California discriminates against plastic. Michael Jackson rolls over in grave, all of Hollywood, Burbank and Rodeo Drive.

Californians now face a new grocery-store reality: No more plastic bags.

Voters approved Proposition 67, the statewide ban on carry-out plastic bags, 52 percent to 48 percent.

“It’s a victory that California voters have said ‘no’ to big plastic,” said Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste. “The defense of this law by grass-roots environmental organizations and community groups is a real testament to this new era of monied special interests not having their way.” MORE

I can’t wait for California to be it’s own country. Please just leave already.

Realizing they’re powerless against America’s love affair with red meat, scientists have moved on to a battle they think is more winnable: stopping cows from carrying out the biologically necessary process of flatulence. People, no surprise, love their rib eyes and ground chuck — even multiple ties to cancer so far seem an ineffective deterrent — and despite meat consumption in the U.S. actually declining moderately for most of the last decade, a new study by the Dutch bank Rabobank has found it’s spiking again, causing a sudden binge unlike anything the country’s seen in 40 years. MORE

“Sure California,” a professional-secession group, filed paperwork with the state lawyer basic in November for a proposed 2018 poll measure to strike language within the state structure binding California to the USA.

This month, the group introduced the opening of a “cultural middle” in Moscow — “the primary of many deliberate California tradition facilities which can serve to construct a bridge between the nation of California and the nations of the world,” learn a press release on Sure California’s web site. MORE

Cardinal Timothy Dolan and the Rev. Franklin Graham will take part in President-elect Donald Trump‘s inauguration ceremony next month, Trump’s inaugural committee announced Wednesday.

Dolan, the archbishop of New York, was critical of Trump’s stance on immigration during the campaign, writing an op-ed in The Washington Post addressing why Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric was “so problematic.” MORE

Corrected left out chestnuts, ha.

Strange title, you may think, but Jews who follow their Hebrew faith were not allowed to write songs about other religions. Being the clever people that they are, they figured they would get around the rule by writing about the season. Well here they are, Winter Wonderland, Let it Snow, Most wonderful time of the year, Silverbells, No place like home, Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.  Blitzen was Jewish?

I’ll be home for Christmas and Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. I don’t know about the others but Irving Berlin’s wife was Catholic. This only proves, that in America, where there is a Will there’s a Way. “Laughing all the way,” to the Bank.

Joseph B. D. Saraceno

Malcolm Jack sings the praises of the Jewish composers whose classic songs are at the heart of our sentimental season

Irma Raymond
December 26 at 1:10am

Grace to the Rescue…

Grace restores,
the broken pieces
fills in the cracks
smooths the creases.

Grace heals,
the heart that aches
mends the wounds
patches the scrapes. Continue reading →

Concern about the effects of fake news racheted up a notch Sunday with a tweet from Pakistan’s defense minister threatening nuclear war with Israel on the mistaken belief Israel’s defense minister had threatened Pakistan if it sent troops to Syria.

Fake news has been credited with contributing to the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. MORE

WOW Worst drought in a hundred years. Vietnam could be ‘sowing the seeds of the next crisis.

Vietnam is expected to show annualized growth of 6.3% in the fourth quarter when it releases the data sometime next week.

That would be the first slowdown in annual growth since 2012 and below the 7% growth that was expected by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. MORE

Kim Jong Un is the Grinch who stole Christmas.

North Korea’s tubby tyrant wants the few Christians in the hermit state to spread cheer only to celebrate his grandma, Kim Jong-suk — not the birth of Jesus.

Jong-suk — who was born on Christmas Eve in 1919 — was an anti-Japanese guerrilla and Communist activist, wife of North Korea’s first dictator, Kim Il Sung, and former leader Kim Jong Il’s mother. MORE

MOSCOW — The flight data recorder of the Russian military passenger plane that crashed into the Black Sea near the resort town of Sochi, killing all 92 passengers and crew members on board, has been recovered, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday. MORE

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, with roughly 40,000 new cases diagnosed in the UK every year, according to the National Health Service. Current treatments, such as radiotherapy and surgery, regularly cause lifelong incontinence. In addition, 90 percent of men who undergo such treatments struggle with erectile problems. MORE

Vol 9 Issue 52a ~ Editor: Rev. Fr. Courtney Edward Krier
December 24, 2016 ~ Christmas Eve

1. Baptism: Means of Salvation (98)
2. Christmas
3. Saint Anastasia
4. Family and Marriage
5. Articles and notices

Dear Reader:With this issue we want to extend to all our readers a most blessed filled Christmas. Continue reading →

Adoration of Isa ( A Fast way to Heaven, ha.)

Billions of Christians around the world are excited to celebrate Christmas this weekend. Those in the world’s second-largest religious community, Muslims, don’t share quite the same excitement. In a few Muslim-majority countries, like Saudi Arabia, Brunei and Somalia, Christmas celebrations are banned. In Turkey, my country, they are not illegal, but some Islamist groups still organize annual protests against Christmas trees and Santa Claus costumes, which they consider Western impositions. MORE

In his annual Christmas address to the Vatican bureaucracy, Pope Francis on Thursday (Dec. 22) warned that those engaged in “malicious resistance” to the reform of the Roman Curia are inspired by the devil.

It marked the third consecutive year that the pope has slammed the highest levels of the Catholic Church’s administration in his annual holiday greeting at the Vatican. MORE