I read a blog post in which the atheist writer said, "Basically I think after you die, nothing else happens. You do just turn into dust." That leads me to ask, How can thoughts turn into dust? What about your love, your intelligence, your reason, your will? Our spiritual realities can't become physical dust. If they didn't come from dust, they can't return to dust.

I think I would be OK if only male heads of households were able to vote.

I'm happy with Debian Linux and the Gnome desktop. It just works. Stable and simple. I can't imagine using Windows regularly at home. The thought makes me shudder.

ENCRYPTED MESSENGERS AND THE EAR SHOOTER A U.S. government task force member said of Trump's ear shooter, "Why does a 19-year-old kid who is a health care aide need encrypted [messaging accounts] not even based in the United States, but based abroad, where most terrorist organizations know it is harder for our law enforcement to get into? That’s a question I’ve had since day one." I have the answer: By default, our private conversations should be private; we should not accept mass surveillance by our own government who admittedly wants to indiscriminately spy on us all. More effective than tracking and recording the communications of all humanity is old-fashioned police work and security procedure. In the ear shooter's case, the problem was not the use of certain chat apps, but the gross incompetency (if not worse) of the secret service. It was no secret that a suspicious weirdo was scoping out the place ahead of time and then climbed on top of a roof carrying a rifle. That's all the information they needed, and they had plenty of time to respond had they chosen to. Don't let government propaganda and fear tactics make you hand over basic rights. They want us to hand over our conversations, our guns, and our religion. All these things get in the way of what they want, which is complete submission -- "emperor worship."

Fox News

Trump shooter had multiple encrypted accounts overseas, including Germany: Rep. Waltz

Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida told reporters he learned the shooter who attempted to kill former President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, had encrypte...

I don't like how "encrypted accounts" (messengers) are getting a bad rap lately. Big Brother snooping through personal digital communications is more suspicious to me than people simply using encrypted communication.

I see that most corporate marketing teams are behaving today so far online. In this economy, who can afford to pull a "Bud Light"?

Judging by his 60 Minutes interview, it seems Pope Francis does not understand "Tradition." He speaks as if it were merely like precedence, or something we can consider and learn from historically. But we understand it as something handed down to be guarded and preserved.

1. Easter egg baskets and hunts. 2. Easter bunnies. 3. Outdoor "sunrise services." 4. Hot-cross buns. 5. The English word "Easter." Those who insist "Easter is pagan!" act as if these things are the essence of what Easter is -- that without them, there is no Easter. Yet the observance of Easter (i.e., the annual commemoration of the Resurrection) does not hinge on these things. I turned to Catholicism about 24 years ago, observing Easter each year since then. Not once have I participated in an egg hunt, decorated with bunnies, or attended an outdoor "sunrise service." I don't know whether I've even seen a hot-cross bun. I don't oppose these things; I just haven't done them. They're not important. If the way I've observed Easter is still objectionable to the anti-Easter crowd -- and it is -- then it's not because they oppose "paganism." It's because they oppose the annual commemoration of the Resurrection of Jesus. That's a sober realization.

No one around my office seems to mind seeing a person's pronouns in the email signature. But when it was noticed after almost a year that my email signature included my "Preferred conjunctive adverbs," I was told (without a smile) to delete that line. I should sue.

This is a clear, up-close, graphic video, showing a few seconds at the end what "clumps of cells" and mere "just fetuses" look like. If we want to keep it real, we need to rethink our insane view of "my body, my choice." Do not watch if you can't handle the truth about what "pro-choicers" defend.

X (formerly Twitter)

Dr. Abby Johnson (@AbbyJohnson) on X

Every time they say abortion is a right, every time they act like motherhood enslaves a woman, every time they say it’s nothing more than a fetus...

This is a striking comparison of the old Traditional Latin Mass and the New Mass. It's not just a matter of Latin vs. English. It affects what we believe. While both are valid, the New Mass withhold things that better express hidden realities, such as the Real Presence and that the Mass is a sacrificial rite. It's really undeniable to any honest person. That's what makes it so evil to work so hard at suppressing the ancient Mass. One has to ask, Why?

Catholic Family News - Catholic Family News

Is a Reverent Novus Ordo Just as Good? - Catholic Family News

This week marked the end of the Traditional Latin Mass at Saint Mary Cathedral in Austin, Texas. In a letter dated February 11, 2024 and addressed ...

#TLM

It seems the best way to "stack sats" is to earn an income (i.e., work a job) and buy some BTC. Isn't that better than these tiny amounts most people here tip each other with? Who has done anything with these sats? What do they plan to do with them? Why? What is the goal? From the outside it looks like a weird, obsessive hobby. I have some crypto saved (no KYC attached). I use it for VPN service. I've bought books with it. I think it's good to have if I need privacy or a permissionless transaction. But it's not a religion. We cannot serve both God and e-mammon.

I know I'm not the only one (though it feels like it in my circles), but I wish GPG encrypted email was the norm. Yes, the metadata of email headers reveals a lot, but still -- does it follow that encrypted content doesn't matter? If more people used Protonmail, and if more email providers offered similar built-in GPG encryption, then the use of email would be more reasonable, more private, more widely used, less dangerous.

My wife and I just now finished "binge watching" the entirety of the *Little House on the Prairie* television series. It took us about three years to see all the episodes.

Does anyone ever do anything with their nostr-acquired zaps in real life? Or do they just remain as numbers on a screen?