Ask and you shall receive. It appears our 141-day stretch without rain will end on Saturday with an 80% chance of rain coming in.

UPDATE: 3/9/06 19:49: When you make both USA Today and the Drudge Report, you know The Great White Shank hasn’t just been whistling “Dixie”. FYI, we’re gearing up for another severe pollution alert day tomorrow.

I don’t know what to think about the hubbub about water being discovered on Saturn’s moon Enceladus; I know this will send my friend Pasquale (LP) to the UFO Filer Files site next week to see if the Earth sees any increase in the number of extra-terrestrial visitors as a result. Perhaps, given everything going on in the world around us lately, Ankle Biting Pundits sets the appropriate cynical, escapist tone:

The “big story” from Drudge is that liquid water reservoirs was found on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. I know that this may excite scientists, but really, what bearing does this have on our lives. I can’t think of any. I mean, I think the big news this week is that the (way too) long awaited 6th season of The Sopranos starts Sunday.

Does anyone really care about whether there’s liquid water reservoirs on Enceladus? Let us know in the Comments section.

If you do, I’m sure they’d love to hear from you. Me, I’m more concerned about the ongoing nuclear standoff between the West and Iran, and the looming worldwide confrontation between Islam and the West. Powerline has an excellent post today on why we should be paying attention to what is being said in Washington about Iran.

If you want to know why the Episcopal Church of the USA has only 800,000 communicants per year attending Sunday services, is hemorrhaging membership (and, perhaps soon to come, dioceses) across the U.S., and practically by itself bringing the worldwide Anglican Communion to the brink of schism, you need only look at two stores from this week’s Virtue Online news digest):

“If Jesus were alive today, he would have been a rapper.”–The Rt. Rev. Catherine Roskam, bishop suffragan of New York.

…Just when you thought you had heard it all, along comes the The Hip Hop Prayer Book touted by the bishop as “a powerful evangelism tool, developed at Trinity Church of Morrisania in the birthplace of Hip Hop, the South Bronx, The Hip Hop Prayer Book offers a means to worship that will draw in the young and speak to those not generally spoken to by the Church, said the bishop. Really. Look what they have done with the 23rd Psalm adapted by Ryan Kearse:

“The Lord is all that, I need for nothing. He allows me to chill. He keeps me from being heated and allows me to breathe easy. He guides my life so that I can represent and give shouts out in his Name. And even though I walk through the Hood of death, I don’t back down for you have my back. The fact that you have me covered allows me to chill. He provides me with back-up in front of my player-haters and I know that I am a baller and life will be phat. I fall back in the Lord’s crib for the rest of my life.”

The “Hood of death” indeed. As the great baliff “Bull Shannon” used to say back on Night Court, “Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooookay…’

Also from Virtue, here’s what the Bishop of Kansas, the Rt. Rev. James M. Adams, Jr. had to say about the Church’s upcoming General Convention:

“Here we go again. The Episcopal Church is getting to have its General Convention. A Church which has fewer than 800,000 people attending its churches every Sunday, will again spend tens of millions of dollars to have a nine or ten day meeting at which thousands of pounds of paper will be used and thrown away and resolutions which will long be forgotten, for the most part, will be passed. To get ready for this meeting, the House of Bishops will have met six times and the Executive Council will have met approximately 12 times, in and out of the country, and we know that these meetings cost well over $1.5 million collectively.

…”So what will be done? What will be accomplished? Will any of the problems of the past three years be resolved, or even discussed? Will the worldwide Anglican Communion who and what the Episcopal Church is all about when it is over, or will be recognizable as an Anglican Church at all?

…”Is it time to say what the Church (the Episcopal Church), which calls itself Anglican, is all about, and if it is truly Anglican? Does it even care? We as a Church are being called to stand up for what we believe and have faith to live. What will we say? We might as well make some solid decisions. We have spent enough of God’s money to get it accomplished, don’t you think?”

Good questions, all.