there's no excuse for murder. it wasn't war." Anytime, I read these descriptions I think of that personal testimony. And, as I wrote in my book: "How can one human being do this to another?" Sadly.]

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POSITRACTION: The team missed the free throws intentionally

Posted on April 5, 2009 by | Comments Off

http://deadspin.com/5155038/not-all-high-school-kids-are-heartless-punks

Not All High School Kids Are Heartless Punks

By Dashiell Bennett

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As an old person, I am required to fear and distrust teenagers, but there are allegedly a few out there who believe in sportsmanship and goodwill, even toward an opponent.

Johntell Franklin of Milwaukee Madison High School showed up late to his high school basketball game on Saturday night, but he did have a good excuse—his mother had died that day from cancer. The team thought about canceling the game, but Franklin told them to go ahead without him. Then he surprised everyone by showing up in the second quarter and asking to suit up. Unfortunately, his name was not in the scorebook so that meant a technical foul and two free throws for the other team … and Madison ended up losing the game by two points!

Ha, not really. The team missed the free throws intentionally.

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[JR: In comparison to the 100-0 score, here's an example of "sportsmanship"!]

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ENDNOTE: San Francisco Archdiocese gets “a taxed”

Posted on March 28, 2009 by | Comments Off

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/14/MN10159JCM.DTL

Assessor: Catholic Archdiocese owes millions
Erin Allday, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 14, 2009

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(01-13) 20:49 PST — San Francisco will try to collect up to $15 million in taxes from the Archdiocese of San Francisco, which is refusing to pay certain taxes on properties the church is transferring from one Catholic nonprofit organization to another.

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The archdiocese is not being taxed to make up for a budget deficit, Ting said. But he noted that since he took office three years ago, he has made a concerted effort to collect all applicable transfer taxes, especially those owed by corporations.

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Ahh, yes, secular progressives attack Holy Mother on Yet Another Front. FMPOV, it was allowing them to ge tin the “game” in the first place. IMHO the proper response is to attack every level of Gooferment with its own First Amendment. I’d use the Amish as the model. Make the Gooferment fight for every inch.

How else does Holy Mother Church retain her position to succor the People from the Tyrannical King?

Oh, this is “different”, it’s just about “paying one’s fair share”; right! Oh, you don’t think that’s its role? Or you don’t think we have “kings” here in the People’s Democratic Republic of the USA? Or, we don’t need any “succor”?

Sigh. Sheeple.

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ENDNOTE: Good lesson about “Christian charity”!

Posted on March 21, 2009 by | Comments Off

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/012609dnspocovenantnu.2781526.html

Covenant coach who beat Dallas Academy 100-0 is fired
06:04 AM CST on Monday, January 26, 2009
By BARRY HORN / The Dallas Morning News

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The Covenant School fired its girls basketball coach Sunday, the same day he posted a message on a youth basketball Web site saying he disagreed with school officials who had publicly apologized for the team’s 100-0 victory over Dallas Academy.

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Grimes said in his Sunday post that his team stopped applying full-court defensive pressure after the score reached 25-0 three minutes into the game, then dropped into a relatively benign zone defense and began resting its starters in favor of its three bench players.

*** and ***

She said the parents of the team’s eight players met with school officials Saturday and outlined three goals for the program:

“We want to represent Christ with the highest respect, we don’t want to humiliate anyone ever and we want our students to be enthusiastic in everything they do.”

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Funny as it sounds, when my wife was coaching 6-8 grade girls basketball, she ran up against teams that didn’t have a clue.

She, however, was a sharp enough coach to realize watching the other team warm up, that they were clueless. A point guard who dribbled head down. a “5” who was shorter than her shortest guard, or even a coach who was an inexperienced mother who was doing it so the girl could have a team.

It never got to that point.

She had 15 girls on her team. (At that age level, she felt it was supposed to be fun for everyone.) But, she MANAGED the game. (Something that coach in the story missed.) Starters started until the first dead ball. Then, the second team went in for a while. (After they scored a few times!) Then it was the third strings turn.

But, alas, even they were better than the other team. One of our kids, who could barely reach the basket, drilled one from 12 feet.

First team went back in with ORDERS to do a Clemson style stall. (It was good practice for them. Later in the season, it was used to run out the clock in a tough game.)

In life, you have remember what the REAL objectives are. Embarrassing our fellow human being is really NOT doing the Lord’s work.

And, as many pro sports franchises have learned, it motivates your opponent next time.

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POSITRACTION: One man’s struggle for his daughter Beatrice

Posted on March 15, 2009 by | Comments Off

http://www.wired.com/medtech/genetics/magazine/17-02/ff_diygenetics

DNA: One Father’s Attempt to Hack His Daughter’s Genetic Code
By Brendan I. Koerner Email 01.19.09

Beatrice Rienhoff is sick. A flaw hidden deep within her genes has baffled the best doctors in the world. So her father is combing through her DNA, one nucleotide at a time.

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“Do you want to see my flashlight?” Five-year-old Beatrice Rienhoff bounds into the foyer of her family’s home, sporting a blond Prince Valiant haircut and a bashful smile. She plops down on the floor and starts unscrewing the top of her toy flashlight, eager to show off its innards. Her hazel eyes brim with curiosity. Beatrice looks like any other healthy preschooler until she leaps into her father’s arms for a hug. As she does, her shorts push up a bit, exposing her legs. They are, as her dad calls them, “little bird legs,” entirely lacking in visible muscle. There is no curve of calf or quadricep, just twiggy bones pressed against flesh. It’s surprising that Beatrice can get around so fluidly on such gaunt limbs.

*** and ***

Deep down, Hugh Rienhoff knows this. And he realizes that his DIY search for a diagnosis may never pan out. “I never pretend to know what’s going on, because I don’t,” he says. “You can see—anybody can see if they look closely enough—that I don’t have the answer to the story.”

But he keeps hacking his way through Beatrice’s genome, mostly because it’s the only way he has of feeling some measure of control over an uncontrollable situation. Rienhoff compares his work on Beatrice’s DNA to journalist Peter Matthiessen’s search for the snow leopard, documented in an award-winning book. Matthiessen never found the big cat in the mountains of Nepal, but his futile quest helped him come to terms with his wife’s death from cancer.

The altered nucleotide at the root of Beatrice’s problems “is as elusive and mysterious as the snow leopard,” Rienhoff says. “And like Matthiessen, I may not find it. Curiously, it may not be important at all.”

The journey, in other words, is its own reward. Of course, Rienhoff knows he can afford to be philosophical because Beatrice’s condition isn’t dire, at least not at the moment. “I am not watching my child melt away, which is the most desperate situation to be in,” he says. “I can’t even imagine that—I’d be working 24 hours a day.”

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[JR: Heroic futile struggle. One man’s response. Every human life is infinitely to someone. Yet, as a society, we throw people away. Abortion, old age. Discrimination and prejudice. When do we learn? I found this report strangely motivating. No matter how fruitless, this man demonstrates “right to life”. imho]

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JEmail: Toner, Michael (MC1972) responds to my DOWG comment

Posted on March 1, 2009 by | Comments Off

From: Michael Toner (MC1972)
Date: March 1, 2009 1:24:23 PM EST
To: Distribute_Jasper_Jottings
Subject: Re: [Distribute_Jasper_Jottings] JASPER JOTTINGS Week 09 – 2009 March 01

On 3/1/09 4:05 AM, “jasperfjohn68″ wrote:

JASPER JOTTINGS Week 09 – 2009 March 01

The DofI (Declaration of Independence) is a “liberal” statement of the rights of the sovereign individual.THe DOWGs (Dead Old White Guys) hit the nail on the head … … “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” That’s a “liberal” agenda!

Dear John,

Those DOWGs weren’t too good on the rights of women and non-whites – so I wouldn’t be too sure what they thought about the unborn.

But I think we should support a totally libertarian view – that the government should stay totally out of what a woman does with her body.

peace

mike toner
bee ‘72
buffalo, ny

[JR: Well, they had their struggles as well. The slavery compromise was made to preserve the "union" against England. Personally, I'm surprised that the idealist Jefferson nor the pragmatist Ben Franklin didn't come up with the "slave buy out" idea. The rest of the world "figured out" slavery without a devastating "civil" war. So the DOWGs were pretty smart, but not infallible. They didn't have the concept of killing unborn children; thus, no idea what they would have thought. Depending if we could come to a national consensus on when life begins, then the government might have some small role in preserving the rights of its littlest citizens. We are so far from that point it's almost inconceivable. (But, an important principle!) The gooferment has totally screwed up education (condemning children to poverty) and foster care (condemning children to abuse). Instead of telling women and their doctors what to do, it should be working on unwinding their involvement in our lives. Instead, they are, like a parasite, worming in further. Argh! Yes, I trust women with these tough decisions more than any gooferment bureaucrat! I just shake my head. And, I don't want to pay for what I view as an immoral behavior (i.e., killing children)! Argh! ]
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ENDNOTE: Fight with the city’s code department?

Posted on February 7, 2009 by | Comments Off

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28642352

Clearwater Tackle Shop Owner Still Fighting City Hook
By Stephen Thompson
Tampa Bay Online
updated 4:45 p.m. ET, Tues., Jan. 13, 2009

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CLEARWATER – Herb Quintero, who has long thought the fish mural painted on the side of his tackle shop was a work of art, had until Monday to cover it up.

And he did – with a copy of the First Amendment.

His act of defiance is the latest chapter in his fight with the city’s code department, which views the mural as a business sign for Quintero’s tackle shop, the Complete Angler, 705 N. Fort Harrison Ave.

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Have to admire the fellow’s spunk! Wish I had a picture of it.

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ENDNOTE: better answers from Treasury

Posted on January 31, 2009 by | Comments Off

http://tinyurl.com/94dl3u

Oversight panel wants better answers from TreasuryLouisville Courier-Journal

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“Less than a month after its first report, a congressional paneloverseeing the Treasury Department’s $700 billion financial bailout isdemanding more answers. The panel’s first report, released Dec. 10,included questions about how banks are spending taxpayer money, howthe money will combat the rising tide of home foreclosures andTreasury’s overall strategy for the rescue.” (01/09/09)

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[JR: What a novel idea. I’d like a PUBLIC accounting. And, prosecutions for all the fraudulent mortgages. I saw one estimate that said organized crime was responsible for half of the NIJA (No income, no job, no accounting and no hope of repayment!) loans. There should be public floggings for those responsible. Especially Paulson, Berenacke, Franks, and Dodd! And any politician that was on the dole from these bailoutees. Argh!]

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POSITRACTION: Brilliant water-based eyeglasses for the masse

Posted on January 25, 2009 by | Comments Off

http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/brilliant_waterbased_eyeglasses_for_the_masses_no_optician_required_12220.asp

Brilliant water-based eyeglasses for the masses: No optician required
Posted by: hipstomp | Comments (40)

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British inventor Josh Silver, a former professor of physics at Oxford University, has come up with a game-changer of a product design with his water-lensed glasses.

Silver has devised a pair of glasses which rely on the principle that the fatter a lens the more powerful it becomes. Inside the device’s tough plastic lenses are two clear circular sacs filled with fluid, each of which is connected to a small syringe attached to either arm of the spectacles.

The wearer adjusts a dial on the syringe to add or reduce amount of fluid in the membrane, thus changing the power of the lens. When the wearer is happy with the strength of each lens the membrane is sealed by twisting a small screw, and the syringes removed. The principle is so simple, the team has discovered, that with very little guidance people are perfectly capable of creating glasses to their own prescription.

You can mass-produce millions of these, rather than manufacturing myriad individual lenses each tuned to a user’s specific vision deficiencies. And while the one-size-fits-all mentality may not fly in developed nations, Silver’s goal is to help the hundreds of millions of people in developing countries who suffer from poor eyesight.

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[JR: Wow! Silver calls his flash of insight a “tremendous glimpse of the obvious”—namely that opticians weren’t necessary to provide glasses. How esle can we serve our fellow man? This is a challenge to every Jasper. What’s so obvious that we’ve been missing?]

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