Bill's Notes

The Anchoress here.

Of the countless stirring moments we have seen or heard about over the six days of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the United States, one image has struck me as the most moving and deeply meaningful of the whole sojourn: the moment when the 81-year-old bishop of Rome exited his shiny, protective popemobile to walk down the last part of the ramp leading to the small gathering at Ground Zero.

Many times this past week Benedict revealed himself to have an exquisite sense of proportion, of knowing what is appropriate to the moment — and never more so than at the footprint of the North Tower. At his age, in the chill morning, the pope might have been excused for slowly motoring down to the assembly, but he instead shed a worldly trapping of convenience and made his solemn way.

Read the whole thing.

Oops, an ice age is on its way. According to this guy.

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Now that we're doom-mongering, let's go for it:

The earth is warming until mankind gives up fire.

We're also overdue for a new ice age which will make most of the world's land masses inhabitable.

The earth's magnetic field has been weakening for 2,000 years and we're overdue for one of earth's periodic axis shifts, which will obviously destroy most life on the planet.

We're gonna get hit by an asteroid, which will obviously destroy most life on the planet.

The star Betelgeuse may have already gone supernova, and will hit us with three days of continual X-rays some time in the next 500 years, severely degrading most life.

A big volcano will blow up and darken the world for years, killing most life.

Earthquakes, tsunamis, flood, famine, mass death.

Pestilence, manmade or otherwise, accidental or on purpose, terrorist or state-sponsored warfare.

Antibiotics are only one step ahead of stronger, more powerful bacteria that will wipe out a large percentage of mankind.

We're running out of fuel.

We're overpopulating the earth.

We're running out of fresh water.

Ruinous wars over declining resources are inevitable.

Technology is getting close to the point where a small cadre of humans with a grudge can create mass murder on a scale imaginable only by nation-states a few decades ago. Stealing a nuke and using it to blow up a nuclear power plant could render thousands of square miles inhabitable for decades or centuries.

Even if a small group of people don't do it, rogue nation-states may still blow up a good part of the world and cause nuclear winter.

Even if we don't blow ourselves up on purpose, we may still do on accident.

The 12th Imam may come back. The anti-Christ and the beast may show up. The Jewish messiah may finally show up. Siva, the god of death, may return.

Even if none of this happens, we may still build a technological dystopia based on entertainment, distraction and consumerism that numbs what remains of our souls so that we'd wish all the above had happened a long time ago.

And worst of all, if and when any of this happens, someone's last words will be, "I told you so."

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Bottom line: You want negative. That's negative.

You won by 10%, and picked up an extra six delegates or so. Gotta love the Democratic Party primary system.

UPDATE: With all the returns in, Hillary picked up 14 delegates. All that effort and money ... a 10-point margin of victory ... for 14 delegates.