President Reagan Honors Unknown Soldier

HT Laura Ingraham

Breaking Bad: The Wages of Sin

My favorite show on television is about the manufacture and distribution of crystal meth in Albuquerque. Yeah, go figure.

The show, Breaking Bad, centers around a high school chemistry teacher, Walter White (played by Bryan Cranston) who receives a diagnosis of lung cancer. Walter, fearing financially for his family which includes a pregnant wife and a fifteen year old boy with cerebral palsy, decides to use his chemistry skills to cook crystal meth just for a little while.

I really enjoy this show for many reasons. The acting is first rate and the story telling enthralling. But mostly I enjoy it because it is a character study, it dives deep into the character and nature of sin.

I have never seen a show ...

Continue Reading @ National Catholic Register

The Facebook Inquisition Has Begun. Yes!!!

A teacher at a Catholic school announced on Facebook that she was an atheist and now she got canned from her job and is ticked off that she was fired. I don't know if she technically sued the school but she lawyered up and is fighting for unemployment benefits.

The school said the teacher violated a policy that prohibits employees from advocating "principles contrary" to the teachings of the church.

Chicago Tribune:

"I never thought something like that would jeopardize my job," she said Friday from Phoenix, Ariz., where she was applying for teaching jobs.

Really? How can this be surprising to anyone? Why do people think Facebook doesn't count? I've interviewed people for jobs and then checked out their Facebook only to see it filled with drunken and half naked pictures. Guess what? They don't get the job.

The school is defending itself rightly.

St. Edmonds took the "appropriate action," Kristie Arlt, spokeswoman for the Sioux City Diocese, said of the math teacher.

"The main thing is that she stated she didn't believe in God," Arlt said. "It's pretty hard to put that same teacher in front of students in a Catholic school system."

Nurre said her views constantly evolve and that she is constantly trying to expand her knowledge, whether on religion, astrology, fitness or politics.

"I just like learning about it. I don't see why that should cause someone to get fired," she said.

So go on your own personal vision quest for a religion on your own time. Don't float it out there in the public domain.

The teacher, is of course, saying she feels like her privacy was violated.

But why do people think that Facebook shouldn't count?

Bus Driver Berates Girl for Religious Views

It's being reported that a family is suing their school district because their daughter's school bus driver was caught on tape berating their daughter over her religious beliefs as well as ridiculing her to the entire bus.

It occurred because the girl dared to say she didn't like Barack Obama because of his stance on gay marriage and abortion.

After the girl was dropped off, Zimmer said a bus camera showed Campbell telling the students, "If you can't believe in tolerance toward one another, you don't belong here. You belong in a parochial, church school."

Zimmer also claims the bus driver questioned another student about whether Rachael ever said anything racist to him.

"If she says anything racial to you, I want to know about it, because I am going to eat her alive," Zimmer said Campbell can be heard saying on the tape. "You're a smart guy. Rachael is a stupid little bigot."

Zimmer said Campbell then came back to the girl's home after all of the children had been let off the bus and brought Rachael and her older sister, who were home alone at the time, onto her empty bus, berating Rachael about her opinions on gay marriage.

When he asked the school district why Campbell wasn't disciplined, Zimmer said he was told she was working within the scope of her employment.

Just imagine for a second if the bus driver had yelled at the girl for being Muslim or gay or an atheist. You think the school district would've backed up the driver then?

He Hit Me First!!!

What's the most basic thing that parents teach children? The easiest lesson of all parenting. Don't play with fire. That's something cavemen successfully taught their children. But today I found a way to mess it up.

When I walked into the kitchen to prepare lunch for the kids I saw the two year old touching the knobs on the stove. So I went into Dad mode and yelled her name. She was so surprised she jumped up about three feet, she dropped her cup spilling water everywhere, and was crying before her feet touched the ground. Then she ran in place while crying (which in a puddle isn't the smartest thing to do we learned) She then fell and cried some more.

But I'm DAD!!! And what we had here was a genuine teachable moment. I've got to teach the child not to touch the stove because the stove has fire and that's dangerous dangerous dangerous. So I got down on one knee (right in the puddle) and explained to her that she should never ever to touch the dangerous dangerous dangerous stove. I ordered her to the step which is where I send the children when they do something bad. They have to sit there until I tell them to get off the step.

Typically, I wait about one minute or two and then ask them to come see me where I ask them what they did wrong. And I put on my very disappointed face. I explain why we don't do whatever they got in trouble for and I make them say they're sorry and have them promise to never do it again.

So I cleaned up the puddle and then I'll be honest I totally forgot I sent her to the step. I just forgot. (Don't you dare judge me) I had ESPN on and I watched the highlights of the Magic/Celtics game. I turned the TV off, folded some laundry, and walked towards my bedroom to put the laundry away.

And there she was. Sitting on the step looking up at me. Looking so sad too. But I remembered I had a job to do. Her cuteness and my guilt for forgetting shouldn't have an impact here. So I put on my disappointed face and asked her to come see me. She followed me into my room and I asked her what she did wrong.

And she looked at me blankly. And I could see in her eyes that she couldn't remember what the heck she'd been sitting on the step for. She had no idea. The poor child was searching for something to say and finally blurted out: "He hit me first!"

And I couldn't help but laugh. And then she laughed too just relieved.

What we had was a daughter who couldn't remember why she'd been punished and a Dad who'd forgotten he'd punished her. Kinda' sad when you think about it. So I took her into the kitchen and made her lunch.

Iron Baby

And that's all I have to say about that.

Boy Sings Danny Boy on Britain's Got Talent

I knew it would be good when I first heard him. But wow.

HT Viral Footage

Woman Held Down to Force Abortion?

You're not going to believe this story about an abortionist who is being sued for not stopping an abortion even though the patient begged him to stop. And not only that, there's video of the doctor saying that a medical license is actually a license to lie. Check it out at the National Catholic Register:

No means no, except maybe when you’re talking to abortionist Abraham Hodari.

The abortionist in Michigan is being sued for allegedly forcing an abortion after the woman changed her mind and asked him to stop. The abortionist even reportedly instructed assistants to hold the woman down while he completed the abortion.

Continue reading at the National Catholic Register>>>

Madhouse

I swear. This is not my fault. I hardly ever talk politics in front of the kids.

My daughter was asked in school to write what she would like to tell the president. I think she states her point well, don't you. And no, she won't be joining the blogging family soon.

Obama's a Wanna Be Dictator, Not a Leader

Barack Obama is not a leader. He's a wanna-be dictator. A petulant one at that.

The Hill describes the situation in the White House concerning the BP oil spill:

As critics question whether the White House is being tough enough with BP, Obama is reportedly showing his frustration behind closed doors. The Washington Post reported:

Since the oil rig exploded, the White House has tried to project a posture that is unflappable and in command.

But to those tasked with keeping the president apprised of the disaster, Obama's clenched jaw is becoming an increasingly familiar sight. During one of those sessions in the Oval Office the first week after the spill, a president who rarely vents his frustration cut his aides short, according to one who was there.

"Plug the damn hole," Obama told them.

That's not leadership. That's a tantrum.

And I don't think it's a singular event. Remember this report from the NY Times:

As the clock neared 1 a.m., the two sides were at an impasse. Mr. Obama stood up.

“‘See what you guys can figure out,’ ” one participant remembers him saying, adding that the failed effort left the president mad.

This is Obama continuing to vote present, even as President. One gets the idea that Obama is shocked that his will alone didn't stop the oil from leaking.

And if that doesn't scare you Iran is still building a nuclear weapon and North Korea just committed an act of war against South Korea and the economy is still tanking and the debt rising. And nobody's more surprised than Obama.

Video: Catholic School Vandalized

This is disgusting. “666” was written in different parts of the kitchen, a cross was displayed sacrilegiously and a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe was stabbed with a knife. CNA reports.



CNA reports:

In an apparent hate crime, vandals broke into the kitchen of St. Rose of Lima Catholic School in Maywood, Calif. desecrating an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe and a cross and spilling foodstuffs everywhere.

Batman, The Crib, and the Potty

You ever wonder how Batman felt week after week capturing the Joker or Two Face and putting them in Gotham's insane asylum known as Arkham only to see them break out in a week or two to plot some other nefarious deeds?

I know how he feels. And it's not good.

I'd been telling my wife for a few weeks that I was going to dismantle the crib and start the two year old sleeping in the bed. She asked me every day if I'd done it yet but I just kept telling her I didn't have the time. Well, on Saturday while I was mowing the lawn my wife actually thought she'd surprise me by actually taking down the crib. For me.

It's not that I had no intention of ever taking it down but I really had no intention of taking it down anytime in the near future. When the baby went off to college I'd take her out of the crib.

You see, we were in the midst of potty training and I didn't want to take on too many things at once. To be honest, potty training hasn't been going all that well. The two year old and I, we sit in the bathroom a lot and chat. She quotes Justice League or Super Friends lines from her sisters' DVD to me and I'm supposed to respond. Her favorite is she says, "Excuse me, Green Lantern?"

And I say: "For the last time, I am not Green Lantern! My name is...!

She pretends to laugh and says: "Just kidding. I know who Booster Gold is. So now that I'm not in distress, I was wondering if maybe I was still your kind of damsel."

I don't know why those particular lines stuck in my child's head but boy did they. We do those lines or we talk about Spider Man and then we leave the bathroom so she can go in her diaper and come tell me "I stink" a few minutes later. I can usually tell within four or five paces.

I was starting to think she just didn't understand what she was supposed to be doing on the potty. But I've done this four other times before with my other kids and I know it eventually works out. Sometime before college would be great.

So as you can imagine dismantling the crib has made the last few days (and nights) fun. For the two year old.

Nap time has been especially eventful. I knew I was in trouble when she seemed excited to go take her nap Monday afternoon. "You stay here Dad," she told me. "I go."

OK. Heck, maybe taking down this crib wasn't such a bad idea after all. I didn't even have to take her upstairs anymore. Woo-hoo. Things were looking up.

Well it took about five minutes before I heard the first boom. So I'm running up the stairs. And there she is on the top bunk tossing her older sister's belongings off. I raced in and gave her what for. She did her part and cried and got into her own bed with a promise never ever never to go up the ladder into the top bunk.

The five year old and I played cards at the dining room table for a while until we had to go pick up the girls from school. When I went upstairs at 2 p.m. I expected to wake her. I even brought a sticker with me to congratulate her for sleeping in her bed like a big girl. So I opened the door and there she was completely naked with socks on her hands. From her pose I'm thinking she was pretending she was spiderman. But that's just guesswork.

"Where's you diaper?" I asked her.

She shrugged her little shoulders and looked up at the ceiling. So there I am looking on her bed, lifting up blankets and I'll admit I even glanced up at the ceiling. Hey, you never know.

I asked the five year old who'd followed me up if he saw the diaper anywhere and he glanced around confirming that it wasn't floating in the middle of the room.

I hadn't found the diaper but I had to go pick up the girls. So I threw a new diaper on her and some clothes. I left the socks on her hand. Why not? She seemed happy with them. It's funny. The girls all got in the van and not one of them mentioned the fact that the two year old had socks on her hands. Big families learn to take things in stride, I guess.

The two year old talked a mile a minute and laughed until her belly hurt at everything her sisters did. Now while I'll tell you that there is no sound in this world that is more refreshing to the human soul than a child's belly laugh it also usually means that you have a very tired child on your hands.

So I let her play for a few minutes while the girls got their homework ready on the dining room table. When they settled I brought the baby back upstairs. And then the tears. "No Dad...I dowanna...Noooooo..." She's crying and wiping her eyes with her socks. But when I laid her down she immediately rolled over and closed her eyes.

OK. I stood there and listened to the baby's breaths evened out. I watched her relax and she was almost asleep when....

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

Someone downstairs screamed. I bound down the stairs and ran into the big room to check the door. That's what I always do. If I think something's wrong I check the doors first and work my way inwards. OK. The door's locked so nobody's come in or escaped. I count heads at the table. The ten year old, the seven year old and the five year old are all there. The eight year old is gone.

"Where is she?" I asked them.

"Bathroom," they told me.

I go into the bathroom and my goodness. The eight year old is standing in horror looking down at the toilet bowl where a dirty diaper is floating in the bowl.

The eight year old saw me and immediately said "I'm sorry I screamed. I thought it was....I don't know what I thought it was. But it surprised me."

And you want to know what my thought was? Hey, the two year old understands what the potty's for. Good news. Yup. I was happy, even when I was the one who had to reach in and get it out.

Now, of course, when I opened the bathroom door who was standing right outside but the two year old. She followed me to the garbage and when the eight year old came out we went back in because she said she had to go potty. We talked about Spiderman and Superman for a while until we left. She still didn't do anything but I know she at least understands.

The rest of the day she didn't get a nap. So when we went upstairs at night we prayed and she laid down and went right to sleep. Sometime during the night last night I was sleeping and for some reason I stirred. I opened my eyes to look at the clock to check the time but something was obstructing my view. My eyes were having trouble focusing so I stared intently. As my eyes adjusted all of a sudden I made out two eyes staring right at me from about four inches from my face. Well as someone who saw Whitley Streiber's "Communion" on cable you can imagine how that might freak someone out. Well, my eyes must have gotten about as wide as basketballs until I heard a voice say "Excuse me Green Lantern..."

And there she was. My two year old standing inches from my face staring at me. When my heart stopped punching a hole in my chest I got out of bed, picked her up, and carried her out of the room careful to not wake my wife. When we got to the hallway I said, ""For the last time, I am not Green Lantern! My name is...!

She whispered in the stairwell: "Just kidding. I know who Booster Gold is. So now that I'm not in distress, I was wondering if maybe I was still your kind of damsel."

And then she said she had to go potty. So I turned around on the stairs and we sat and I talked for a few minutes about Batman and Arkham. And that I'd found a new sympathy for Batman. She didn't do anything on the potty but she did go back to sleep.

When I got back into bed my wife asked me how the two year old was doing with not being in the crib. Instead of saying that the two yeasr old was acting like a freshman at college I just said that it'd been eventful. But she's doing great. And we had a breakthrough with the potty today.

Brawling With The Ushers

Tell the truth. Haven't you at least momentarily though about popping an overly officious and pushy church usher in the chops? Or maybe pulling his polyester jacket over his head -- ya know like NHL style?

Well somebody went and did it.

HILLSBOROUGH — Police responded to Mary, Mother of God Roman Catholic Church on Sunday for a report of a fight in the parking lot between an usher and a parishioner after the usher told the parishioner to stop videotaping during Mass.

Now, of course most ushers are wholly interested in serving the church and do a thankless service week in and week out. I am not talking about them. But there are those other types, you know who I am talking about. The kind of ushers that buzz about the church like bouncers at a KISS concert flashing their poly-blend jackets like a US Marshall service badge -- some of whom view usherdom as an excuse to pay no attention to mass. Well I know that I am not the only one who has.

Fr. Jay Toborowsky knows the type. After rightly criticizing the school play Catholics who treat their bi-annual visit as if it is the school production of South Pacific and they will be darned if they don't get the picture they want, Fr. Jay has this to say about the usheristas.

Now, about Catholic Church ushers. For the most part, your task is about taking up the collection and handing out bulletins, and these are necessary things in the life of a parish. I also know there's times when you get asked to do the priest's "dirty work" (telling someone to sit down when all they want to do is stand in the back of church because they want the quick escape after Communion), and for that, I thank you. But, let me also say this: I don't care what you do or did as a profession, putting on the blazer does not give you superpowers. It does not exempt you from sitting through Mass like everyone else. It doesn't allow you to stand in the back of church chatting away with fellow ushers whilst Mass is going on. I have visited lots and lots of churches over the course of my years as a Catholic, a Seminarian, a Deacon and a Priest. I think there's a lot of ushers who are going to be quite shocked when God makes the delineation for them on judgment day between the Masses they "attended" and the Masses they were merely "at".

Now I certainly do not condone parking lot smackdowns of the overbearing, but perhaps there should be term limits.

A Fetus is Anti-Abortion?

Everyone is freaking out because some school employees handed out fetus dolls to students in a public school. The dolls are scientifically accurate yet they're being called shocking and reprehensible.



The fact that so many people are taking a scientifically accurate fetus to be an anti-abortion message should tell you everything you need to know.

What the accompanying card said was all scientifically accurate. Imagine that, scientifically accurate description of human life is now off limits in school. Only liberal ideology is allowed, I guess.

What a country we live in.

Jill Stanek has more on this story.

Darn It!! This Little Girl Likes Herself

I love this.

HT Jill Stanek

Coming Soon: TV Abortion Commericals

Well, it was only a matter of time. In a first, a UK television station will air an advertisement for abortion.

You can see the story in this youtube video.



My first impulse upon hearing this story was ...

Continue Reading @ National Catholic Register

World's Dumbest Vampire Hunters

I used to think that some people make to big a deal over how much movies can influence people into doing really dumb things. After reading this story, I may have to rethink my position.

It is alleged that two teachers, Christian teachers, in a Florida school got into a discussion with an atheist colleague. The conversation apparently didn't go so well. Whereupon the teachers, clearly acting in the interests of the terrified students, sprinkled the teacher with holy water.

Holy water?

I'll be danged. After all the vampire movies I have watched, I was still unaware that atheists shared the same weaknesses as their kindred spirits, the un-dead. I always thought that their primary weaknesses were logic and manners.

I am not sure if this is an effective evangelization technique, I suspect its not, but it sure is darn funny.

For their part, the teachers claim that it was not holy water but perfume instead. Hey its one thing to suggest that someone's body is possessed by a blood sucking demon, but entirely another to suggest they smell bad too.

As a helpful hint, if you suspect an atheist colleague of having vamp-like qualities, I suggest that you surreptitiously slip garlic into their food instead. If they survive the garlic test, then you can use the perfume.

"Footprints" by Hans Kung

This is brilliant work by the Catholic Cartoon blog.

HT Acts of the Apostasy

Clinton Rips Birthers, Pities Terrorists

Former President Bill Clinton ripped those who doubted Barack Obama's citizenship as well as those who doubt global warming is man made but described the Times Square bomber as a "poor tragic Pakistani man."

How about that for misplaced priorities? Clinton displayed scorn for his own political enemies and pity for America's enemies. Should we be surprised?

Politico reports:

Former President Bill Clinton is taking the so-called “birthers” to task for ignoring evidence that President Barack Obama was born in the United States.

Clinton made the comments during a commencement address at Yale University on Sunday as part of a critique of American media consumption habits.

“The only place where we’re bigoted now is we only want to be around people who agree with us,” Clinton said. “In our media habits, we go to the television shows, we go to the radio talk shows we go to the blog sites that agree with us. And it can have very bizarre consequences.”

The former president pointed to the “birthers” an example of one of those “bizarre consequences.”

Clinton also went out of his way to criticize those who don't believe global warming is man made by labeling them with the loaded term "Climate change deniers."

So after going out of his way to attack political opponents Bill Clinton referred to the Times Square bomber as the "Poor tragic Pakistani man" who thankfully was an inept bomb builder.

People who want to see Obama's birth certificate are "bizarre consequences."
People who don't believe Al Gore are "deniers."
A would be mass murderer of hundreds of innocent Americans is a "poor tragic Pakistani man."

The whole video is below. He talks about the poor Pakistani at about 14:40.

"The Loser Letters" vs. Big Atheism

I just read "The Loser Letters" by Mary Eberstadt and I cannot recommend it highly enough. I spoke with the author on Saturday and wrote up a review at the National Catholic Register:

The new atheists are on the march. They’re in bookstores. They’re on television. They’re everywhere. But nowhere is their effect being felt more than on college campuses and by young people. So invasive is the new atheist movement that in many ways their outlook has become the default mainstream culture.

For too long Christians have been a punch line for militant secularists. It’s time somebody punched back. And Mary Eberstadt’s new book “The Loser Letters” is an unexpected roundhouse to the new atheist movement. I read it last week and urge you to pick it up. (You can click on Amazon.com.)

“Christians are always at a moral disadvantage because we’re told to turn the other cheek,” said Eberstadt. “So there’s been a lot of playing defense. I’m trying to go on offense.”

She calls her book “apologetics for the Facebook generation.” And they need it.

Please continue reading at the National Catholic Register>>>

Biggest Problem Facing Kids is Christianity?

Can Hollywood really believe that the biggest problem facing high school students is too much stigma around premarital sex? Well that's what you'd have to think if you watched the trailer for the upcoming movie "Easy A."

A new and supposedly comedic take on "The Scarlet Letter" is coming to a theater near you that looks neither funny or to have understood Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel it's based on.

Here's what I can glean from the trailer. A high school girl (Emma Stone- who was great in Zombieland) pretends to have sex with a male student so as to convince the school he's not gay. Because she pretends to have sex a bunch of Christianish girls ridicule her mercilessly for being "easy."

As if.

OK, is that really the problem in high schools today? Too much judgementalism concerning sex? Could you imagine how quickly someone would likely be suspended for even saying anything derogatory about a gay student in most high schools across America? And is there really a horrible stigma that I haven't heard about associated with premarital sex in high schools. Come on. Give me a break.

I ask you, in any real high school who would more likely be scorned, the girl who set the record for putting the condom on a piece of fruit in Health class or the girl who purposefully stayed at home the day where the part time massage therapist held an assembly for fourth graders?

Anyone normal knows the answer to that question. Unfortunately Hollywood isn't normal. Because seemingly, according to this movie, the biggest problem affecting high schoolers is Christianity which scares a young man into the closet and outcasts a girl for premarital sex. What year does Hollywood think it is? 1610?

I attached the trailer just so you know I'm not making this stuff up. It's pretty crude so don't watch it if you don't want to.


Easy A in HD

Trailer Park Movies | MySpace Video

Comedy Central Attacks Israel

Remember, this is the channel that bowed down to Islamic extremists and will soon be airing a sitcom about Jesus. And now watch how offensive and anti-semitic this online game on their website is.

Weasel Zippers writes:

The first line in the video’s introduction (which has since been edited out) is “You lied to me Jew producer,” the bad guy then sends ISRAEL out to kill children. Classy, eh?…

Original Video - More videos at TinyPic

If the video's not working, check out Weasel Zippers.

A Cannes Winner Worth Seeing....

[Spero] Directed by Xavier Beauvois, Des Hommes et de Dieux “Of Gods and Men” – a meditative film based on actual gruesome events – won a prize at the Cannes film festival for works fostering inter-religious understanding. Judged by an ecumenical jury, the pic recounts the lives and deaths of a group of French monks who were massacred and beheaded in a Cistercian monastery Algeria in events that remain mysterious and controversial.

The film’s plot centers on the Catholic monks as they wrestle with whether to flee during a bloody conflict between Algeria’s army and Muslim jihadi insurgents, or to remain in their monastery from which they had ministered to their Muslim neighbors. The statement of the jury declared that "The deep humanity of the monks, their respect for Islam and their generosity towards their village neighbors make the reason for our choice." Moreover, wrote the jury, “This movie of great artistic value benefits from a remarkable group of actors and follows the daily rhythm of work and liturgy." The jury also commended two other films in competition for Cannes’ main prize, "Poetry" by South Korean director Lee Chang-Dong and "Another Year" by Britain's Mike Leigh.

From Atheist Lesbian to Mother of Six

I love conversion stories. I just do. They're stories that no matter how bleak they get you know there's a happy ending. Check this one out at Lifesitenews:

“I was an atheist for as long as I could remember” recalled Brigitte Bedard, a young-looking 41-year-old journalist and stay at home mother of six with cropped tousled brown hair and stylish thick-framed glasses. She was addressing a crowd of 200 participants at the Quebec Life Coalition pro-life conference on May 15 in Quebec City.

While Bedard is less well known than the conference’s keynote speaker – Cardinal Marc Ouellet – whose staunchly pro-life statements made later that afternoon were seized on by the anti-life Quebec media, she might be the speaker who most touched hearts that Saturday afternoon.

Ms. Bedard grew up at a time when Quebec society was undergoing what historians call the “Quiet Revolution,” a period of time from the early-sixties to the mid seventies when Quebec society shed its Christian heritage and adopted secular values. “I was born in 1968 — talk about bad luck” she joked.

Continue reading at LifeSiteNews>>>

Dem Compares GOP to Al Qaeda

I'd say "Wow" if I didn't already know that Alan Grayson was a maniac.

Jim Geraghty writes:

Democratic donors have given $2.6 million to Alan Grayson this cycle, and it is deeply satisfying to watch them waste their hard-earned dollars on a congressman who has absolutely no chance of retaining a seat in an R+2 district.

You cannot compare the opposing party to al-Qaeda and expect to retain your seat:

All the money in the world can’t save you if you are fundamentally out of step with your district’s values. In the end, his term in Congress will be remembered as a two-year-long, taxpayer-funded audition tape for MSNBC.

In a sane world, this would get at least as much coverage as Rand Paul's comments. Sadly, this is not a sane world.

Fr. Barron: Why Did God Create the World?

Fr. Barron's pretty amazing the way he takes complex subjects and allows even dummies like me to understand.

Hey GOP! Stop Going on MSNBC!!!

Hey GOP! Here's a brilliant idea. Stop ambling into enemy territory expecting to be treated like a friend. In short, stop trusting MSNBC. They're not interested in interviewing you. They want to destroy you. To them, you are the enemy.

Can anyone have missed that this network has gone completely left wing looney tunes. First, Michelle Bachmann goes on Chris Matthews show and almost loses her reelection because of it. Remember this:


And the media played that up like Bachmann was forming modern day HUAC's and going all Wicker Man on colleagues she deemed un-American.

Bachmann survived but only after a major scare.

But after seeing what happened to Bachmann it's incredible to me that Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul appears on Rachel Maddow's show. And when pressed by Maddow, he actually talks about sections of the Civil Rights Act which he was against, not based on any racism of his but because of his libertarianism. But he should know the headline won't be some nuanced treatise on federalism or individual property rights. It'll be "Rand Paul is against the Civil Right Act!!!" And you know how people read that? Rand Paul hates black people.

Here's a snippet of painful video of Paul digging his hole deeper and deeper.


But besides dissecting his argument which is not easily sellable to the public the real question is 'Why the heck was he even there?' What's to be gained? Nobody watches MSNBC. And anyone who does isn't going to vote for a Republican unless they receive an emergency lobotomy reversal before November.

So the only way it can effect your candidacy is to hurt it by being played on networks that people actually watch like Fox News or shows like Good Morning America which both featured this Rand Paul debacle at length.

Paul is now appearing everywhere trying to explain himself. And he's talking and talking and talking about it like Trent Lott did after saying something that only idiots would take as racist. How'd he end up?

Rand Paul just gave his opponent his attack ad. Now Paul is likely going to have to spend something like $1 million in ads to explain this debacle away. That's a lot of money to be on defense with. And you don't win when you're on defense.

So GOP, please stop going on MSNBC. They're not journalists. They want to hurt you. And they can hurt you. Don't return their calls. Walk past them in the hallways. Ignore them. They can only hurt you if you engage them. Don't.

Is The Pope Rewriting History

Here is the take-away folks. You can be a history professor at Oxford and still be a complete moron. The really sad this is that Diarmaid MacCulloch is actually writing a history of Christianity. I venture to say that it might belong in the fiction section if this article is any indication.

But the pope was at his most interesting when he jumped from the 15th to the 20th century at the culmination of his address, because he came out fighting for his own view of that most controversial and ambiguous of oecumenical councils, the second Vatican council of 1962-65 (Vatican II). For some Catholics, this revolutionised Roman Catholicism, pointing to new decentralisation, actively involving the whole congregation of the faithful in decisions, and jettisoning Tridentine triumphalism, opening the church to new humility in listening to alternative voices in the quest for the divine. To others, the council did some tinkering, reaffirming old certainties with a little adjustment of language (in more senses than one, since its one absolutely unignorable result was to turn most Catholic liturgy into the vernacular). The latter party would mostly have preferred the council not to have met at all, or at least to have stuck to a script written by Vatican bureaucrats if it did meet. These are two utterly irreconcilable views of an historical event. What would Pope Benedict say?

This. At Vatican II, "the church, on the basis of a renewed awareness of the Catholic tradition, took seriously and discerned, transformed and overcame the fundamental critiques that gave rise to the modern world, the Reformation and the Enlightenment. In this way the church herself accepted and refashioned the best of the requirements of modernity by transcending them on the one hand, and on the other by avoiding their errors and dead ends." It's difficult from this to know what the pope might count as "the best" of modernity's requirements, but apparently even those can be transcended, and plenty of errors and dead ends just get avoided – a bit like a sacralised version of Lara Croft dodging through the nasties. You could hardly get a more defensive vision of the council than this. It sounds for all the world like that most unfortunate and embarrassing of Pope Pius IX's public statements, the Syllabus of Errors of 1864, which famously culminated in the proposition that it was wrong to believe that the pope "can and ought to reconcile himself with progress, liberalism and modern civilisation".

What it does mean is that the pope has put himself at the head of the small-earthquake-in-Chile-not-many-dead view of Vatican II? This is entirely to be expected. Neither he nor his predecessor John Paul II liked the direction which Vatican II took, though a veritable industry of official Catholic historiography has assiduously promoted the view that they were all for it and its results. The reality is that soon after the Council, leading Catholic theologians like Hans Küng, Edward Schillebeeckx, Karl Rahner and Yves Congar (whose now published journals do not reveal great enthusiasm for the future Pope John Paul II), complained that the Roman curia was putting brakes on reforms envisioned by Vatican II...

Do you sense his frustration? Here is the thing and the reason I suspect that Mr. MacCulloch is so frustrated; history is written by the victors and his side is losing badly.

The concept that the council or its documents called for a radical break from all that came before is just not supportable. When all you have to support your thesis are the complaints of tired old cranks like Küng, Schillebeeckx, Rahner, Congar who long ago lost any credibility, you are reduced to tilting at windmills.

What history will ultimately reveal is that a small but highly organized group of radicals used the council as an excuse to its own ends. They did great harm for a time, but ultimately the Church recovered and they were forgotten.

This is what the dinosaurs know. That for all their initial success and high hopes in the 60's and 70's, they are now irrelevant. The realization of irrelevancy is understandably tough to take and gets expressed from time to time in silly articles or books. These books will be purchased by their aging fellow travelers and end up sold for 5 cents in an estate sale or burned for kindling in the near future.

But don't be so hard on Küng, Schillebeeckx, Rahner, Congar, or even MacCulloch, irrelevancy is a bi...

ht Luke Coppen

Priest Questions Bishop Olmsted

The Church's sexual abuse scandal is the "blame Bush" of Catholicism. Anything that goes wrong anywhere that has even the remotest connection to Catholicism can be explained by or blamed on the sex abuse scandal.

It's reflexive now. Liberal Catholics can't say anything about the Church without bringing up the sex abuse scandal. Whether it's a conversation about altar rails, mass times, abortion, vestments, or gay marriage liberal Catholics will instinctively raise the specter of the abuse scandal as if the very existence of sin in the Church is evidence that they're right.

A priest who's made quite a name for himself by attacking the Church every chance he gets is now attacking the Church for the excommunication of Sister Margaret McBride who approved of an abortion being performed on a woman whose life was in danger. The media is, of course, making this the most famous excommunication since Theodosius'. The Rev. Thomas Doyle is joining in the bashfest on National Public Radio by calling out Bishop Thomas Olmsted.

He said Sister McBride shouldn't be excommunicated because of...(wait for it) the sex abuse scandal.

NPR reports:

Doyle, a canon lawyer, said the bishop "clearly had other alternatives than to declare her excommunicated." Doyle says Olmsted could have looked at the situation, realized that the nun faced an agonizing choice and shown her some mercy. He adds that this case highlights a "gross inequity" in how the church chooses to handle scandal.

"In the case of priests who are credibly accused and known to be guilty of sexually abusing children, they are in a sense let off the hook," Doyle says.

Doyle says no pedophile priests have been excommunicated. When priests have been caught, he says, their bishops have protected them, and it has taken years or decades to defrock them, if ever.

"Yet in this instance we have a sister who was trying to save the life of a woman, and what happens to her? The bishop swoops down [and] declares her excommunicated before he even looks at all the facts of the case," Doyle says.

Now, how does he know Bishop Olmsted didn't know the facts of the case? Well, that's because he doesn't agree with Fr. Doyle, of course.

In fact, according to Courageous Priest, Sr. McBride told Bishop Olmsted that she believed performing an abortion in this case “was a morally good and allowable act according to Church teaching.”

Fr. Doyle's logic would seem to go something like this, I guess: The Church can't be against killing the unborn because some in the Church have sinned.

As illogical as the argument is, the specter of the sexual abuse scandal is still causing great damage. The enemies of the Church (even those on the inside) can publicly impeach the authority of the Church by calling on the sex abuse scandal and the media will hurrah their every utterance. People will be swayed and souls will be lost. That is the horrible truth.

And many in the media who have these liberal priests and theologians on speed dial cheer every time they bring it up. And they will continue to do so as long as it hurts the Church.

Audio below:

Fun With Stormtroopers

Great pic. Thanks to The Gormogons.

Video of Episcopal Ordination of Lesbian Bishop

The Consecration of Mary Glasspool as an Episcopal bishop on Saturday was incredible. They had odes to Mother Earth, random pagan rituals, a smudging ceremony to increase their relationship to plants or something, a smidge of ancestor Worship thrown in, and don't forget the dancing Girls. And, of course, there's guitars. There's always guitars.

And by the way there didn't seem to be a whole lot of Jesus at least in the first hour or so that I saw.

You can see the video here.

AFP reports:

A 56-year-old lesbian was ordained as a bishop by the Episcopal church here Saturday, reigniting an issue which has caused bitter divisions in the Anglican movement worldwide.

Mary Glasspool became only the second openly gay bishop to be consecrated by the Episcopal Church -- the governing Anglican body in the United States -- after Gene Robinson was ordained in 2003.

Glasspool was consecrated by the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles in a lunchtime ceremony attended by around 3,000 people at the Long Beach Arena, along with another woman priest, Diane Jardine Bruce.

You've got to see the video here. You really have to.

Stand Firm and The Lobster Pot are both reacting pretty strongly.

A Pox On 'Pastoral'

Have you ever had one of those experiences wherein you got sick after eating or drinking something and then, even though you know that the sickness was probably not related to that food item, you just cannot stand to look at it or even smell it without getting nauseous?

Well I have. Nothing against Cracker Barrel, but I can’t go within 1000 yards without needing a barrel myself. Enough about that.

But I have also found that the same thing can happen with words. When I find words that occur in frequent proximity to things that make me sick, I find that I can no longer stomach the word anymore, even if used appropriately.

Much to my chagrin, I find myself facing this very situation right now. What is the word that makes me sick every time I hear it or read it?

Pastoral.

Pastoral used to be a fine word but it has been keeping some bad company lately.

A priest decides to give out communion to active and proud homosexuals and....

Continue Reading @ National Catholic Register

When Brain Dead Ain't Brain Dead

A friend of mine called me earlier this week to help him move a pool table to his basement. You get this kind of call a lot when you're a stay at home Dad. People know you're usually around.

So I went over with the kids after school and they played upstairs with my friend's kids and I helped move the table. My buddy had also invited a neighbor of his over to help. I'd met him but I didn't really know him. The two of them started talking politics and it became clear he was a big liberal atheist type. He actually seemed like a nice guy who delighted in mocking his Christian conservative friend.

I pretty much stayed out of it. I was pretty proud of myself acting like a grownup. He called my buddy a member of the "Terry Schiavo right."

My buddy answered, "You're darn right I am. And proud of it."

After a few barbs back and forth about Schiavo the atheist guy said "What is it you don't understand about brain dead?"

My buddy actually put the pool table down on the stairs and offered to show the famous video of Schiavo's eyes following the balloon but the atheist guy declined. My buddy looked at me for support but I shrugged my shoulders. I was still acting like an adult.

After we got the table downstairs they sat down on the couch. I went upstairs to check on the kids. They were fine. (I think they were just happy not to be doing homework.)

When I came back down somehow the question of near death experiences came up and the atheist dude disregarded the very idea of nde's. He explained it all away by saying that sometimes when people die their brain still continues for a while but it's not really measurable by science and nde's are simply dreams or hallucinations.

Now I'd been a good adult for almost a half an hour but I couldn't let this go by.

I asked the atheist dude, "Just ten minutes ago you said 'what is it you don't understand about brain dead' concerning Terry Schiavo yet now you're saying that unmeasurable brain waves explain nde's. So now brain dead doesn't mean brain dead anymore?"

My buddy leaped off the couch started pointing at his face and doing a touchdown dance in front of him. I didn't because I was still Mr. Adult. The guy was clearly embarrassed but went on the attack saying, "Oh you brought another right wing nutjob. Thank God I'm here to add balance. You Fox News guys believe in fair and balanced right?"

He, of course, never answered the question. I can only hope that it'll stick in his head a little.

We played a race car video game for about twenty minutes. I made sure to knock his car off the road. Twice.

What?! I can't be an adult for a whole hour.

Thank God. And the Bus Driver.

The Associated Press is reporting that a Texas bus driver who was driving late at night nearly ran over a baby girl sitting in the middle of the road. The girl is fine, but her mother is now fighting to retain custody of her and her two sisters.

I know a lot of people are focusing on how bad the parents must be. But I just thank God for that alert bus driver. This is why you don't text and drive like this guy:

The "Pro-Life Dem" Lie Still Works

Yup. There's lot of Americans who haven't gotten the memo that there's no such thing as a pro-life Democrat. Or maybe they got the memo but they're just not reading it.

Jim Geraghty writes:

Critz ran as a conservative: Some conservatives bitterly chuckled that Democrats were celebrating the victory of a pro-life, pro-gun Democrat who opposed health care and cap-and-trade. (Public Policy Polling found only 30 percent of the district’s voters support Obamacare, and 58 percent oppose.) This comes on the heels of an anti-Obamacare, anti-Pelosi, pro-life Democrat, Mike Oliverio, knocking off incumbent Alan Mollohan in West Virginia. They contend that few Democrats will be able to run on as conservative a platform as Critz and Oliverio did.

That argument is true enough, but a lot of Democrats who are considered vulnerable will be attempting to run as conservatives this fall. In fact, what made Pennsylvania’s special House election a useful indicator was that the two candidates offered precisely the arguments we should see in many swing districts this fall: the Republican arguing that the Democrat was a puppet for President Obama and Nancy Pelosi, and the Democrat insisting that no, he had nothing to do with those Washington liberals, that he was just a homespun country boy who voted in his district’s best interest. Tuesday, a district full of conservative Democrats concluded that Critz made the more persuasive argument.

So the point is that Democrats can still pretend to be pro-life and many voters will buy it. That's the lesson of PA-12.

This race was watched closely by Democrats. They will seek to model many candidacies across the country on this (as they have done in the past.) Of course, they've done this in the past but I actually believed that we all watched the blowing up of the myth of the Blue Dog Democrat during the Obamacare debacle. Unfortunately, that is not so.

We have not yet learned.

Pelosi: Quit Your Job, We'll Support You

This sounds like good economic policy. Inspiring people to become bums/artists is now entrepreneurial, according to Nancy Pelosi. So they'll get government grants to pursue their art and free healthcare. And all you taxpayers just sit back and appreciate the work of your betters.

HT Moonbattery

Neanderthals and Humans - Duh!

By now you may have seen the report that scientists have mapped the Neanderthal genome and discovered that they are our ancestors. (Yeah, like Ron Perlman wasn't a dead giveaway?!?)

The way the media have reported this is that the separate species of humans and neanderthals interbred and this is proof of evolution. Darwin rules!! Hmmm? I dunno.

Seems to me (and to many scientists) that if some of our human ancestors were making cave babies with the neanderthals, the logical conclusion is that neanderthals were humans too.

Wired mag reports on the findings and says...

After years of anticipation, the Neanderthal genome has been sequenced. It’s not quite complete, but there’s enough for scientists to start comparing it with our own.

According to these first comparisons, humans and Neanderthals are practically identical at the protein level. Whatever our differences, they’re not in the composition of our building blocks.

However, even if the Neanderthal genome won’t show scientists what makes humans so special, there’s a consolation prize for the rest of us. Most people can likely trace some of their DNA to Neanderthals.

Turns out, Neanderthals is us and we is neanderthals.

Scientists are shocked at this amazing finding.

I hate to point out a small slightly embarrassing fact. There is one group of people who have been making just this very claim for some time. Yeah, them. (Shhhh, creationists)

I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

Look, for sure, even a broken clock is right twice a day. But that twice a day seems to be two times more a day than hardcore Darwinists.

I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.


[Note - I have no fundamental problem with evolution, just evolutionists! So spare me combox defenses of evolution, mmmmkkk?]

Aborting Fatherhood?

You ready for a piece that pinpoints the lunacy of our legal system when it comes to parenthood and abortion?

A column in Mens News Daily called "Time to Abort Fatherhood at Will" is an in-your-face read with some great points about the inequality of the law.

So many of the author Paul Elam's points are so dead on I just had to share it with you. It begins:

Abortion is baby killing.

Only in the reality averse feminism-is-about-equality mindset is abortion anything but the termination of a human life.

Technically speaking it can’t accurately be called murder, since technically speaking, it’s legal. The baby is no less dead, though, for that paltry distinction. But since it is a lawful action in which men are completely voiceless, and looks to remain that way, there is only one appropriate response.

It’s time for men to be allowed to legally abort fatherhood during the same period of time a woman is allowed to do the same by visiting her local clinic.

It’s time for a man to have the unfettered social and legal backing to look at a woman whom he has just impregnated directly in the eye and say, “See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya,” and to stroll off whistling a tune, to enjoy less inconvenient relationships, without his wallet being any lighter or his conscious any heavier.

If you are waiting for a punch line or some well placed literary device to put this into a different perspective…don’t. There isn’t one coming, nor should there be.

It's impossible not to see what Elam is saying.

A constitutional right to evade all the responsibilities of parenthood currently only belongs to half the population, according to current law. Men have no rights over the unborn but are on the hook for all the responsibility should the woman give birth.

Elam points out that since there is a discrepancy, men should also be able to renounce parenthood as well, consequences be damned. I would argue that the discrepancy should call all of us to accept responsibility for the new life. Rather than mirror the woman's bad behavior we should hope to change the culture so that less women find themselves in crisis pregnancies and less women abort their children.

But his point that as long as the "right" to abortion exists, is it fair to only have half the people able to access those rights?

Elam doesn't think so:

In the spirit of calling abortion what it is, let us examine the motives behind the decision to get one with the same unblinking candor. Abortion, in most circumstances, is not a decision to avoid pregnancy, but to avoid motherhood. In fact, the term reproductive rights is a misnomer; a postmodern guise to cover the real issue. It isn’t “My body, my choice,” it’s “My lifestyle, my choice,” even if it means killing a baby because it gets in the way.

In many, many cases, it is about choosing personal freedom and a social life over life itself. But what the heck, it’s 2010 people, and grrls gots to have choices.

But with that in mind, you will have to excuse me if I yawn at any outrage over the idea of a man being given the same options, especially given that men have already been aborted from the decision making process. That suits a lot of people and any idea of changing things will anger some as well.

The traditional male, from atop his white stallion, will scoff at the very idea of men’s choice, of course. His indignation will be echoed by his twin sister, the gender feminist. Somewhere, in the midst of sorting out responsibilities, both will invoke the “your baby, you pay,” catch-all, one of many shared attitudes that make these ostensibly strange bedfellows more like two peas in a pod when all is said and done.

But in their rush to ensure that she is given the role of sole arbiter, they will both adamantly deny the major flaw in their position.

There is no reason at all to use the expression “your baby,” when talking to any man in western culture, any more. Because when push comes to shove, as it often does, it is not his baby, it is hers.

He is a father with her permission and approval only. His genes, in the form of another human being, have become her property, lending new meaning to wearing the pants in the family, phonetically speaking.

Elam points out that he understands that the ability to renounce fatherhood will lead to many problems for children throughout the country.

And at last some will be asking “Hey, what about the baby? What about what is best for the baby? Are we really supposed to support men for the right to walk away from the children they create and shun all responsibility?”

The answer is yes. First, equality, for those that can stomach it, is a cruel master. Second, if ‘What about the baby?’ isn’t allowed to be asked before one is cut out of a woman’s womb and thrown into a garbage bin, then anyone asking the question now should just shut up.

We don’t care about what is best for children in this culture, we care about what is best for women or whatever they happen to say is best for them at the moment. So more than anything else, it is about giving women their way. In pursuing that we regularly kill children or rip their lives to shreds in a hundred other ways. And people want to ignore all that and start drawing lines here?

Please.

Rather than both mother and father avoiding responsibility I'd hope that mothers and fathers would always be asking "What about the baby?" But clearly the current legal framework is simply patched up feminism and needs to be changed.

You can read the entire thing at Men's News Daily.

Noted Atheist Says God's an Environmentalist

There's a good news/bad news thing going on here. The good news is that noted atheist Ted Turner seems to believe in God now, I guess. The bad news is that Ted Turner thinks God agrees with him.

Ted Turner believes God caused the oil spill in the Gulf. Newsbusters writes:

CNN founder Ted Turner, who thinks Christianity is a "religion for losers," apparently believes that the Gulf oil spill could actually be God sending us a message that drilling for oil is bad. Will media liberals read him the riot act as they have Sarah Palin for making similar claims?

"I'm just wondering if God's telling us he doesn't want us to drill offshore," Turner told a CNN interviewer. Recent coal mine disasters, Turner said, may also be signs that "the Lord's tired of having the mountains of West Virginia -- the tops knocked of of 'em so they can get more coal. Maybe we ought to just leave the coal in the ground and just use solar and wind power."

OK. What message then
was God sending with Katrina, was it an anti- New Orleans message. Anti-jazz?

Or how about that tsunami that killed thousands and thousands. What message was being sent then?

How is what Turner said any different from Pat Robertson's statement that Haiti was being punished with a good ol' fashioned smiting from God?

Newsbusters writer Lachlan Markay asks where's the media outrage over this comment. Why aren't they as upset with Turner just as they were upset over Sarah Palin's statement that the construction of an Alaska natural gas pipeline was God's will.

These are, of course, rhetorical questions.

Liars! I Think They Read the Bill

The Arizona Immigration Bill is ten pages long yet three...count 'em....three(!!!) high ranking Obama administration officials have admitted publicly that they haven't read the bill even though they've all criticized it.

Here's the thing. A lot of people are freaking out that these boobs haven't read the bill. But I believe they're saying they haven't read the bill simply as a dodge to avoid answering questions as to what's wrong with the bill.

Look at it. After Attorney General Eric Holder said in front of the country that he hadn't read the bill wouldn't you think the White House would've pointed out to its people that to avoid further embarrassing the administration they should all read the bill before speaking publicly about it. But far from administration officials downloading and reading the bill so as to avoid embarrassing the administration, saying that they hadn't read the bill now seems to be an administration talking point.

Why?

This tactic keeps them from having to substantiate their claims that the bill is racist or anti-immigrant. It's talk about the specifics of the bill that worries them and saying they haven't read the bill leaves them free to spout off generalities about racism and anti-immigrant fervor and racial profiling.

The Obama administration knows that there's nothing in the bill that they can get all worked up over as the Arizona bill is almost exactly the same as existing federal laws. The bill itself actually forbids racial profiling.

I think they probably read it but following the wisdom of Mark Twain, these people would rather be suspected of being fools rather than opening their mouths and proving it. But so important is the White House's ability to accuse conservatives of racism and anti-immigrant that the Obama administration would rather be seen as lazy and incompetent than unable to accuse Republicans of racism.






Assistant Secretary of State PJ Crowley

Abortion by Remote Control

Planned Parenthood clinics across Iowa are fine tuning an "advanced" and novel way to abort babies - by remote control.

According to reports, about 1,500 women have already used a videoconferencing system to obtain abortion drugs over the past two years. Planned Parenthood’s system now allows a doctor in Des Moines to meet with patients across the state through video conference. At the end of the teleconference the doctor presses a button on the computer to activate a drawer at the patient’s location that contains R-U 486.

The patient then takes the pills while the doctor watches. Death by remote control...Continue reading at the National Catholic Register>>>

Bolivian Prez Is A Jerk

At the risk of redundancy, President Evo Morales of Bolivia is a socialist and a jerk.

Invited to an audience with the Pope as a courtesy to a head of state, the socialist twerp decided to lecture the pope and advocate heresy.

Pope Benedict XVI received President Evo Morales of Bolivia at a 25 minute meeting at the Vatican on May 17. The Bolivian leader expressed his “concern” over the “difficulties” now assailing the Catholic Church. Morales suggested to the leader of the world’s Catholics that he should “abolish celibacy” for priests and also allow women to serve as priests.

Apparently not content to offer advice to the pope in private, Morales repeated his advice to the pope which he conveyed as “member of the base” of the Catholic Church rather than as chief of state. In his first private meeting with the pope, Morales handed the pontiff a letter expressing his concerns for the church and offering suggestions. “It was my mother who, when I was very young, who told me to close my eyes and bow my head when praying, thinking about the life lessons of the ‘Our Father’ and ‘Hail Mary,” wrote the Bolivian president to the pope. He encouraged the pope to do everything he can to “overcome the crisis in the Church, which as you have said, is wounded by sin.”

“Therefore,” wrote Morales, “it is necessary to democratize and humanize its clerical structure” so that “women may have the same opportunities as men to openly exercise the priesthood.” In addition, wrote Morales, “like Jesus, who became a men to be amongst us and understand us better, the Church should not deny such a fundamental part of our nature as human beings and must abolish celibacy.” According to Morales, “there would be therefore few sons and daughters unclaimed by their fathers, and we could therefore be sincere about reality.” Morales also called for protection of children to prevent their abuse by clergy. The Bolivian closed his letter by saying that he was certain that the pope would evaluate “wisely these proposals which humbly attempt to close the wounds of our Church.”

Evo, you see, is very concerned about cleibacy leading men to not claim their children. Ahem. Evo should know as he fathered a child that he refused to claim until the mother filed suit and he finally acknowledged his child. I am quite sure that a vow of celibacy was not involved.

Now this marxist moron wants to lecture the Pope. The Pope should have excommunicated him on the spot. That would have gotten the pinko punk's attention.

Study Links Substance Abuse and Abortion

A new study links abortion and substance abuse. That's the conclusion of a study performed by researchers at the University of Manitoba that found that women who have had an abortion are almost four times as likely to have substance abuse issues. The study also found a link between abortion and mental illness.

Using data from the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Drug Abuse, researchers found that abortion was associated with mood disorders, anxiety disorders, substance abuse and suicide attempts.

“This was the first study to examine associations between abortion and several mental disorders,” says Dr. Jitender Sareen, psychiatry.

He adds: “We found a higher likelihood of lifetime mood disorder in women who had experienced an abortion compared with those who had never had an abortion. A woman with a mood disorder might be more inclined to have an abortion, while conversely, an unplanned pregnancy and abortion could precipitate a mood disorder.”

Researchers acknowledge that as of yet they're unsure if abortion leads to mental illness and substance abuse or if women who've suffered from mental illness and substance abuse are simply more likely to obtain an abortion. But they've urged mental health professionals to screen for the linkage.

The problem facing such research is that the health care industry seems dead set against promulgating anything that could be seen as damaging to abortion businesses. Big Abortion is dead set against ultrasounds, never mind studies linking substance abuse and mood disorders with abortion.

Buckle Up. Fascism Ahead.

Everything Obama's regulatory czar says in this interview scares the heck out of me. Everything. But the lowlight is when he says "The word 'voluntary' is a little complicated."

Buckle up we may be hitting some fascism ahead.

HT Weasel Zippers

Nun Excommunicated for Approving Abortion

A nun reportedly approved of an abortion and is now automatically excommunicated. This, of course, is already being portrayed as the Church oppressing pregnant women and nuns.

To be technical though, the sister who approved of the abortion excommunicated herself. Bishop Olmsted simply acknowledged it but secular reporters aren't likely to appreciate that distinction.

A Fox affiliate is reporting:

Sister Margaret McBride, who was also a long-time administrator at St Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, has also been reassigned to other duties, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, head of the Phoenix Diocese said.

The incident occurred late last year when McBride was consulted -- along with doctors -- in the case of a young woman who was 11 weeks pregnant.

The woman was suffering a life-threatening condition which was likely to have caused her death had she not had an abortion.

"In this tragic case, the treatment necessary to save the mother's life required the termination of an 11-week pregnancy," hospital vice president Susan Pfister told the newspaper.

Pfister issued the statement on behalf of the hospital, its parent company Catholic Healthcare West, and the Sisters of Mercy, McBride's religious order.

Olmsted confirmed McBride was "automatically excommunicated" because of her involvement in the abortion.

"I am gravely concerned by the fact that an abortion was performed several months ago in a Catholic hospital in this diocese," Olmsted said.

"I am further concerned by the hospital's statement that the termination of a human life was necessary to treat the mother's underlying medical condition.

"An unborn child is not a disease. While medical professionals should certainly try to save a pregnant mother's life, the means by which they do it can never be by directly killing her unborn child. The end does not justify the means."

As always, we should pray for all involved. St. Gianna Molla pray for us.

Jean at Catholic Fire writes:

I have been reading all the secular news items on this story and they are making the Bishop out to be the heavy, when all he is doing is stating the obvious -- those who cooperated in the abortion automatically excommunicated themselves.

Courageous Priest has more on this story.

I Want Bill Donohue's Job

There is quite the tiff going on between William Donohue of the Catholic League and the denizens of dissent at the National Catholic Reporter.

It seems that other NCR does not like Bill very much. The published a piece by Joe Feuerherd entitled “Billy the bully is bad for the church.” If you think that title seems harsh, you should read Donohue’s response.

I am not here to wade into the he said/she said of this particular debate. Rather, I merely want to note a few facts and then make a humble suggestion.

First, whether you love or loathe Bill Donohue, you have to admit that this guy has fun doing his job. For a guy that does outrage for a living, he is having a blast. He is out there throwing punches and occasionally taking them too, but he always seems to be happy about it. Wouldn’t you want a job that made you smile like that...Continue reading at the National Catholic Register>>>

Why Modern Vampires Suck

I hate vampires. You might say that's a natural reaction to the undead. You're supposed to hate them. But you don't understand I really really hold a strong hate for the modern day milquetoast vampire.

How did we go from Nosferatu to Edward Cullen?

Give me the ol' days when the undead preyed on us, saw themselves as enemies of humanity and God. Give me the old days when Van Helsing kept Count Dracula at bay with the Holy Eucharist or a crucifix.

I have no need of agnostic or atheistic vampires. I don't want my bloodsuckers with existential angst. I want my vampires to acknowledge God and hate His holy guts.

What's happened to the old time vampire? I think the plight of the vampire mirrors what's happening in our culture.

LeStat was the brooding vampire of Anne Rice's famous series who was unsure of his place in the world because he was unsure of the existence of God himself.

I mostly blame Joss Whedon. In the show Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Whedon introduced us to the vampire with a soul, an unghastly invention. But it was a novel idea and there were still hundreds of vampires still running around trying to suck on necks at every turn so we didn't see the damage that the character Angel had done to vampires. Eventually other vampires obtained souls and even demons on the show ended up as kindly sidekicks.

And then came Twilight with the James Dean look-alike Edward Cullen with all his 90210 sulkiness as a symptom of our apathetic and agnostic age. As a sidenote, he worries about the state of vampire's souls. While LeStat was at least unsure and tortured about his soul, for Cullen it seems to be something to think about only as a parenthetical aside.

The HBO show "True Blood" essentially treats vampires as humans who are allergic to garlic and are unfortunately addicted to blood. They're victims and those who seek their destruction are portrayed as right wing Christian fanatics.

But let's face it. Crosses haven't had any effect on vampires for years in mainstream vampire-dom simply because the cross doesn't have any effect on so many of us. The demise of the vampire mirrors our own cultural demise.

Now we need to be inclusive about the Un-Dead just as we need to be inclusive about all evil. They even go further by saying that good and evil don't exist. I want good and evil back. I want my old time vampires back.

It used to be our fear that we would be made into vampires but we've done far worse we've made vampires us. And to me, that's even scarier.

Vote For This Guy!! Awesome Squared!

I don't know what the Alabama Agriculture Commissioner does. Truth is, I have no idea who Dale Peterson is and what his qualifications for the job are. I don't know anything about his opinions or policies. But I don't care. I want to move to Alabama just so I can vote for a guy I never heard for a job I never heard of. Why? Because of this....



ht Redstate

Tiny Tim vs. Al Gore?

So Tiny Tim was the father of the global warming movement? Yeah, that fits. Make sure you at least make it to the chorus where he starts screaming "The Icecaps are meltin Oh-oh-oh-oh-OOOOOOOh!"

But you've got to decide who's crazier? Tiny Tim is the obvious kind of bonkers that you see on street corners and cross the street to avoid whereas Al Gore is the more dangerous kind of looney that isn't immediately apparent and you don't know he's flipped until he's sitting in your living room eating your Chinese food and lecturing you that your freezer's running too high.

So compare Gore's performance with Tiny Tim's and tell me who you think is crazier.



Now, you tell me how Tiny Tim's performance is any more embarassing or less looney than this:



Two walk into the cage. Only one walks out. You decide. Who is crazier?

HT to Moonbattery

Katie Couric a Modern Margaret Sanger

In these times of high unemployment and dangerous deficits one issue has become so awful and dangerous to America that CBS news anchor Katie Couric has called for millions and millions of dollars to be spent on solving it. What is it? Preventing poor women from having babies, of course.

Newsbusters has Couric's transcript:

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill, a tiny tablet that revolutionized women's health.

But before we break out the cake and streamers, we should remember the pill is still off limits to millions of American women.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, roughly 17.4 million low-income women need publicly-funded contraception but only 9.4 million are receiving it. As many as 8 million lack adequate care.

Couric is siding with those wonderful people at Planned Parenthood to rid the world of poor babies. You see, rich people can afford contraceptive abortifacients but poor people's babies are still slipping through. Darn poor babies! This has really got to kill Planned Parenthood as nearly the entire purpose behind their founding was to prevent poor and minorities from reproducing.

I can't help but see Couric as a modern day Cruella De Vil who just simply hates those Dalmations because there's just too many of them and she'll do whatever it takes to stop them.

You also have to wonder at how Planned Parenthood is trying to change the definition of contraception to "preventative medicine" as if pregnancy were a disease. Sheesh, everyone knows that babies aren't a disease. They're a punishment, just like our President says they are.



Update: Check out the Deacon's Bench for his personal story about Katie Couric and Margaret Sanger.

Eradicating Autism Through Death

When science hands us a way to pre-natally diagnose Autism, the horror will be unspeakable. And its coming.

Our friend Leticia reminds us to be careful when we donate to disabilities charities. With some charities, the bulk of the funds goes to pre-natal diagnosis. Of course, the reality of the matter is that R&D into pre-natal diagnosis is usually not about a cure. As Leticia puts it, "AKA search and destroy techniques to kill babies with the disability. Not curing our children who already have the disability. "

This is what happened with March of Dimes.

Such was the case with the March of Dimes and abortion of babies with Down syndrome in the 1970's and the same thing is happening now that Autism may soon be prenatally diagnosed.
...
The National Down Syndrome Society and National Down Syndrome Congress both call themselves pro-choice as well. We already have a 90% abortion rate of our children, yet they stand silently by about it.

If or when they can effectively pre-natally diagnose Autism or even just susceptibility to Autism, abortion will be the solution and the carnage will be unspeakable.

BigGovernment.com is on the story of the very highly paid head of Autism speaks being appointed to Obama's Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee IACC.

Ridiculously high compensation is not the only reason to be concerned with Dawson’s appointment and Autism Speaks. The IACC provides advice to Sebelius regarding Federal activities related to autism spectrum disorder. (ASD). They also exchange information on and coordinate activities among the member agencies and organizations. Dawson’s employment by Autism Speaks ensures that their agenda will be carried out. Instead of funding services for families and individuals, Autism Speaks’ operating budget goes primarily towards research on the cause of autism, much of it devoted to finding particular genes with an eye to developing a prenatal test. As families of children with Down Syndrome are aware, the existence of prenatal testing for autism means a vast increase in the eugenic abortion of children with autism before they are born.
...
Geraldine Dawson is part of a movement determined to eradicate people with autism from our society. We need more respect and understanding when it comes to the autism community. Sebelius’ choice to appoint Dawson to the IACC does not represent the hope and change that many in the autism community were expecting.

Dark days are ahead. Very dark days.