To My Dear Reader, Fizz

I do beg most humbly your pardon, dear Fizz. I'm afraid I've been just staring out the window all this while. Wool gathering they called it during my wretched days at St. Oldenbalden school, where ultimately I excelled in just one thing: how to gather wool and not get caught.

Truth be told, trying to keep soberly abreast of the daily falsums and miscreancies of Garden Broon in London and that Irish lad O'Bama in Washington have left me in a paralytic stupor. But I do thank you for nudging me awake once more; now I shall surely post more posts, knowing there is another reader other than yours truly, etc., etc., etc.

Lord Lunch
Hamsammich Castle, Worcestershiresauce, England

You Have A Marvelous Virgin
Hit the Reset Button, Ma

By Lord Lunch with help from the Catholic News Agency.
On her visit to Mexico last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a surprise early morning visit to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, bearing a bouquet of white flowers “on behalf of the American people.”

The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is Mexico's most popular religious and cultural symbol, and the Basilica is the second most visited Catholic shrine in the world. (Pope John Paul II visited four times.)

On a hill near Mexico City in 1531, a peasant named Juan Diego saw a vision of a young girl surrounded by light. The Lady asked for a church to be built at that site in her honor. From her words, Juan Diego recognized her as the Virgin Mary.

Miracles of the Image
When Juan Diego told his story to the Spanish bishop, an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe miraculously appeared on the back of his simple peasant’s cloak.

The image has maintained its integrity for 500 years, though replicas made with similar materials normally disintegrate after about 15 years. In 1791, an ammonia spill made a considerable hole in the cloak, but the image reportedly mended itself within two weeks with no external help. In 1921, an anarchist hid a bomb in an offering of flowers placed next to the image. The bomb's explosion destroyed the shrine, but the image was undamaged.

Photographers and ophthalmologists have reported images reflected in the eyes of the Virgin. A Nobel Prize winning chemist concluded that the tint on the fabric is not from any known mineral, vegetable, or animal source. An infrared study of the image found portions of the face, hands, robe, and mantle appear to have been painted in one step, with no sketches or corrections, and no apparent brush strokes.

Mrs. Clinton’s Reaction to the Image
When Mrs. Clinton arrived at the Basilica, she was greeted by the rector, Msgr. Diego Monroy.

After respectfully viewing the image of the Virgin for a while, Mrs. Clinton asked the rector “Who painted it?”

Msgr. Monroy responded “God!”

As she left the Basilica, Mrs. Clinton told a crowd of Mexicans gathered outside, “You have a marvelous virgin!”

Scientists Find Oldest Living Animal — Then Kill It

This is really a "no commenter" blog-wise. But I just had to post it, because of the headline:

British marine biologists have found what may be the oldest living animal — that is, until they killed it.

The team from Bangor University in Wales was dredging the waters north of Iceland as part of routine research when the unfortunate specimen, belonging to the clam species Arctica islandica, commonly known as the ocean quahog, was hauled up from waters 250 feet deep.

Only after researchers cut through its shell, which made it more of an ex-clam, and counted its growth rings did they realize how old it had been — between 405 and 410 years old.

Another clam of the same species had been verified at 220 years old, and a third may have lived 374 years. But this most recent clam was the oldest yet.

"Its death is an unfortunate aspect of this work, but we hope to derive lots of information from it," postdoctoral scientist Al Wanamaker told London's Guardian newspaper. "For our work, it's a bonus, but it wasn't good for this particular animal."

This article was lifted from FoxNews.com by Lord Lunch.