Holy Relics

Many solemn worshipers around the world are devoted to Holy Relics such as The Holy Shroud of Turin. Here are a few of my favorites. All are actual true relics recognized by Catholics! ---------------------------------------------- The Holy Girdle Alongside Baby Jesus’ swaddling clothes (and the Virgin Mary’s shroud), Jesus’s loincloth is still prayed over in the Cathedral of Aachen. But the Tuscan town of Prato has its own sartorial prize: the Holy Girdle, housed in the Pisano-designed Cathedral and in a chapel partially designed by Renaissance master Lorenzo Ghiberti. The Holy Girdle is said to have made its way to Prato thanks to one of the many booty-loaded Crusaders who made their way back to Europe from the Holy Land. The green girdle is displayed five times a year on major Catholic holidays. Shrine of the Virgin Mary (1238), contains the cloak of the Blessed Virgin, the swaddling-clothes of the Infant Jesus, the loin-cloth worn by Christ on the Cross, and the cloth on which lay the head of St. John the Babtist after his beheading, Aachen Cathedral, Aachen, Germany ------------------------------------------------------ The Holy Foreskin

Circumcision of Christ, Preobrazhenski Monastery, Bulgaria.

As Catholic scholar James Bentley wrote of Holy Family curios: “None, however, ranks,,, with the cult of…the Holy Foreskin.” There’s only one reference to Jesus’ circumcision in the Bible — in Luke 2:21: “And when eight days had passed, before His circumcision, His name was then called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” But as Jean Calvin said: “They couldn’t let Christ go without keeping a little piece of him.” The foreskin of Jesus has loomed on the periphery of many historical epics and movements, from the Carolingian legend to the Papal Schism to the Reformation to 19th-century Romanticism. Though there were at least a dozen claimants to the Holy Foreskin, the papal-approved version was stolen during the 1527 Sack of Rome and ended up in the hill town of Calcata, 30 miles north of the Eternal City. By the end of the 19th century, the relic fell out of favor with the church, highlighted by a papal decree in 1900 threatening excommunication to anyone who writes or speaks about the miraculous membrane. Still, the relic remained in Calcata until 1983 when it was stolen under mysterious circumstances, leaving the villagers of Calcata with wild theories on its disappearance: that neo-Nazis, Satanists, and/or even the Vatican itself was to blame. -------------------------------------------------------- Holy Breast Milk

"Madonna with Four Saints," Rogier van der Weyden.

Throughout the centuries, the cult of the Virgin Mary has rivaled that of her son’s. And so have her relics. Like Jesus, Mary ascended bodily into heaven. But that hasn’t stopped creative devotees from unearthing bodily relics of the Virgin. The most outrageous is her breast milk, which French scholar Nicole Hermann-Mascard traced to 69 sanctuaries, 46 of which were in France. The part of a pilgrimage route that traveled through the English village of Walsingham was known as the Milky Way because of its fame for possessing a drop of the beloved latte. “Had the Virgin been a cow,” wrote the 16th-century Protestant reformer John Calvin, “she scarcely could not have produced such a quantity.” One lucky relic collector boasted the two-for-one relic: the Holy Bib, which contained stains of Mary’s breast milk. Calvin later added: “I would fain to know how that milk . . . was collected .... We do not read of any person who had the curiosity to undertake the task.”

"Doomed Movie" Posters And Their Superbly Entertaining Trailers

One of the worst movies of 1995

Robot Monster (1953)

Click above to view sultry beauty in clutches of half-crazed monster trailer The worst movie of 2009, for which Sandra Bullock received her first Razzie. She also received an Oscar for a different role in the same year! A disaster of its own, hailed by many as the worst movie of 2008 and nominated for six Raszzies

Click for the clip $110 million to produce and market, but earned only $7.1 million at the box office

This trailer doesn't seem all that bad to me.... About The Conqueror. Starring: John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Pedro Armendariz. In the historical epic The Conqueror, John Wayne stars as Temujin, better known as Genghis Khan. Red-haired Susan Hayward costars as Bortai, the Tartar princess whom Temujin claims as the spoils of battle. Eventually, Bortai's hatred for her captor metamorphoses into love, while Temujin's hordes lay claim to the entire Gobi Desert. Director Dick Powell, many of the actors (John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Pedro Armendariz, Thomas Gomez, Agnes Moorehead), and several of the crew members later fell victim to cancer, allegedly the result of producer Howard Hughes' decision to lens the film on location near the atomic testing grounds in the Utah desert. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Catwoman was cited as the worst superhero movie and won four Razzies Universally panned by critics and moviegoers, Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 is a 2000 American film adaptation of the novel Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard. Coincidentally, John Travolta is a Scientologist, a pseudo-sect founded by Hubbard... Howard the Duck won a Razzie Award for Worst New Star Manos: The Hands of Fate has an opening nine- minute sequence in which nothing much happens but endless driving through the countryside, due to the opening credits being left out. Added to Quicklis "Manos: The Hands of Fate" - Review - Part 1/3 .. "Manos: The Hands of Fate" - Review - Part 2/3 ... "Manos: The Hands of Fate" - Review - Part 3/3 ... Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space was hailed by The Golden Turkey Awards as the "Worst Film Ever."

This is the trailer for Plan 9

and click here to see the entire 78 minute film! The cast says it all, Morrow and Corday being the most gawdawful actors to ever "perform" Here The Giant Claw feeds on an airliner! Amazing pre-Muppet special effects! 1953 masterpiece from Ed Wood

The world's best-ever 10 minute trailer. You actually are treated to see Bella Lugosi sit and stare... Very profound!

My favorite sapient screensavers

Radio Hams, Juggling Space Farmers, President Obama and Burt Rutan

Talented cosmonaut juggles eight!

What’s everyday life on the International Space Station like? Maksim Suraev, who is on a six-month stint at the orbital outpost, has the answer.

Maksim is the first Russian cosmonaut to start a blog from zero-g. His accounts of orbital life and fresh photos from space are published on the website of the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos.

The wheat has managed to grow, and it's great!

It took long enough to dry and it has almost reached the lamp. And now, finally, mission control has ordered it cut, packed and refrigerated. I'll take it to Earth with me. Scientists there will have their turn at it.

They are surprised themselves about how it managed to have grown into ears. They tried to do it several times and only got, as the scientists describe, "seedless monsters".

With some regret I've cut my wheat... After all, it has been with me at the station for nearly five months.

Via Russian space agency Roscosmos

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-.-. --.- / -.-. --.- / -.-. .- .-.. .-.. .. -. --. / -.-. --.-

(CQ, CQ, calling CQ Code letters used at the beginning of radio messages intended for all receivers.)

Radio Amateurs from Far East have Accomplished Communication Session with ISS: Russian Cosmonauts have Dreams Rarely

:: 03.03.2010

Technical universities’ students from Far East of Russia have organized a communication session with ISS the last Sunday. During the session, students asked many questions to Russian cosmonauts.

“ISS was reachable only for 8 minutes. During this time, technical students asked many different questions to cosmonauts” - told to “Interfax-Far East” chief of public relations department of ROSTO (DOSAAF) of Khabarovsk Valeriy Usoltsev.

According to him, students had a possibility to speak with Oleg Kotov. Russian ISS crewmembers told about their activities in spare time and about secrets of nutrition and work in microgravity conditions.

He added also that cosmonauts while answering the question of one of students told that they fully recover their forces during the sleep but they rarely have dreams due to their work and busy schedule.

Now that President Obama has canceled our manned space program and the new space shuttle it is up to the Russians, the Chinese and Burt Rutan* to conquer space. The Russians got to space before we did and the Chinese are now developing their own private space station independent of the International Space Station. We will be paying the Russians taxi fare to get to the ISS; they have figured out such niceties of capitalism as supply and demand and profit motive.... So you think earth-side taxis are spendy? Please hurry-up Burt... * Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan (born June 17, 1943) is an American aerospace engineer noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, energy-efficient aircraft. He is famous for his design of the record-breaking Voyager, which was the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, and the sub-orbital spaceplane SpaceSipOne, which won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004 for becoming the first privately funded spacecraft to enter the realm of space twice within a two week period (at a cost of a whole lot fewer greenbacks than the U.S. government spent to do the same thing, but the U.S. was NOT required to fly their ship TWICE in two weeks!). He has four aircraft on display in the National Air and Space Museum: SpaceShipOne, the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, Voyager, and the VariEze. Authentic Super-Genius, among faux "genii", Burt Rutan Rutan makes our German rocket scientist Werner von Braun seem dim in comparison. Now if we only had another Jack Kennedy and fewer rocket-surgeon-genii in government....

President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, plays in the surf. "I am the president" Embarrased yet?