Hugh J. Donagher, III

To:
Joseph Ratzinger (bishop of Rome)
Henry J. Mansell (archbishop of Hartford)
Patrick J. McGrath (bishop of San José)

I have not identified as a catholic for about ten years. Until now, that has been sufficient remedy and relief from a lifetime of damage inflicted upon my spirit by Roman catholic dogma and practice.

Given the depth of the Evil that we now know infests the Roman catholic church, it is no longer enough to simply distance myself from the institution in which I was raised.

The time has come for me to formally, openly, and emphatically renounce my catholicism, or risk complicity in the heinous crimes of the church and its leaders.

I renounce the Roman catholic church, its teachings, and its Evil ways.

I reject the baptism that was performed in my name.

I repudiate the vows I took in the rite of confirmation.

I vehemently reject the church’s claims of moral authority and divine inspiration.

I reject the church’s oppression and abuse of women, children and homosexuals.

I deplore the church’s ancient and ongoing crimes against mankind.

I do hereby apologize to humanity for any harm in which I have been complicit by my failure to speak out against the Evils of the Roman catholic church. That silence ends now.

By this renunciation, I seek to cleanse my spirit of the bloody stain of catholicism. I pledge to work to repair the damage the church has caused, in any way that I am able.

I am pained to think that someone, somewhere may be counting me as an adherent of an institution which has done and is doing irreparable harm to humanity. Strike my name from the records of the church, except to record that I am no longer a Roman catholic.

Hugh J. Donagher, III

This just in from race organizers:

From: Sandy Maz
Subject: Soap Box Derby to be on TV this week
Date: Tuesday, June 2, 2009, 9:24 PM

All,

We want to let you know that we were given a great opportunity to promote Silicon Valley Soap Box Derby and our upcoming local race on TV.

Last week, Joe, Chris, and a few of our derby racers went up to SF and taped 8 short hosting segments that will air this week on KOFY-TV20/Cable 13. Each of these segments focused on different aspects of soap box racing.

Topics included some history, how the derby in Silicon Valley started, how a car works, and race strategies to name a few. Each segments ends with a mention of our local race and our website for more information.

Our kids did an amazing job as did Joe and Chris. Even the producer/host, Brendan Moran and the studio crew expressed how impressed they were with not just the information and the way the kids presented it, but also how prepared we came with topics and the great looking cars we brought to show.

The segments will air this Thursday at 5 pm, 6 pm, 7 pm, and 8 pm. Then again on Friday morning at 8 am, 10 am, 11 am, and 12 noon. The station is local station KOFY TV-20 which on most cable systems is on channel 13.

The TV station was very generous by scheduling the segments to air the Thurs and Fri right before our big local race. Be sure to tune in!

Flat Stanley is a popular storybook character among second graders. As the story begins, he is a real boy who is later flattened by a falling bulletin board. Stanley learns that life in two dimensions has its advantages, such as being able to slide under closed doors, into sewer grates, and traveling by mail.

Second grade classes all over the place now often participate in the Flat Stanley Project, in which students create their own version of Flat Stanley and send him by mail, with a letter, to a distant relative, asking them to host Flat Stanley and to take photos of his travels and report back on them. Through this process, they learn about communicating in writing, sending mail, and they learn about the faraway place their Flat Stanley visits. Flat Stanley has been all over the world, under the sea in a Navy sub, at the North Pole, in Antarctica and in space. He was even on board the plane that landed in the Hudson River a few months ago. For more on Flat Stanley, check out his Wikipedia entry.

Three years ago, my then-seven year old niece and goddaughter, Katherine, asked me to play host to her Flat Stanley. My partner, Brian, and I had just moved to the Bay Area, so Flat Stanley’s visit provided just the impetus we needed to get out and explore our new home. Photos of that visit are online.

This year, my seven year old nephew, Tom, has also asked us to play host to Flat Stanley. We had so much fun last time, we were actually hoping he’d ask us, too. This time, the landscape has changed a bit and we’ve actually created a blog for Flat Stanley’s visit to Mountain View. Follow his adventures at http://flatstanleyTAO.wordpress.com. He even tweets occasionally at http://twitter.com/flatstanleyTAO.

The roundest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.

I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.

She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.

A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.

The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.

No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.

A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.

Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.

Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other, “You stay here; I’ll go on a head..”

I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: “Keep off the Grass.”

A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, “No change yet.”

A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.

The man who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

A backward poet writes inverse.

In democracy it’s your vote that counts. In feudalism it’s your count that votes.

When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.

Don’t join dangerous cults: Practice safe sects.

– Collected from the Internet

So, today I discovered that someone has created a group on Facebook entitled “Petition Facebook To Raise The Maximum Friends Count.” The number of friends one may have on Facebook is currently capped at 5,000. At this writing, the group has 2,990 members, all of whom are gravely concerned about this limitation on their social networking capacity.

In fact, an active discussion in the forums of this group is, “Why do you think Facebook has a limit of 5,000 friends?”

In reply to this question, the “Top Ten Reasons Facebook Has a Limit of 5,000 Friends”, as compiled by the home office. (With apologies to David Letterman.)

10. because it’s a reasonable number.

9. because no one has 5,000 actual friends in this life. 

8. because who on earth could keep up with the newsfeed of 5,000 or more people?

7. because the number of friends one has on Facebook is likely inversely proportional to the quality of their off-line life? (if they have one.)

6. because someone with 5,000 friends on Facebook almost certainly never leaves their computer, and that’s not healthy.

5. because MySpace already exists for such childish pursuits.

4. because people with more than 5,000 friends are often pedophiles. 

3. because no more than a handful of people on this planet really care about your hourly mood swings.

2. because no one needs to be told you are single if you have over 5,000 friends on Facebook; it’s a given!

and the number one reason Facebook has a limit of 5,000 friends:

1. because someone who wants to have more than 5,000 friends on Facebook is a professional spammer!

“The Sun delivers to the Earth more energy in an hour than humanity uses in a year.”

On Monday, the New York Times published a brilliantly written opinion piece by Oliver Morton, chief news and features editor of the journal Nature, entitled “Not-So-Lonely Planet.”

At once hopeful and cautionary, the piece underscores the importance of the environmental crises we face, while also putting them into a cosmic perspective. Morton’s analysis considers “our” crises not only from the perspective of the human race, but from the perspectives of the planet Earth herself, all of the life she sustains, and the cosmos.

With a science-friendly administration on the horizon, we can (finally) be hopeful for some real progress in the development of alternative energy strategies and progressive environmental policy.

DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.” Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus? VIRGINIA O’HANLON, 115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.”

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Everone knows it is important for Santa and his reindeer to be quiet when they deliver presents on Christmas Eve so no one will know they are there.

One Christmas Eve, Santa Claus landed on a rooftop and suddenly he heard a very loud, “Snort sniff honk honk snort!” coming from one of his reindeer. Since he was in the sleigh behind them, he didn’t know which one it was. It happened again, only louder this time. “Snort sniff honk honk snort!” Dogs in the neighborhood began to bark.

“Shhh!” Santa hissed. “Please be quiet!” He went to work lifting the sack of toys out of the sleigh when he heard it again, only a lot louder this time. “SNORT SNIFF HONK HONK SNORT!”

Lights came on all over the neighborhood and some people even stuck their heads out of their windows. Santa was horrified. Jumping back into the sleigh, he drove quickly back to the North Pole. He lined up all the reindeer and announced, “We are not going to deliver another present until the reindeer who is making funny noises with his nose steps forward and apologizes!” None of the reindeer stepped forward.

Santa held up a piece of paper. “I know who it is and I have written your name on this paper. But I want to give you a chance to do the right thing on your own.”

Still none of the reindeer came forward.

So Santa did the only thing he could do. He read off the rude-nosed reindeer…

(from the Internet)

Few things disgust me more than businesses that employ aggressive, deceptive and exploitive tactics in a desperate attempt to build their customer base. Reunion.com is such a business. Readers are advised to avoid this company like the plague.

The tactics they employ are similar to acceptable business practices employed by other companies in their market sector, but Reunion.com take these practices to an extreme that is unacceptable.

The acceptable practice:

Many social and professional networking sites — LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, etc. — allow their users the opportunity to find out if people they know are also using that site. One process for discovering friends using these sites is to allow the site access to your online address book (Yahoo! Mail, GMail, Hotmail, etc.). The site then cross checks the email addresses of your contacts with those of its subscribers. The results are reported to you and you are offered the option of contacting one or many or all of your contacts that have been found. The site will then contact those you have selected on your behalf and offer the connection. You may even personalize the message that is sent on your behalf. The key here is that you may select one or more individuals, or all of them, at your discretion.

Reunion.com’s unacceptable extreme:

Using deceptive language, they lure you into giving them access to your online address book. They even make the step appear necessary, by making the opt-out link tiny, and placing it way up in a corner, almost out of view. Once they gain access to your address book, they email EVERY SINGLE CONTACT therein, with the same message. They tell every one of your contacts that YOU are “searching” for them at REUNION.COM, and imply that you have left a message for them there. One that they must create an account and divulge their own information in order to retrieve. And just as they exploited you, they exploit those who login, curious to see what message you have allegedly left for them at that site. You are not given the opportunity to personalize the message, nor to select individual contacts who receive the message. You are not even given the opportunity to halt the process once it has begun.

You don’t need the hassle. The service they provide is no longer unique or valuable enough to bother. Other sites are much better options for building networks of friends and family.

OK, so maybe there aren’t THAT many “perfect turkey” methodologies, but this one REALLY worked at the dinner we attended this year.

• Calculate total cooking time for the bird, as per your usual method.
• Cook for one-half of that time.
• Remove from oven, tent with foil, set aside for two hours.
• Return to oven for ONE-HALF of the REMAINING time.
• Remove from oven, let rest for 20 minutes.

Checking internal temps with instant read thermometers, of course, is critical. A key element is to remove the turkey when it is about 20 degrees from the finished temperature. The bird continues to cook sitting on the cutting board, awaiting dissection, and the temperature will rise about another 20 degrees in those 20 minutes. Check it to make sure it has hit temp before carving. Return to oven, if it doesn’t.

This method produced probably the moistest turkey I have ever eaten.