Salvation for the Rich

Sure, literate people can read God's Word for themselves, but that doesn't mean everyone can understand it for themselves. Scripture itself says it contains "things hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction" (2 Peter 3:16). Worse, Bible-only theology limits salvation to those who can read. A large percentage of the world is illiterate. Even when the Bible is translated to their language, they can't read it.

The advantage of the sacramental economy used by liturgical Christians is simple: the sinner doesn't need a high-tech skill (literacy) in order to be saved. All the sinner needs is to be breathing, and s/he can be baptized, confirmed, chrismated, etc.

The Protestant system has always been salvation for the wealthy, not the poor, because literacy has always been a skill reserved to the wealthy, and unavailable to the great mass of the poor.

Demonstration:

While only 12% of the people in the world could read and write in 1820, today the share has reversed: only 14% of the world population, in 2016, remained illiterate.

In 2019, the illiteracy rate among adults aged 15 years and older was 34.7 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa. In South Asia the illiteracy rate was 27.1 percent. Adult illiteracy rate is defined as the percentage of the population ages 15 and older who can not read or write.

Even if literacy is attained, at what level is it attained? How well does someone have to read in order to be considered "literate"? For instance, let us consider the 2012 edition of the PIAAC, or Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies. To begin, the study has a title that could not be understood by most of the people it surveyed.

The average American reads at the 7th or 8th grade level.... 4% [of Americans] are nonliterate.... 14% have below-basic literacy levels.... 34% have basic literacy levels. [This means] Half of U.S. adults can't read a book written at the 8th-grade level. ... most cannot identify the link leading to the organization’s phone number from a website with several links, including “contact us” and “FAQ.”

On a reading scale from 1 to 500, the US scores an average of 270, which places it below average on the international comparison chart, but even the highest scoring country, Japan, scores only a 296. That means that even the Japanese, on average, can barely identify relevant information in a two-paragraph essay and interpret a generic chart with 15 items. 

So that raises a very important, but generally overlooked, set of questions for Bible-only Protestants. At what grade level is your English-language Bible translated to? Here is an estimate from the biblegateway.com website. The first number is the grade level for which the Bible is generally considered accessible; the number in parentheses is an estimated age at which a reader can fully read and understand it. As you can see, over half the translations cannot be understand by half of Americans:

• Mounce — 12+ (ages 17+)
• KJV — 12+ (ages 17+)
• RSV — 12+ (ages 17+)
• Geneva — 12+ (ages 17+)
• WEB — 12+ (ages 17+)
• NRSV — 11+ (ages 16+)
• NASB — 11+ (ages 16+)
• Amplified — 11+ (ages 16+)
• MEV — 11+ (ages 16+)
• LEB — 11+ (ages 16+)
• ESV — 10+ (ages 15+)
• J.B. Phillips NT — 10+ (ages 15+)
• NABRE — 9+ (ages 14+)
• NIV — 7+ (ages 12+)
• CEB — 7+ (ages 12+)
• NET — 7+ (ages 12+)
• GNT — 7+ (ages 12+)
• ISV — 7+ (ages 12+)
• NKJV — 7+ (ages 12+)
• HCSB — 7+ (ages 12+)
• The Voice — 6+ (ages 11+)
• NLT — 6+ (ages 11+)
• CEV — 5+ (ages 10+)
• GW — 5+ (ages 10+)
• The Message — 4+ (ages 9+)
• Living — 4+ (ages 9+)
• ERV — 4+ (ages 9+)
• NCV — 3+ (ages 7+)
• ICB — 3+ (ages 7+)
• NIrV — 3+ (ages 7+)

Once we get to the lower grade levels, another question arises: is this even really a translation? After all, shouldn't we be reading the Bible in the original Hebrew and Greek, the language of the prophets and apostles? If we aren't reading it in the original languages, are we really reading the Bible at all? If you are willing to say an English translation suffices, then how dumbed down does it have to get before it is no longer truly a Bible at all, but just a summary, a paraphrase, a gloss, instead of the Word of God?  

History is filled with Bibles whose translations or printings were not wholly accurate: the Murderer's Bible (left out the "not" in "thou shalt not kill"), the Wife-Beater's Bible, etc. So, if there is one faulty word, let out or added in, is that book no longer the Bible? How much can be paraphrased (because all translations are inherently inexact, and therefore paraphrased - how to correctly translate passages in Isaiah is a great example of this) before the work is no longer a Bible?

Even if you read the books in the original Greek and Hebrew, which books are you reading? There are several ancient versions of Isaiah, for instance. Which is Scripture, and which isn't? Only a rich person with a lot of resources would have the time to both learn the necessary Hebrew (or Greek, for the Septuagint version), much less be able to make an informed choice. And what if he chooses incorrectly? How would a less informed person know that the translation in front of him isn't actually the Bible?

For the liturgical Christian, these questions are interesting, but not threatening. But for the Bible-only Protestant, these questions are downright deadly. Once we admit a third-grade Bible is still a Bible, then how is a sermon delivered by one of the Apostolic Fathers *NOT* also the Bible? 

After all, when we translate the Bible to a third-grade level for young readers, aren't we doing EXACTLY the same thing the Apostolic Fathers did in their sermons - translating the difficult language of the Bible to a listening audience who can't read the original? If you admit a third-grade English, Japanese or Russian edition is "the Bible", when all it is REALLY doing is recasting the original Greek and Hebrew into a form third-graders can understand, then how can you deny that every sermon that explains, i.e., recasts a specific Biblical passage into a form an audience can understand, is not also "the Bible"? Where do you draw the line?

When considered this way, all of these sermons ARE the Bible. They are just live translations from the original languages into an age and grade-level appropriate language. The sermons of the Fathers are just as much God's Own Word, the very light of Scripture, as the New Century or the Living Translation Bibles used with children. How can anyone deny that a live translation of Scripture, which we call a sermon or homily, is just as much Scripture as any modern translation is? And if this is true, then when a Catholic or Eastern Orthodox points to a sermon from the Apostolic Fathers, is he not really just pointing to Scripture itself? Do not the Protestants have to accept those same sermons as bearing doctrinal and instructional weight comparable to Scripture?

These are an intensely difficult set of questions for Christians who do not admit the Magisterium. 

And these questions are problems precisely because Bible-only theology must always come down to salvation based on wealth and intelligence. The wealthy have the leisure time and the resources available to hone their literacy skills. Given a common subject (the Bible), the intelligent require less time and resources than the stupid to master the same material.

Protestant theology explicitly says you have to know Christ to be saved AND knowledge of Christ comes through Scripture. Protestant theology therefore implies the wealthy and intelligent are more likely to be saved than the poor and stupid. If you are a Bible-only Christian, there is no way to avoid this conclusion. Liturgical Christians don't have this problem. Knowledge of Christ does come through Scripture, of course, but it also comes through the direct contact with sacramental grace. As an Eastern Orthodox, Coptic or Catholic Christian, I don't need to be literate to be saved, I only need to be breathing and receptive to sacramental grace. The differences are clear. 

The problem, of course, is that half of the country is unable to understand anything I've just written. 

Renewables destroy the environment

Industrial solar and wind farms take up enormous amounts of land, often requiring all wildlife, even all the vegetation, on the site to be killed or removed.

Wind, solar, and hydro energy all have one thing in common: they destroy habitat as well as directly kill wildlife, including listed endangered species and their habitat

Solar panels themselves are made with heavy metals mined by child and slave labor. When hurricanes or tornadoes destroy those panels, the heavy metal from the debris leaches into and contaminates soil and groundwater. Since solar panels cannot be economically recycled, they get buried in landfills at the end of their life, again contaminating soil and groundwater. See this Forbes story, or this FEE story, this Wired story, this Discover Magazine story, or this ScienceDirect story:

Thin-film solar panels (TFSPs) are widely used in integrated photovoltaic and solar power systems...Heavy metals were released from TFSPs in the burial experiment, and the rates of metal release changed with variations in both the amounts of TFSPs in the soil and the soil properties. The increased concentrations of heavy metals such as Zn, Cu, Ni, Ga, Pb, In and Cr in soil samples were correlated to the amounts of TFSPs added. The results of this study confirmed that, when buried, TFSPs polluted the soil.

This article from PV Magazine confirms the problem:

The authors of the paper cited the waste electrical and electronic equipment directive introduced by the European Union as an example other countries should follow to define new policies for the management of PV waste. Otherwise, stated the researchers, the lack of economic value in recycling such products at present is likely to see significant volumes dumped in landfill.

The presence of hazardous heavy metals such as the cadmium, tellurium, indium and gallium used in thin-film products would represent a significant threat to health and the environment if not disposed of correctly...

This Foreign Policy article documents how the solar panel industry uses child labor to provide toys to rich people:

Renewable technologies create ethical issues at both ends of their life cycle. Sovacool was part of a team of researchers who recently visited the two ends of technology supply chains: artisanal cobalt mining sites in Congo, where miners extract the metal using rudimentary tools or their hands, and electronic waste scrapyards in Ghana, a global cemetery for electronics such as solar panels. The team’s findings reveal widespread child labor, the subjugation of ethnic minorities, toxic pollution, biodiversity loss, and gender inequality along the length of the supply chain....By 2050, which is the rough expiration date of solar panels manufactured today, the technology is estimated to produce 78 million metric tons of waste—some 80 percent more than the total annual waste from all combined technologies today.

The New York Times has already documented that Chinese solar panel firms use slave labor extensively in order to feed Western desire for 'clean" energy.

According to a report by the consultancy Horizon Advisory, Xinjiang’s rising solar energy technology sector is connected to a broad program of assigned labor in China, including methods that fit well-documented patterns of forced labor.

And Green Tech Media documents the same problem:

Some of these challenges, such as those around the cobalt used in lithium-ion batteries, are well known. However, while the persistent presence of child labor in Congolese cobalt mines has left companies struggling to address supply-chain traceability, other human rights impacts from renewable energy may be flying under the radar.

Our research shows that labor rights issues are present in renewable energy supply chains, including in the manufacturing of solar panels and the cultivation of palm oil and sugarcane used in biofuels.

Wind turbine blades cannot be recycled. They are cut into pieces and buried in landfills. 

When wind turbine blades are decommissioned they are usually scrapped and thrown into landfill because they cannot be recycled. In the U.S. over the next four years alone that will be the fate of more than 8,000 blades. As wind installations increase so will that number. ...

A recent Bloomberg News article stoked concern by shining a spotlight on Casper, Wyoming, home to a graveyard for nearly 900 wind turbine blades.

Casper’s municipal landfill serves as a final resting place for spent blades, the volume of which has been growing exponentially as wind energy’s robust expansion continues. The article suggested that over the next four years alone, the United States will decommission more than 8,000 blades.

Even NPR admits this is an issue. When you've lost NPR, who is left to support you?

While most of a turbine can be recycled or find a second life on another wind farm, researchers estimate the U.S. will have more than 720,000 tons of blade material to dispose of over the next 20 years, a figure that doesn't include newer, taller higher-capacity versions.

And virtually no one calculates the energy expense in attempting to grind up or bury these blades in landfills. 

So, if you hate, absolutely HATE the environment, use wind/solar.

If you LIKE having children and other slaves work for you, use wind/solar.

Renewables destroy the environment and enslave children.

So, to sum up:
Solar uses child/slave labor to mine the heavy metals used in solar panel construction. Tornadoes and hurricanes shred the panels, resulting in soil and groundwater contamination. Panels cannot be economically recycled, so they end up in landfills where they again contaminate soil and groundwater with heavy metals.

• If you like child labor,
• If you like slave labor,
• If you like poisoning the environment,
• Use solar!

It's the rich man's toy, made by slaves, that poisons the environment! 

Why Electrical Vehicles Cannot Work

From a comment on the web: 

The average power line in a residential neighborhood is capable of transmitting around 500 simultaneous amps before the pole transformers start blowing. That is why you start getting brownouts when everyone uses air conditioning in the summer. As the lines heat up, they get less efficient.

Most American homes have a 100amp service, even though a lot of new construction doubles this. The normal draw of a house is around 20-30 amps, unless you are running a high draw appliance. Then you might hit 40-60. 

We barely have enough generation capacity to run everything now. In states like California, they don't have enough and have to siphon energy from other states. Where is the energy going to come from to charge all the electric cars? Nearly all of them will be plugged in at the same time. 

It doesn't matter how far the technology goes, the power need is there. The faster the charge, the higher the amperage needed. Current fast charging systems use just over 70 amps. Requiring most homes to install a second 100 amp service. But that is only good for one car. To charge two cars and have enough power for your house, you'll need at least a 300 amp service. You start to notice a problem if you and your neighbor both have a 300 amp service and charge two cars at night. That pole transformer down the street will blow in a few seconds.

The function of that transformer is to step down the voltage from a few thousand volts to the 240v your residence runs on. There are larger transformers that handle more amps, but they are in the local substation. To handle a neighborhood of electric cars, you'll need a substation for every block and a pole transformer outside every house. 

It just isn't feasible. The infrastructure needed for 200 million electric cars in the USA will cost trillions. It won't happen. The electric dream of blogs like Electrek and their brainless commenters is really a nightmare for everyone.

A Bit of Texas History

Texas is fickle: it seceded from two different nations in less than 30 years. Each time, Texas killed tens of thousands of men. Below is a study in Texas history. It is not heroic. Quite the opposite. If some nation were to do to us what we did to Mexico in order to gain Texas and California, we would be outraged.

Of the 79,000 American troops who took part in the Mexican-American war, 13,200 died. This creates a mortality rate of nearly 17 percent — higher than both World War I and Word War II. The vast majority were victims of diseases such as dysentery, yellow fever, malaria and smallpox. The war ended in 1848. Texas would secede from the US just sixteen years after becoming a state, and just thirteen years after the Mexican-American war, forcing an even larger casualty list upon the American people.

How did the U.S. gain Texas? Well, Americans came to Texas and Mexico as illegal aliens. Mexico had outlawed slavery and it required immigrants to convert to Catholic Faith. Americans who entered Tejas refused to give up their slaves and mostly refused to convert to Catholicism. Americans in Texas, when told to obey Mexican law, often replied, "We are Americans. We obey the Constitution." Those same illegal aliens, men and women who refused to recognize the laws of the nation whose land they inhabited, fomented insurrection against the Mexican government. 

The US had been trying to buy Mexican land for decades, but Mexico refused to sell. After America's Texans managed to cement their illegal actions via military action, a Democrat president then created a false flag operation on Mexican territory to foment another war in order to justify taking more Mexican territory.

Abraham Lincoln introduced the Spot Resolutions precisely to highlight the illegal actions of the American Democrat president. Lincoln called the war outright theft. US Grant would later say the Mexican-American war was the only war he was ashamed to have participated in.

Amazing how Republicans and conservatives have switched 180 degrees in the course of a century in their attitudes towards this theft of Mexican territory.

Timeline of Mexican Independence

1492-1810: Spain owns Mexico. 

1807-1808: Napoleon invades (1807) and occupies Spain (1808). 

1808-1813: Guerilla war In Spain against Napoleon

1810-1821: Mexican War of Independence started by local Catholic priest who led troops under the banner of Guadalupe.

1819: The Adams-Onis treaty established the boundary of U.S. territory through the Rocky Mountains and west to the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. paid residents' claims against the Spanish government up to a total of $5,000,000 and relinquished the U.S. claims on parts of Spanish Texas west of the Sabine River and other Spanish areas.

Sept 1821: Military coup in Spain, Mexico wins independence

1822: US recognizes Mexican independence

1824: Mexico allows land grants to immigrants who agreed to become Mexican citizens, become Catholic learn Spanish, and obey Mexican law .

1826: John Quincy Adams offers $1 million for Texas. Mexico says NO.

1828: Mexico and US sign Treaty of Limits. The treaty recognized the Mexico–U.S. boundary that had been established by the 1819 Adams–Onís Treaty between Spain and the U.S.

1829: Andrew Jackson offers $5 million. Mexico again says NO.

Mexico Outlaws Slavery

1810: Independence leader Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla proclaimed the abolition of slavery three months after the start of the Independence of Mexico from Spain.

1813: Independence leader José María Morelos y Pavón declares slavery abolished in Mexico in the documents Sentimientos de la Nación

1820: Ferdinand VII banned the importation of slaves. 

1823: Mexico forbade the sale or purchase of slaves and required that the children of slaves be freed when they reached fourteen. All children of slaves were free at birth. Any slave brought to Texas had to be freed within six months.

1824: During the debates over the new Mexican constitution, Stephen Austin wrote to the Mexican representative Erasmo Seguín: “There are two obstacles which slow down [American] emigration to this province and the entire nation . . . One is the doubt that persists if slavery is permitted, the other is religion.” The new Mexican constitution effectively abolishes slavery by leaving the question up to the individual states, where most abolished it.

1826: In what is seen by Stephen Austin and other American settlers as a deathblow to American settlement of Texas, 

the state of Coahuila-Texas began writing its constitution. In June of 1826, Austin received a letter from Baron de Bastrop, the only representative of Texas at the state congress. Bastrop warned that the congress was preparing to insert an antislavery article into the state constitution: “If I cannot succeed in removing it, or at least modifying it,” he wrote, the American settlements “will be completely ruined.”  Soon, Austin would see for himself what the antislavery threat was.  The proposed Article 13 of the new Coahuila-Texas constitution read: “The state prohibits absolutely and for all time slavery in all its territory, and slaves that already reside in the state will be free from the day of the publication of the constitution in this capital.” 

Although it was eventually watered down to give the Texas region a six-month extension, it was obvious that slavery would soon be gone from all regions of Mexico, even Texas.

1828: Americans influence in the Mexican Congress pushed through a loophole to the anti-slavery law that allowed "work contracts" created in other countries to be honored in Texas. Slaves were then made to sign life-time enslavement contracts in the US, and then transported to Texas for work in the  American settlers' Mexican cotton fields. 

1829: The last slaves are freed just as the first president of partial African ancestry (Vicente Guerrero) is elected.  The province of Tejas had an exemption to this anti-slavery ordinance that lasted until 1830, due entirely to the personal intervention of Stephen Austin. Due to this law, American settlers were on the brink of revolt.

1836: Contemporary abolitionists recognized the Texas Revolution for what it was:   

During the Texas Revolution itself, the legitimacy of the rebellion was disparaged by opponents of slavery, who held that the chief purpose of the breakaway was to ensure the future of slavery in Texas (Mexico had outlawed the institution), and by others who judged it a landgrab by armed speculators. 

1837: American slaves are fleeing south to Mexico and freedom.

Illegal Aliens From the United States

1829: The Mexican government asked General Manuel Mier y Teran to investigate the outcome of the 1825 colonization law in Texas. In 1829, Mier y Teran issued his report, which concluded that most Anglo Americans refused to be naturalized and tried to isolate themselves from Mexicans. He also noted that slave reforms passed by the state were being ignored.

1830: Mexico forbids further American immigration into Texas. However, due to exploding cotton prices and cheap Mexican land, the invasion could not be stopped. Between the time that Mexico forbade further American immigration in 1830 and the outbreak of the Texas Revolution in 1835, the American population more than doubled in Texas, from 10,000 to over 21,000. All of the American Protestant slave-owners who arrived were illegals. 

1832: Mexico outlawed the "work contract" loophole that had allowed Americans to bring their slaves in as life-long indentured servants. Texas demands Mexico allow American immigration. Mexico refuses. Battle of Velasco takes place in June. In this year, Sam Houston also arrives in Texas, well after American immigration to Texas had already been outlawed. "One runaway named Tom ... had been enslaved by Sam Houston. Houston was a president of the Republic of Texas who’d fought in the Texas Revolution. Once Tom got across the border, he joined the Mexican military that Houston had fought against." Americans, when questioned about their slaves by Mexican authorities, asserted that they were merely indentured servants, and thus legal under color of Mexican law. 

1833: Texas asks for federalist reforms, which the Mexican government rejects.

1834: The Ursuline Convent riots occurred August 11 and 12, 1834, in Charlestown, Massachusetts, near Boston, in what is now Somerville, Massachusetts. During the riot, a convent of Roman Catholic Ursuline nuns was burned down by a Protestant mob. The US is rife with anti-Catholic sentiment.

1835: Oct 2, Battle of Gonzales begins war for Texas independence. 

Austin’s deep connections to cotton merchants made him the ideal figure for this work, and it would indeed be these cotton merchants who funded the Texas Revolution. They also helped to circulate newspapers throughout the South filled with sensational stories framing the Texan independence struggle as a race war, with White American settlers being pitted against the racially inferior Mexican forces of Santa Anna, who was coming to incite slave revolts and murder the White population. Such newspaper accounts led thousands of White Southern men to rush to the defense of Texas: such men would make up a full 40 percent of the Texan rebel army. These reinforcements were badly needed, for slave revolts had begun breaking out in Texas as the potential promise of freedom approached in the form of Santa Anna’s army, and many of the settlers were more occupied with preventing slave uprisings than preparing for war. In one instance, a hundred slaves suspected of planning rebellion were rounded up, and either whipped nearly to death or hung. 

March, 1836: 59 people meet in Washington-on-the-Brazos and declare Texas independence. Most have been in Mexico for less than a year. Among other things, the document complained that Mexican rule was conducted by a “hostile majority in an unknown tongue”, i.e., Spanish. George C. Childress, the Nashville lawyer who produced the declaration, asserted that Mexicans were “a semi-civilized set, unfit to be free and incapable of self-government.”  The group produced a new constitution.

James W. Fannin authorized the sale of his slaves in order to purchase munitions because, as he noted, “this property, and indeed any other, will not be worth owning, if we do not succeed.” The Alamo and the Battle of San Jacinto soon followed, along with Texas independence.

The Mexican armies that entered the department to put down the rebellion had explicit orders to free any slaves that they encountered, and so they did. The only person spared in the retaking of the Alamo was Joe, the personal slave of William Travis.  

Slavery was immediately re-established. The Texas Constitution made it illegal for free blacks to reside in the state or for the Texas Congress to outlaw the importation of slaves. 

As more slaves came into the Republic of Texas, more escaped to Mexico. Matamoros in the 1840s had a large and flourishing colony of ex-slaves from Texas and the United States. Though exact numbers do not exist, as many slaves may have escaped to Mexico as escaped through the more famous underground railway to Canada. The Mexican government, for its part, encouraged the slave runaways, often with offers of land as well as freedom.

1836:  Maria Monk's Awful Disclosures of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery in Montreal was published and celebrated, giving further fuel to the anti-Catholic sentiment in the US. In April, Texas wins its independence at the battle of San Jacinto. 

The "Treaty" of Velasco (May 14, 1836)

The signatories were Interim President David G. Burnet for Texas and Santa Anna for Mexico. Santa Ana signed both a public document and a secret document. Unfortunately, Santa Ana had no authority under the Mexican Constitution to make a treaty. 

Neither document was ratified by the Mexican government because Santa Ana had signed the documents under coercion, as a prisoner. Mexico claimed Texas was a breakaway province, but it was too weak to attempt more military action to secure the breakaway province.

As Abraham Lincoln pointed out at the time, the documents were never called "treaties" until US President James K. Polk called them that in 1848, three years after Polk secretly tried to buy Texas from Mexico (1845).

The US Attempts to Buy "US Territory"

1838: The U.S. and Texas signed an 1838 treaty confirming the northern boundary from the Treaty of Limits. But was the Texas southern boundary the Rio Grande or the Neuces Rivers? The Mexicans claimed the “Rio Grande del Norte” in the documents Santa Ana signed was the Neuces River, the Texans claimed it was what they called the Rio Grande but what the Mexicans called the Rio Bravo.

1840: Mexico had other problems. Both the Republic of Rio Grande and Yucatan proclaim secession. Yucatan mostly reunites by 1848, but fighting in the Yucatan continues through the early 1900s.

Feb 28, 1845: Congress votes Texas admission as slave state, but doesn’t mention the southern border dispute in the Congressional debate.

Nov 10, 1845: Polk secretly sends Slidell to offer a settlement of all U.S. claims against Mexico, in exchange for recognition of the Rio Grande as the boundary between the two nations. In addition, Polk instructed Slidell to try and buy California for $25 million. Mexico immediately rejected the offer. Why is Polk trying to buy territory from Mexico if Mexico no longer owns it?

Dec 29, 1845: Texas accepts statehood. Mexico refuses to recognize either Texas independence or its annexation.

Polk's War And More $$$

January 1846: Polk sends troops to disputed southern boundary territory. U.S. forces led by Gen. Zachary Taylor advanced to the Rio Bravo. This was an open transgression on the territorial integrity of Mexico; Mexico considered the Nueces River the southern border of Texas. In response, Mexico sends troops to the Rio Grande.

April 1846: Mexican troops cross Rio Grande, kill 11 US troops at the Battle of Palo Alto, and capture the rest. 

May 11 1846: President Polk (D) now begins to insist Mexico “invaded our territory and shed American blood upon American soil.” That is, Mexico shed blood on soil that the US tried, and failed, to buy from Mexico just six months previously. 

May 13, 1846: Mexican-American War begins.

May 18, 1846: Troops enter Matamoros in Mexico proper, blockade ports of Veracruz and Tampico. "Ulysses S. Grant, then a young lieutenant, would later describe in his memoirs that among those gathered along the Rio Grande in the spring of 1846, “the officers of the army were indifferent whether the annexation was consummated or not; but not so all of them. For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger nation against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territories.”"

May 25, 1846: John Quincy Adams’ speech in the House said it was waged primarily to expand slavery. John Quincy Adams will join Lincoln and fourteen other Whigs in voting against the American invasion of Mexico. In fact, Adams will suffer a stroke and die in the well of the House while giving a speech against the war.

June 14, 1846: Fremont assists in Bear Flag Revolt. 

June 15, 1846: Polk signs Oregon Treaty, settling dispute with Britain

July 1846: the Mexican congress adopts a resolution for the national defense. By then U.S. occupation of New Mexico had begun and U.S. naval forces had taken strategic positions in California. 

8 August 1846: President Polk asks for an appropriation of $2 million to buy the territory in dispute, as well as California and New Mexico. When Mexico hears about Polk’s bill, the newspaper El Republicano comments that the statements made by the U.S. government were proof that the real goal was to take more territory from Mexico. A war initiated with that intent was unjust and barbarous; its promoters should be considered enemies of humanity. 

The Mexicans saw this war as a fight for their territorial integrity and their national security against the unjust territorial expansion of the United States. Mexican resistance was also a defense of Catholic and Latin culture against Anglo-Saxon Protestant war-mongers. Finally, from a legal point of view, Mexicans saw Mexico as having defended the principles of international law against a U.S. invasion, a war of conquest.

Many Americans agreed with them.

Opposition to the Mexican-American War

July 23, 1846: Henry David Thoreau is jailed for refusal to pay taxes to support the war, he will write “Civil Disobedience” to explain his opposition to the American-initiated violence.

21 Sept 1846: First battle involving the St. Patrick's Brigade, a group of Irish-American soldiers who defected to the Mexican army, along with their artillery, because they didn't want to kill Catholics. They preferred to fight alongside their brother Catholics, defending Catholic territory against the violence and rapacious theft of America's Protestants.

April 1847: the Massachusetts legislature passed a resolution denouncing the war as “a gigantic crime” waged against a “weak neighbor” for the purposes of conquest, territorial aggrandizement, and the extension of slavery.

Abraham Lincoln's Eight "Spot" Resolutions (Dec 22, 1847)

One: "whether the spot on which the blood of our citizens was shed, as in his messages declared, was or was not within the territory of Spain, at least after the treaty of 1819, until the Mexican revolution." 

Two: "whether that spot is or is not within the territory which was wrested from Spain by the revolutionary Government of Mexico." 

The other six resolutions extended the analysis to determine whether the territory on which the casualties occurred was ever under the government or laws of Texas or of the United States (it wasn’t).

January 3, 1848: The House voted 85 to 81 to censure Polk for having “unnecessarily and unconstitutionally” initiated war with Mexico.

February 21, 1848:  In the act of protesting the U.S.-Mexican War, John Quincy suffered a second stroke, fell to the floor of the House and died two days later in the Capitol building.

Even while prosecuting the war, General Winfield Scott was obviously not happy with it. "Taylor showed no enthusiasm for a major invasion of Mexico, and on several occasions he failed to pursue the Mexicans vigorously after defeating them." 

Taking Mexico's Gold

Jan 24, 1848: James W. Marshall found gold at Sutter’s Mill, California. At this point, since no peace treaty had yet been signed, California is still technically Mexican territory.  

Feb 2, 1848: The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo is signed and ratified by both the Mexican and US governments, thus placing 55% of Mexican territory, including California and Sutter's Mill, in the hands of the United States.

April 1848: Polk petitions Congress to admit the Yucatan as a state, but Congress declines when news reaches the Congress that the Yucatan had formally rejoined Mexico.

The Failure of Renewables

 "An official with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas said Tuesday afternoon that 16 gigawatts of renewable energy generation, mostly wind generation, were offline. Nearly double that, 30 gigawatts, had been lost from thermal sources, which includes gas, coal and nuclear energy."  Texas Tribune, 2/16/2021

So, 1/3rd of the energy loss was from renewables, 2/3rds from standard sources.

Standard sources failed due to lack of weatherizing pumps, i.e., a maintenance issue.  That failure is fixable.

Renewables failed because of the nature of renewables - the wind didn't blow.
That failure is not fixable. 

Green energy cannot do what liberals say it can do.
Either:

1. we get more nuclear and get better maintenance on power transmission equipment or 
2. we get used to freezing to death. 

There is no third option. 

On the Crazy Gamestop Stock Price

 For those of you who haven't heard, Gamestop is a dying mall retail chain store that re-sells used CDs, games and game equipment. If you don't mind buying second-hand, you can go there to get your electronics fix. Gamestop has no web presence to speak of, and no real future. It is the 2020's version of Blockbuster Video.

A retail store like that should be seeing constantly falling stock prices. Instead, the stock is booming. Why? Well, apparently the nation's millennials have declared war on the corporate world. So far, it looks like the millennials are winning:

did some redditt research:

mellenials are pissed.  they cant buy a house, because the boomers drove the prices up and wages didnt follow.  they wont ever retire,  ss and medicare are bankrupt.  saving 10-20K is nothing--its a paltry sum in these days--not enuf for down payment on a condo.  so.....they will buy they whole float (69 mil) of any stock with more shorts than longs (or a very high short %) and force the shorts to buy from them at their price (with their paltry $1-20K collective savings--chump change in this world until collectively used---genius, actually.).  In march...when the market crashed....the redditt crowd mocked the boomers for having the fed save their asses. "boomers cant handle a bear market' --stocks never go down?  "we'll teach you stocks never go down". the stock the millenials target will never go down (gamestop) until they get hedge funds to pay their price  to unwind their shorts. its a war---millenials versus the establishment/boomers.  $1000/share price target for starters.  The millenials feel (correctly) they have nothing to lose, because the boomers have fooked valuations and rigged this market for decades at the millenials expense. Next stock on the queue for short crushing--->BB???

correct me where im wrong---this is the way i understand it.   you need 5-10x cash reserves to short this potato and wait it out until capitulation.

If you like rooting for the underdog, this makes for a very entertaining show. Joe Biden, in office all of seven days, has just thrown down on the side of the big corporations, and expressly screwed the college graduate population. This is unlikely to go well for China Joe and his corporate puppet masters. 

A friend of mine asked me what the deal was with GME, ELI5 style. I told him:

A big investor bet that a stock would go down, and they orchestrated giant sales in order to make it so.

It was so profitable that they sold more stock than was even available, which is super-greedy, but not unusual. But we found out.

When you sell a stock expecting it to go down, you are required to buy it back at some point. But because we found out, we bought all the stock there was to buy.

And now, they’re super pissed because we’re playing keep-away with the stock they HAVE to buy- and we’re using Reddit to warn each other about the shady bulk sales and scare tactics they’d normally use to get us to sell.

So as long as we stick together, they’re going to keep losing money, and the price they have to pay keeps going up.

There is no limit to how much money they can lose if we all agree not to sell. So now they’re going on TV and using words like “collusion”, and “fraud” to justify some legal intervention because we’re doing to them what they normally do to us.

TL;DR: We’re playing keep-away against the billionaires, and Reddit is allowing us to win.

Read the comments on the Zerohedge story. Gamestop is just the beginning. Corporate traders, if you have short positions in any company, you are about to get your face torn off. 

UPDATE:
The corporate suits and brokerages have done a very, very stupid thing. The halted trading on GME and have begun to sell their users' positions without getting the users' permissions first. Now, sure, this is criminal theft, but that isn't the stupidest part of this scenario. 

There are something like 4 million people in on this GME trade right now. They just seriously pissed off EVERYONE in that group of 4 million. What are the chances that at least one of those 4 million people is described by this Leverage quote from the San Lorenzo Job:

Nathan Ford: You know what I have? I have twenty-four year old genius with a smart phone and a problem with authority. You never really stood a chance.

This is going to get very ugly for the corporate suits. If they are lucky, they get jail time. If not, they get the mob. 

How Infallibility Works

Some people think papal infallibility is crazy talk, but it isn't magic nor is it nuts. It is actually very simple. And it isn't the encyclical or the bull that is, or is not, considered infallible. It is the teaching within the document, whatever that document might be.

Look, the Pope is the Pope whether he arrives at a location in the Popemobile or in a VW bug. Doesn't matter. The vehicle isn't the important thing, it's the person in the vehicle.

Same with teachings. While certain types of documents are associated with a certain level of authority (e.g., apostolic constitutions are considered the document with the highest level of authority within the Ordinary Infallible Magisterium), it is the content of the document that is considered infallible, not necessarily the document itself.

So, changes to the liturgy (e.g., raising a person to the altar of sainthood) are infallible teachings. But an infallibly true statement can be made in ANY kind of document. Heck, I can make an infallibly true statement in this post... watch me, "God is one God in three distinct Persons." There.

By echoing the constant teaching of the Church, I just made an infallibly true statement. That is all the Pope does when he speaks infallibly. He simply teaches what the Church has always taught.  That is literally all there is to papal infallibility. Nothing more. 

That's all the Pope does when he promulgates in infallible teaching - he just states the constant teaching of the Church. Now, in some cases, this teaching is not - for whatever reason - very well known. Worse, not only is it the case that not everyone is fully aware that something is a constant teaching of the Church, but in a few cases, some Catholics are actually actively opposed to a constant teaching of the Church. In those cases, the Pope has to promulgate the teaching with a very high level of authority. That's an exercise of the Extraordinary Infallible Magisterium.

But sometimes, there isn't active opposition, there is just confusion or lack of clarity, or certainty, etc. The lack of certainty by a large swath of Catholics doesn't merit a high level of forcefulness, so the Pope just puts the constant teaching out in a vehicle that is associated with a lower level of assertiveness. This is the Ordinary Infallible Magisterium.

The lower level of assertiveness does not mean the teaching is "less" true, it just means the Pope feels we only need a gentle reminder. For these teaching, we don't need a slap across the face to get our attention. Various documents within the Ordinary Magisterium may be vehicles for various teachings of the Church - while some teachings certainly derive from others, all of these constant teachings are equally true, all are infallibly correct, all are co-equal in these respects. The document the teaching is promulgated in shows us how the Pope assesses our grasp of the Faith. The more assertive the document, the more obvious it is that the Pope wants us to pay close attention to this teaching. The more assertive the document, the more important it is to our life of faith. Thus, since liturgy and sacraments are central to the life of faith, those are always put out with a very high level of Ordinary Magisterial authority - apostolic constitutions. Other teachings are equally true, but perhaps not as central to every-day life, so a lesser vehicle is used. 

That is the role of the various kinds of documents, why we have several kinds. Hopefully, this clarifies the understanding of infallible teachings and the various documents that transport them safely to our doorsteps.

Will the Pro-Life March Get Burned?

If Antifa and BLM infiltrated Trump's march, you can bet they'll try their hand at the DC pro-life march. That march has been a stick in the liberal craw for fifty years.

It will be interesting to see if they can turn the pro-lifers into violent terrorists via a false flag operation. I give 'em better than even money that they manage it.

The job is easy. The Antifa/BLM groups dress as pro-lifers, act as pro-lifers during the march, then one group breaks down a barricade or opens a closed/locked set of doors while others use their bodies and signs to shield the crowd from seeing what is going on.

Once the doors are open or barricades are down, the A/BLM group then acts as traffic cops, directing unsuspecting crowd members into the forbidden area.

If they do the job right, the crowd never fully realizes that they've just been turned into a set of "rioting terrorists". That's how the complicit MSM will paint them as soon as they cross into the forbidden area, no matter how pacific or well-mannered they may be.

If the A/BLM group is REALLY good, once the crowd starts surging into the forbidden area, the A/BLM agitators will then start enough of a fight with police to incentivize the cops to tear gas the crowd. As the crowd is trying to figure out what the hell is happening, the tear gas canisters escalate and the A/BLM members fade away.

Since Trump/Pence have so closely identified with the pro-life movement, they have really set up this year's marchers for the slam-dunk into being labelled "violent terrorists."

Even if the previous fifty years have been peaceful, the MSM will claim that the crowd is primarily crazy Trumpkins, and that explains the 2021 violence.

All those "pro-life" things Trump did?
The promise to jail women who have abortions?
The promise to murder born children?
The continuation of Obama's policy of separating parents from children?
The gift of a half-billion taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood? 
The way he linked pro-lifers to the KKK?
The way he linked pro-lifers to the commission of international war crimes?

Remember all those pro-life things he did? 

We'll get burned.

Donald Trump is the worst "pro-life" president we've ever had, but he isn't done screwing us over yet.

21st Century "Running Man"

 Does anyone remember The Running Man? From Wikipedia: 

The Running Man is a 1987 American dystopian action film directed by Paul Michael Glaser and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, María Conchita Alonso, Richard Dawson, Yaphet Kotto, and Jesse Ventura. It is very loosely based on the 1982 novel of the same title written by Stephen King and published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. The film's story, set in a dystopian United States between 2017 and 2019, is about a television show called The Running Man, where convicted criminal "runners" must escape death at the hands of professional killers. The Running Man was a moderate box office success in the United States, grossing $38 million on its $27 million budget, but opened to mixed reviews from critics.

Has anyone considered that this film is a nearly perfect, wonderfully prescient, description of this year's events? 

Think about it. Over the last year, The Running Man has essentially been the plot-line of the year. It has been our newest Reality TV show, "Politics in the USA." I'm interested in seeing the next episode.

So far, all the episodes this past year have just been endlessly entertaining. There's nothing like watching multiple, live-action, real-life episodes in this snuff film series, followed by posturing on both sides, to make me realize what a skilled set of rulers we have in our oligarchs. We may just be peasants, but it's wonderful the way both sides are willing to set us up for violence and death, so long as they maintain hold on their wealth and power.

They have provided us with one hell of a Hollywood-curated show. I'm just amazed so many people are willing to volunteer to be contestants. 

Stupidity or Efficiency?

Everyone is claiming the Republicans are stupid for not contesting this fraud, and Trump  - the 3-D chess player - somehow marvelously missed the possibility of fraud that was telegraphed for almost a year prior to the election.

But look at it from the oligarch's point of view, of which Trump is one of the founding members.

What makes you think it was stupidity?

Certainly the Democrats have lost confidence in the people, and have therefore dissolved the people and elected a new set of "people", i.e. Dominion machines. 

Certainly, our jobs as voters are now gone, lost to automation.

But, from the oligarchs point of view, what is stupid about moving voting over to machines and away from the fickle masses? 

Certainly both sides of the oligarchy understand the marvelous efficiency this gives them in getting the election results they want. They don't have to spend nearly as much money, they can spend a lot more time in their basements, and they still win, as long as they have the best hackers. 

This is a much smaller, more efficient business model for both sides. This is the glory of capitalism at its highest. What's not to like? What is stupid about being more efficient in running your business?

Our job, as voters, is simply to make sure we are registered. Whether or not we vote, who we vote for, none of that matters anymore. Both sides just need us registered to vote, and that's enough. They take care of the rest, their hackers make sure we have voted correctly. We don't have to bother our little heads about our individual votes - that will be determined by people who know better than us. We don't even have to be alive. All that matters is that we register, and they take care of the rest for us. 

This is easier for them, and easier for us. Who doesn't admire the efficiency of this new setup? Are you all opposed to free market capitalism? Heck, when it comes to elections, now ANYONE can play, as the Chinese have already demonstrated. It's much more egalitarian, much more inclusive, much more streamlined, than the old system. 

Who would stand against progress? 

Seen on the Internet

"So now that Trump is not president is he going to prosecute the Clinton's.  Now he is going to start doing things?

Trump played his supporters from day 1.  He hired swamp and tribe creatures, he increased the wars, the illegals have increased,

He derailed the movement to take back America, that was the job he was tasked with.

He never used the FBI, CIA, NSA, Homeland Security to investigate and prosecute Antifa/BLM or even the election fraud.  He just made a show and made noise.

He made big talk to encourage the rally in DC, hinted at something BIG he would do, implied a bold move would occur -- all to lure them in for their destruction.

He stirred them up to action, and then made them into the bad guys to be shunned.  His Vice Pres. called them criminals to be prosecuted, the repubs rejected them, they were shot dead, Trump told them to obey orders, Trump called in the military to prepare to shoot more of them if they approached the White House and Trump called in the FBI to shoot them if they did not leave congress building (funny how Trump can use the FBI quickly when he wants to)

And then Trump CONCEDES at the perfect time for the full effect. 

Thus destroying their momentum and belief in their movement.  They now go home with their tails between their legs, their strong talk silenced with the deaths of their members, spat upon by those they thought were their heros, their idolized hero surrenders, their military called in to shoot them if they continue --- 

Trump played them perfectly, from the beginning to the very end.  Now they are lost."

Addendum:

"ask yourself why would Trump supporters interrupt the planned objections to the electoral count? They wouldn't. This was a false flag designed to get Republicans to drop the objections and make Trump supporters look bad and it worked. "

Why January 1 is the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

We celebrate January 1, the start of a new year, as the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. But why is January 1 the start of a New Year, and why would we choose that day to celebrate Mary's maternity? After all, didn't her maternity begin with the conception of Christ, so shouldn't her maternity be celebrated on March 25th, the Solemnity of the Annunciation? Or, if not then, than why not celebrate Mary's maternity at Christmas, December 25th, with the birth of Christ? Of all the days in the year, why choose January 1? And why do Christians consider January 1 the start of a New Year?

Therein lies a tale...

The earliest recording of a new year celebration is believed to have been in Mesopotamia, circa 2000 B.C. That celebration – and many other ancient celebrations of the new year following it – were celebrated around the time of the vernal equinox, around March 20. Meanwhile, the ancient Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Persians began their new year with the autumnal equinox around September 20. And the ancient Greeks celebrated on the winter solstice, around December 20....

...According to tradition, during [the reign of the Roman king Numa Pompilius]  (c. 715–673 BC), Numa revised the Roman republican calendar so that January replaced March as the first month. It was a fitting choice, since January was named after Janus, the Roman god of all beginnings; March celebrated Mars, the god of war. (Some sources claim that Numa also created the month of January.) However, there is evidence that January 1 was not made the official start of the Roman year until 153 BC....

...However, following the fall of Rome in the 5th century AD, many Christian countries altered the calendar so that it was more reflective of their religion, and March 25 (the Feast of the Annunciation) and December 25 (Christmas) became common New Year’s Days. ...  Pope Gregory XIII introduced a revised calendar in 1582. In addition to solving the issue with leap years, the Gregorian calendar restored January 1 as the start of the New Year. 

Why did the Pope choose January 1 as the start of the new year instead of retaining March 25th or December 25th as its start? Well, follow the chain of reasoning.

The ancients believed that great men left the world on the anniversary of the day they entered the world, so as to complete the circle of divine providence. So, if a great man died on March 25th, it must be due to the fact that he was conceived on some earlier March 25th. Since Christians agreed that the day of the Crucifixion was March 25th in the Julian calendar, then Jesus must have been conceived on March 25th. And, of course, if Jesus was conceived on March 25th, then He must have been born exactly nine months later, on December 25th.

But, because Jesus was born a Jew, this likewise means He was circumcised and given the name Jesus exactly eight days later, on January 1, in fulfilment of Old Testament Law.* So, it was common-place among Christians to recognize that Christ's first shedding of blood happened on January 1. But, in the most ancient times, the City of Rome also celebrated January 1 as the Feast of Mary, Mother of God [Lumen Gentium, 66]. This practice spread from Rome to other Christian locales, so that by the 7th century, the January 1st date was widely observed as a celebration of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Why that date?

In Hebrew tradition, the giving of a name is very strongly connected to the person's soul, "It is said that parents receive a glimmer of divine inspiration when they give their child a Jewish name." As Chabad.org notes, "Since Jewish identity is established maternally, it’s the mother that connects the soul to G‑d." And notice the prayer associated with the naming of the male child at his circumcision:

Opposite the standing sandek, stands the one who will be honored with naming the child (some specifically honor the mohel, the ritual circumciser, with this blessing). A goblet of wine is poured, and the person who will name the baby recites the blessing on the wine, followed by the blessing of the naming of the child:

Blessed are You, L‑rd our G‑d, King of the universe, who sanctified the beloved one from the womb, set His statute in his flesh, and sealed his descendants with the sign of the holy Covenant. Therefore, as a reward of this [circumcision], the living G‑d, our Portion, our Rock, has ordained that the beloved of our flesh be saved from the abyss, for the sake of the Covenant which He has set in our flesh. Blessed are You L‑rd, who makes the Covenant.

He then names the child...

The prayers at circumcision echo the idea of the Incarnation, where God, sanctified in the womb, takes on flesh and seals His law, His covenant in His human body. Similarly, the ancient Christians recognized that the smallest drop of Christ's blood is sufficient to save the whole world. Since the first drop of His blood is shed not at the Passion or Crucifixion, but at the Circumcision and Naming of Jesus, the circumcision is the beginning of mankind's redemption.**

Thus, we can say that Mary, Mother of God, Mother of the Person of Jesus, became fully a mother, that is, she became Mother of the Body of Christ, the Church, not at the conception or even the birth of Christ, but at the Circumcision, when the first drop of His blood was deliberately shed. It is the blood of Christ which empowers all the sacraments, so it is this first drop of blood which makes Mary the Mother of the Church. For this reason, the City of Rome and the wider ancient Christian world celebrated January 1 as the feast of Mary's maternity.

Now, this connection between Mary's maternity and the circumcision was so strong, and the first shedding of Christ's blood so important, that by the 13th century, the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ had begun to replace the feast honoring Mary's maternity. Having the Feast of the Circumcision on January 1 meant the celebration of Mary's maternity was migrated to the first Sunday of May and, by 1914, it was moved to October 11. Meanwhile, from 1568 to 1960, January 1 was celebrated in the Roman Breviary as the Feast of the Circumcision.

However, this movement of the celebration of Mary's motherhood to a day other than the Circumcision shattered the unity of the ancient understanding. In 1974, with the revision of the liturgical calendar after Vatican II, the Feast of the Circumcision was subsumed and rejoined, to again follow the ancient practice of dedicating January 1 to the Mother of God. But, this time, it would be celebrated as a universal feast, and the circumcision would clearly be the force that gifted Mary with her maternity. 

By making January 1 the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, the day truly becomes a joint feast, in which Jesus, through the deliberate shedding of His blood, bestows on Mary her full, complete, divine motherhood. To this day, the Gospel reading at the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, is Luke's description of the circumcision and naming of the child Jesus (Luke 2:16-21).

With the shedding of His blood, a new age began. Circumcision is the sign of covenant with God. At Jesus' circumcision, God enters into covenant with Himself to save all mankind. A new age, a new promise, a new covenant, born of a woman, born under the old law, but completing that same old law with this new covenant, establishing in His own flesh and blood, and celebrating the fact that this flesh and blood was a gift from His mother, within whom He incarnated, creating and connecting His human soul to His own Godhead. Christians are grafted onto the root of salvation, which is the Jews, so the ancient Jewish understanding echoes: "it's the mother that connects the soul to God." They were nearly right. It is God, incarnate in the child Jesus, Who connects Mary to her full motherhood via the shedding of His blood. 

This is why January 1 is the beginning of a New Year, celebrated as the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. Christ's first gift to humanity, Mary, our Mother, is given in the gift of a new age and a new year. 

Notes

*Note: Similarly, Mary's period of purification following the birth of Jesus was forty days, which would end on February 2, the traditional end of the Christmas season.

** Note: for those who argue that the birth and the shedding of placental blood was the first shedding of blood, keep in mind that the ancient Christians held that the birth of Christ was painless and without bloodshed. In ancient tradition, Jesus passed from Mary's womb out into the world just as a ray of light passes out through a prism. Mary experienced the pain of birth not on Christmas, but rather during the Passion of Christ, when, as Pope Benedict XV said, she nearly died from the suffering of watching her Son beaten and crucified.