I love old postcards.. this one is of Ashland, PA.. If you’d see it now, you would never realize this 1907 card could have been the same town.. 

So often we think ‘progress’ is achieved.. but think back> AT that time we have railways to connect towns and cities.. we had downtowns where people would congregate for shopping and eating.. we had theaters.. so many towns had most of its people working in coal mining or manufacturing. 

Sure the past was rough and tough.. but in 1907 when this was sketched, the town was also younger and more vibrant. Filled with business and life. 

Now it has boarded up store fronts and dilapidated buildings. Chances are your town is the same, too.

I guess that’s progress..

Faux surprise face is the new duckface

A growing trend on Instagram seems to be people making a faux surprise face.

Goodbye duckface. It’s been real.

Faux surprise face is the new duckface

A-Treat Bottling Company closing after 97 years

A-Treat is closing its doors after 97 years of manufacturing and distributing soda to the Lehigh Valley and beyond.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

The best soda on earth..

Not good.

I seriously cannot explain just how bad of news this is. I know everything changes, everything evolves, and old things die, but this was probably my favorite brand name in Pennsylvania.. 

A-Treat Bottling Company closing after 97 years

Pope Francis: put your iPhone down and start talking - Telegraph

Pope Francis says families should put aside their iPhones and Twitter feeds and talk to each other

I’m completely okay with that..

Pope Francis: put your iPhone down and start talking - Telegraph

Pope sees 'shadows and dangers' amid Vatican attack fears

Pope Francis on Thursday told Italian police officers in charge of security around the Vatican that he saw “shadows and dangers”, but urged them not to give in to fear.

"On the horizon we see shadows and dangers which worry humanity," he said in the wake of an increase in security around the Vatican amid fears Islamic State extremists may be plotting to attack the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

Security was tightened in Saint Peter’s Square in September after intelligence services intercepted a possible plan to attack the Vatican. Iraq’s ambassador to the Holy See, Habib Al Sadr, at the time warned that “what has been declared by the self-declared Islamic State is clear.

Yesterday on NIGHT TERROR NEWS, I wrote a bit about the troubling ‘prophecies of the Pope’ that litter my mind. The news of this “shadows and dangers” comment provides even more fodder for the paranoid mind, the haunting images of a Pope standing overtop of his people during a final battle or perhaps even on being the last in a series prophetized by St. Malachy so many centuries ago..

This from the AP:

Iraq’s ambassador to the Holy See, Habib Al Sadr, at the time warned that “what has been declared by the self-declared Islamic State is clear. They want to kill the Pope. The threats against the Pope are credible.”

But are the prophetic words of Malachy, Pope Pius, and Nostradamus as credible as the threats?

Pope sees 'shadows and dangers' amid Vatican attack fears

The Pagan conquest

More information about something locally making big news.. The former Cardinal Brennan high school is going to be NORTH SCHUYLKILL MIDDLE SCHOOL very soon..

The former Catholic home to education was closed in 2007.. shuddered and tucked away in the annals of memory in the coal region..

Since the announcement was made that NS was going to take over CB, mixed emotions have developed..

There is one common thread, though. Most people seem to be quite fine that it will be used as a home to edumucation.. but there’s some other things which are getting some heated reactions among CB alumni, including the following:

• All religious relics will be subtracted from the property.. obviously crosses and Jesus can’t exist on a publicly funded taxpayer location. Including the giant cross on the mess of the new field house that was built in the late 1990s..


• All memories of CB will be eliminated..


• The çharger horse that exists throughout various places on the campus will be painted over with NS emblems..


• The blue and gold, once the color of CB pride, will be replaced with red and blue where ever it existed..


• The places of memories and reflections of past students and classes will be trampled on by people who have no clue what happened in certain rooms or buildings. That one is upsetting to me..


• There is a good chance the bell tower, once known for the signatures of past people, may be painted over. As though none of the sneak-signings ever even happened..


• Nate, the janitor, will not be there. And for that, it’s a great misfortune on future students..

I am not in the camp blaming NS for anything.
But instead I blame the Catholic Church. I blame them for having priests who molested children for 50 years, leading to a collapse in faith and lack of church attendance ,and lack of money, and death of Catholic education. If anyone is looking for a villain, they are your best option.

Meanwhile.. This is how CB once looked way in the past, and more recently in the past.. 

It’s over folks 
The blue and gold blood has long dried up..

Rumor: Some Bad Shit Is Going Down At Tumblr

electradaddy:

I knew there would be consequences if I caught up on my dash.

People knew there’d be SOME KIND OF MESS that happened once YAHOO! took over..

Now I just wish, before this mess becomes a full fledged website social networking crisis, they come up with a good backup for people who don’t use MACs.. just hoping..

Rumor: Some Bad Shit Is Going Down At Tumblr

From the start, the idea of Hatred was supposed to be like it is now. I mean, we somehow knew that the media and some people would find it disturbing and shocking, but we also felt that gamers need something like Hatred, because the market is filled with too many sterile and far too polite games. A little bit of dirt and murky atmosphere never hurt anyone. As you have seen lately, gamers have rushed into support this project, with amazing numbers of Greenlight votes. So if there is a need for such games, we feel that we did the game concept well.

Destructive Creations business developer Przemysław Szczepaniak in an interview with VICE about the controversial new game HATRED

Get read to read and hear a lot of debate and wild comments being made about this game.. The main plot of HATRED: You can play a mass murdering psychopath. And that’s about it..

You can do all the killing you want.. 
You can gameplay murder as long as you want..

One more point on the interview in VICE: The business developer Szczepaniak *say that five times fast* also said this about the brutal honesty of HATRED when compared to other games:

Any killing game is about violence. It doesn’t matter if you try to justify it by a twist in the storyline, because you are still killing to reach a certain goal. Killing is always wrong. We show with Hatred how killing can be cruel; we did not justify anything about [it] – this is our honesty.

There is no doubt.. if you play HATRED, you will kill and that’s the goal.. For some that is the beauty of this game. To others, that’s the real reason to be scared: The cover is off and the truth is being spoken.. HATRED wants you to score some good death numbers.. Confined to the GAME.. of course.. 

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., 75, talks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2015, for the first time since he suffered an eye injury and broken ribs on New Year’s Day, when a piece of exercise equipment he was using broke and sent him smashing into cabinets at his new home. Reid sais his re-election bid in 2016 is on track even though he’s been sidelined by an exercise accident. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt: "The Internet Will Disappear"

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt on Thursday predicted the end of the Internet as we know it.

I agree..
Note the ‘as we know it’ ending to his statement..

There are some clear thing to agree with on this assumption of our future.. Schmidt reminds us, 

“There will be so many IP addresses…so many devices, sensors, things that you are wearing, things that you are interacting with that you won’t even sense it. It will be part of your presence all the time. Imagine you walk into a room, and the room is dynamic. And with your permission and all of that, you are interacting with the things going on in the room.”

It already is a part of our presence. Washing machines and refrigerators equipped to go online, Smart TVs being watched (and watching us) and now iWatches are on the way, making technology even closer to being implanted into our arms instead of just being worn on the outside of our skin.

The comments section on the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER story may be the most interesting.. many call Schmidt a creepy narcissistic evil entity, some call him a “Nazi” and say he deserves prison time.. One said “Google is full of nut jobs” .. and then this comment,

He’s also insane. Just model it out: 100 things in your house with IP addresses, all using electricity and all subject to configuration and durability problems. The learning curve alone is absurdly impossible. I feel like Khrushchev - I want to beat him with my shoe…

Sure, people have the chance to make witty and quick comments to stories on the Internet..But as fast and comedic as people can be, they are also purchasing the evil products that Schmidt spoke about. They are eating up smart TVs.. they are happily living a constantly-connected life on social media on their smartphones.. 

Schmidt is right. 
The Internet is changing and it will never be the same again.

However, that’s not really a bad thing. It is just a thing..  Just as a stone tablet led to a fountain pen that led to a typewriter that led to a smart phone, it’s the progression of society and humanity. It just seems, lately, that we have steamrolled far more into the future than what human minds are capable of emotionally dealing with. At least to me.

BUT… 
As with anything.. 
Technology can be amazing and give birth to freedoms of the mind, or it can become a technocratic hell on earth led by demons with human skin. We pick..
And we buy, either buy into the future of hope or the soon-to-be-days of demonic existence.

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt: "The Internet Will Disappear"

This is Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud.. he is taking over for his father, King Abdullah, 90, who just died.

I wonder if oil prices finally put Abdullah over the edge..

But the world sure had fun while he was alive, eh?

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kg5kjMEU3U]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxVWckPZX0A]

No Joke. Brian Koerber on MASHABLE writes,

Brooklyn-based artist and hacker KATSU used his own fecal matter to create a portrait ofFacebook CEO and cofounder Mark Zuckerberg.

The pooptrait, which is currently on display at The Hole in New York City, is a part of KATSU’s first solo exhibition titled “Remember the Future.” The gallery was not immediately available for comment.

I suppose this is nice. I guess..
Actually I think it shows more than anything that the artist has a very healthy digestive system..

ISIS Posts Clock Counting Down To Zero Online As Time Is Running Out For Japanese Hostages

Militants affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have posted an online warning that the “countdown has begun” for the group to kill a pair of Japanese hostages.

A countdown clock?
ISIS continues to use modern technology to put death in the face of humanity.. 

This from AP:

The posting, which appeared Friday, shows a clock counting down to zero along with gruesome images of other hostages who have been beheaded by the group.

ISIS gave Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a 72-hour deadline – which expired Friday – to pay a $200 million ransom for the two hostages. The Friday posting on a forum popular among Islamic State militants and sympathizers did not show any images of the Japanese hostages.

Japan said it will not be paying the $200 million ransom that has been demanded..

According to various reports, officials are cautiously watching Internet postings and Twitter messages globally to watch for any sign that images or videos of murder have been posted..

But on the topic of ISIS itself, many are beginning to ponder the set and scenery of the videos being filmed. The shadows on the faces of the hostages don’t match the shadows of their bodies.. at time it looks like the speaker is superimposed and has a photoshopped hand.. And some have even joked that the background looks more like Luke Skywalker’s home planet from STAR WARS than it does a desert in the Middle East..

A good collection of thoughts and Twitter messages on the potential fakery is on THE DAILY SHEEPLE..

ISIS Posts Clock Counting Down To Zero Online As Time Is Running Out For Japanese Hostages

BlackBerry CEO Wants Legislators To Make Developing BlackBerry Apps Mandatory

Okay.. pretty clear here, folks.. Blackberry is completely out of ideas..

BlackBerry CEO Wants Legislators To Make Developing BlackBerry Apps Mandatory

FCC weighs plan to use Russian satellite network for 911 system, raising security concerns

FCC weighs plan to use Russian satellite network for 911 system, raising security concerns

China is going to build a $242 billion (1.5 trillion yuan) high-speed rail link between Beijing and Moscow. The line will cut the journey time from five to 'two days', say Chinese authorities.

This is amazing news… and it should have been something America did first..

I long thought that one of the best initiatives President Obama could have done immediately in 2009 was to plan for a comprehensive high speed railway across the nation—a new Interstate system al-la- Eisenhower.. 

It could have changed America. Revolutionized travel.. Ate away early at OPEC margins.. and transformed this into a new American century of jobs and prosperity, and quick travel between small towns and big cities..

Instead we didn’t.
And now soon, you’ll be able to travel from from Beijing to Moscow in 2 days.

We have our chance…

China is going to build a $242 billion (1.5 trillion yuan) high-speed rail link between Beijing and Moscow. The line will cut the journey time from five to 'two days', say Chinese authorities.

The fix is in: Someone's got balls.

DEFLATEGATE shows us why it’s just not smart to even care about sports..

The fix is in: Someone's got balls.

Ohhh…@Drudge…

Doomsday approaching..

But I really like their graphic..

Do rabbits breed like Catholics in heaven?

But really..do all good dogs go to heaven?

Do rabbits breed like Catholics in heaven?