For your Sunday worship...

New Zealand quake city opens cardboard cathedral designed by architect Shigeru Ban

Next it will be a recycled soft drink bottle cathedral. (Not a bad idea, really...)

---

Just general information

Apocalypse 2012: how will the world end?

Out of all this comes the funniest thing of all - end of the world theorist capitalists who spend their time making money off of the possibility of this happening by selling necessary products to those poor people that they've helped to believe in the end of the world in the coming year. If it is truly going to end, as the people selling survival things, etc., to the public believe, then what good would selling anyone anything do? They should give it away! The fact that they don't points out to me that they expect to live on perfectly well after whatever their chosen date is, so that they can spend the money they've made off of others. Ah, yes, trickery and flim-flam.

I agree with the cartoon in the article. Have the believers ever gone ballistic because their yearly calendar ends at December 31? Have they thought that that meant that the calendar makers have some hidden knowledge about the end of the world taking place at that time? No, I'm sure they haven't. Is this any different?

Have a great 2012, everyone, and don't taken any Mayan wooden nickels!

---

Despite the source of this report

who doesn't feel just a little bit less secure because of it?

Lab-Created Bird Flu Virus Poses Massive Threat

'The best laid schemes of mice and men...' and all that. It sure makes me wonder what the '...gang aft agley' part of this will ultimately be...

"Say, Bill. Let's create an easily transmitted, airborne, unstoppable and incurable deadly virus that is easily spread and may accidentally get into the wild, for the sake of science. Just because we can. What could possible go wrong?"

You heard it here first. (And perhaps last?)

---

More of this stuff

Quakes, volcanoes, 'melting': Jeffs offers new revelations from God

All because they imprisoned the polygamous criminal leader of their cult? Boy, I guess when you've got the ear of God you can get anything done!

---

They really only have one mission

Londoners See a Disaster, But Scientology Sees an Opportunity!

That mission is to bring in as much 'raw meat' (their term, not mine) as they can, to take courses and give money to their cult.

---

Alas...

Failed May 21, 2011 Doomsday prophet Harold Camping gone into hiding?

...even though Camping himself may be hiding as a result of the non-end=of-the-world, what remains to be seen is the effects on his followers, many who spent a great deal of their personal money to spread his message. It's not right to say what I've heard lots of people say in comments all over - "They got what they deserved for following a looney!" That's not right, and it's not fair. So many people are looking for meaning in their life, and hope that they're on the right track. Just because Camping's message caught them somehow is no reason not to feel sympathy for the ordeal they're experiencing now...

---

Tongue-in-cheek perhaps,

but you never really know, do you?

CDC Warns Public to Prepare for 'Zombie Apocalypse'

Playing on people's fears of disease, using current trendy entertainment. If it weren't for the current TV Series, The Walking Dead (TV series), they wouldn't have done this...
...but perhaps they should have! (Cue spooky music)

---

It seems just like yesterday,

but did you know that on this date, way back in 1980, Mount St. Helen's erupted?

Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument

It was a Sunday morning in 1980, and it erupted at 8:32 a.m. I note it here because of its historical significance, but also because it seems just like yesterday to me. I can't believe that 31 years have gone by since the event.

---

Time compresses

As one gets older, time seems to compress to where what happened decades ago seems like just a few years ago. Take the

Chernobyl nuclear disaster,

for instance. It occured on this date in 1986, but it seems like just a few years ago, not 25 years ago.

I heard a news report on this just today. Official reports still only list around 4,500 people dead as a result of the disaster. Mind you, they don't quote the scientific and medical authorities who say that they expect the actual number to to in the millions due to cancers that would not normally have occured in the population. Some have already occured, some people are still suffering from cancers and some still have to develop the illnesses. The politicians are just starting the whitewashing early, I guess. Besides, you wouldn't want to hurt the nuclear industry, there's too much money in it.

---

I'm still hearing

atomic energy 'expert' spokespeople on the radio say 'it couldn't happen here'.

Workers Strain to Retake Control After Blast and Fire at Japan Plant

Experienced and intelligent people in European countries who care about their countries more than $ (the god of the West) are putting their projects on hold or cancelling them. The people in the West just say 'it couldn't happen here'.

Ah, courage based on the arrogance of youth and inexperience...

---

Be careful of these people

Warning regarding Scientology’s ‘volunteer ministers’

The average rank-and-file public members are likely quite sincere, but defecting executives of the 'church', and the organization's actions to try to keep people quiet, have shown that the leadership is anything but sincere. Stay far away from them. All they want to do is save you from the 'psychs'...

---

Prayer need!

Huge Quake and Tsunami Hit Japan

Another huge disaster! We need to pray for all the people in Japan, and all those who have loved ones in Japan.

I don't know about anyone else, but I think the number of natural disasters is increasing, along with the death and destruction that goes along with them. What is happening to our Earth?

---

Saving a fabric artist

ChristChurch Cathedral artist tells of miracle survival

I'm sure there are more great stories like this from the tragedy. I only wish there were more for the people who died...

---

Another prayer need

New Zealand earthquake: 65 dead in Christchurch

After the floods in Australia comes an earthquake in New Zealand. Please, if you're the praying type, remember all these people in your prayers. Some people doubt the efficacy of prayer, but for myself, I know it works...

---

Feel like

a tangible reminder of what we've done to the environment?

BirdProject

AND do something good for the environment at the same time? This is good on so many levels!

---

Systemic?

US oil spill: 'Bad management' led to BP disaster

"...the presidential commission said the failures were "systemic" and likely to recur."

And just what is the real system responsible?

Guess.

---

This is a terrible graphic example

of why we shouldn't trust business when they say nothing can go wrong...

Deepwater Horizon’s Final Hours

"Investigators have dissected BP’s well design and Halliburton’s cementing work, uncovering problem after problem."

...

"What emerges is a stark and singular fact: crew members died and suffered terrible injuries because every one of the Horizon’s defenses failed on April 20. Some were deployed but did not work. Some were activated too late, after they had almost certainly been damaged by fire or explosions. Some were never deployed at all."

Lord have mercy on all those killed and injured, and on their families. I pray for justice for them in this life, not just after death...

---

Fascinating!

Pompeii skeletons reveal secrets of Roman family life

"And, as Andrew Wallace-Hadrill - who excavated this cesspit - agrees, you do not get closer to the Roman world than in its excrement."

'Nuff said. Read the article for more...

---

They're finally

getting past their 'petty cash' limit into the area of real money for them...

BP costs for oil spill response pass $3 billion

I feel sorry for those, especially the pensioners, whose money is tied up in BP. I'm not at all sorry for BP itself. They took risks. They gambled. They lost. Tough. It's the environment that's suffering, and it may never recover. I consider them criminals...

---

Please help!

Don't let ideology and partisan politics blind you to the needs of the people resulting from this horrible disaster. Borrowing a phrase from the labour movement (who don't pay enough attention to it themselves) 'an injury to one is an injury to all'. Please help Haiti in its time of need...

---