Brutally Honest

You too can be an Engineer

With appropriate props to Bird Dog.

"Certainly it wasn’t Obama’s elitism, or his anti-Americanism, or his sleazy Chicago cronies..."

"... or his youthful infatuation with cocaine and Marxist professors, or his long-time association with a radical domestic terrorist, or his membership in a church led by one of the most inflammatory Black separatist pastors in the country.  Nah, it couldn’t possibly be any of those things that disinterested voters in the South.  It must be because he is half African.  Because that’s all we ever think about down here."

That and more from Wizbang colleague Michael Laprarie responding to this WaPo piece “Kentucky, Arkansas primaries: Is it racism?”

Yea... it's racism.

"It's like something out of a horror film. The person just sits there and watches you die"

Think for a moment of the soullessness of the nurse involved in this incident:

Volusia County School officials stand by a Deltona High School nurse's decision to refuse a student his inhaler during an asthma attack, citing a lack of a parent's signature on a medical release form.

"It's like something out of a horror film. The person just sits there and watches you die," said Michael Rudi, 17. "She sat there, looked at me and she did nothing."

He said the school dean found his inhaler during a search of his locker last Friday. The inhaler was still in its original packaging -- complete with his name and directions for its use; however, the school took it away because his mother hadn't signed the proper form for him to have it.

School leaders called Sue Rudi when her son started having trouble breathing. She rushed to the office and was taken back to the nurse's office by school administrators and they discovered the teen on the floor.

"As soon as we opened up the door, we saw my son collapsing against the wall on the floor of the nurse's office while she was standing in the window of the locked door looking down at my son, who was in full-blown asthma attack," Rudi said.

Michael Rudi said when he started to pass out from his attack, the nurse locked the door.

"I believe that when I closed my eyes I wasn't going to wake up," he said.
The Director of Student Health Services, Cheryl Selesky, said that parents must sign the medical release form each year, which allows students to carry their prescribed drugs with them in school.

This year, the district had no record of his Rudi's signature, said Selesky.

"I mean its common sense if I saw an animal on the street in distress I would probably stop to help, why wouldn't she help a child," Sue Rudi said.
But Rudi is a senior, and his mother said the district has had records of his asthma throughout his years in the school.

She thinks her son could have died because of a technicality.

"How dare you deny my son something that we all take for granted, breath," said Sue Rudi. "Why didn't someone call 911?"

Because too many have given over their humanity to idiocy, to apathy, to an inability to put common sense ahead of bureaucratic stupidity.

God have mercy on this nurse because at this point, I could not.

 

 

"A convoluted, ongoing nightmare"

Michelle Malkin has turned me on to something I confess to having missed but that's firing up the 'sphere in big way, and rightly so:

For conservatives online, it is also a time-tested truism that there is great strength in numbers. When bloggers, activists, video content creators, and Twitter users on the Right unite behind common principles — fighting jihadi propaganda, exposing corruption, calling out media bias, following the progressive money trail, holding the Republican Party’s feet to the fire, etc. — we can accomplish uncommon things.

Over the past year, Aaron Walker (who blogged as “Aaron Worthing”), Patterico, Liberty Chick, and now Stacy McCain have been targeted by convicted Speedway bomber Brett Kimberlin because they dared to mention his criminal past or assisted others who did. The late Andrew Breitbart warned about Kimberlin and company.

I have spoken directly with both Patterico and Aaron about their ongoing battles.

The mainstream press, not just the conservative blogosphere, needs to hear and report their stories.

This is a convoluted, ongoing nightmare that combines abuse of the court system, workplace intimidation, serial invasions of privacy, perjury, and harassment of family members. McCain was forced to move with his family out of his house this week, and has just gotten a small taste of what Aaron and Patterico have been enduring over the past year. Aaron and his wife were fired from their jobs after their employer feared the office would be targeted next. Convicted bomber Kimberlin has filed bogus “peace orders” against Aaron, when it is the Walkers who are the victims, not the perpetrators.

And Patterico’s plight will send chills up your spine when he is ready to tell it.

There's more with links to others covering the cause.

It's a travesty and if this butt-wipe Kimberlin is allowed to get away with it, you know there'll be others following in his slimy footsteps.

Pass this on.  Do your part.  Join the blogburst.

 

Victim soul

There are some in life who are particularly blessed by God.

You might be surprised as to who these people are... and Mark Shea was surprised at who brings the intriguing news:

That's excellent stuff... and most Catholic.

"This is a nothingburger of a story"

Elizabeth Scalia takes on media hypocrisy:

It is, of course, the usual mainstream media free-assist that should probably be considered a kind of campaign contribution: the LA Times, read by Hollywood folk who air-condition their garages while telling the little people to make sure they hang their laundry out to dry, today tries to help the Obama campaign’s class warfare efforts by talking about Ann Romney’s equestrian hobby, which both the headline and the very first paragraph of the Times’ story points out, is “pricey.”

This is an article, I am sure, that will be of interest to Bruce Spiingsteen, whose daughter demonstrates her own equestrian skills every summer in the Hamptons.

We still do not know much about Barack Obama’s past, or his wife’s — we know only what they want us to, and the incurious media remains…incurious — but we know about Mitt Romney’s misguided hijinks from 50 years ago, his church’s misbegotten “militia” from 150 years ago, and now Ann Romney — who by the way has “never worked a day in her life” — gets an examination of past litigation (from which she was eventually dropped) examined, with a lengthy look at her love of equestrian dressage.

Really, this is a nothingburger of a story, but the examination of past litigation was really just an excuse for the paper to deliver a subliminal message: Oooooo…this wealthy person has a “pricey” hobby, while you’re eating a bologna sandwich and realizing you can’t even afford a “staycation.”

You know what else is a really “pricey” hobby?

She answers that question more than adequately.

"There is no consolation..."

Katrina Fernandez is one courageous woman:

The bumper sticker read, “Having an abortion does not make you un-pregnant, it makes you the mother of a dead baby”. The word “mother” struck me because “mother” is such a powerful word. It conjures many meanings, and when a woman becomes one she is fundamentally changed. “Mother” as a verb means to nurture, care for and protect. “Mother” as a noun means a female person who is pregnant with or gives birth to a child; or a female person whose egg unites with sperm, resulting in the conception of a child.

By this definition if you’ve ever been pregnant you are a Mother. Even if you’ve had an abortion you are still a Mother… a grieving Mother.

“A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be consoled, since they were no more.” Matthew 2:18

There is no consolation to be had for the mother that loses a child. She will grieve in her heart for the rest of her life. Abortion; however, not only robs a child of it’s life and a mother of it’s child, it also robs the mother of her grieving. She is not allowed to grieve because she cannot publicly claim the title Mother.

Abortion advocates will never admit a post-abortive woman is a Mother because to admit that would acknowledge the existence that there was once a child. Not a clump of cells, but a very real living child. When girls begin menstruating they are not called mothers to a clump of cells, yet so many people really believe an abortion is just like having a heavy period or passing a large menstrual clot. This was how it was described to me when I found myself in their clinic fifteen years ago. Two years later when I returned to have a second abortion the lie had not changed.

You should read the rest.

Really, you should.

Probe?

Or loon?

A US Airways jet traveling from Paris to North Carolina was diverted to Maine on Tuesday after a French passenger handed a note to a flight attendant mentioning that she had a surgically implanted device, raising security concerns, officials said.

An examination by doctors aboard the plane found that the passenger, a French citizen born in Cameroon, had no scars, said U.S. Rep. Peter King, who was briefed on the matter. The woman was traveling alone without any checked baggage and intended to stay in the U.S. for 10 days, he said.

...

Two F-15 fighters scrambled to escort Flight 787 with 179 passengers and nine crew members to Bangor International Airport, where it landed shortly after noon Tuesday.

Tony Caruso, acting airport manager, told reporters that the passenger was “unruly” and was removed after the jet taxied to a remote part of the airport.

I say probe... I hope loon.

One of the most deceptive Obama ads yet

This is simply ridiculous, simply stupid.  Unless Barack Obama is re-elected, little girls will not be able to live out their dreams.

Shamefully deceptive, shallowly manipulative.

Who buys into this fecal matter?  Seriously?  

Who?

H/T CMR.

Makes me seriously consider dropping this off on the windshield of the next car I see adorned with an Obama bumper sticker, especially if I've determined that person is of the female persuasion:

News not fit for America's consumption

Frank Weathers is covering the news barely covered by The News:

I can’t remember the last time I actually watched the evening news. Too many ads from pharmaceutical companies and not enough real news as I recall. But tonight, what with the news that 40+ Catholic organizations sued the government by simultaneously filing a dozen lawsuits across the country, I decided to take a look, and realized pretty quickly that I’m never going to get back that half hour of my life.

I didn’t bother with CNN, or Fox, but I informally surveyed what used to be the Big Three, ABC, CBS, and NBC. Of those three networks, only CBS mentioned the story at all. Deep into the program, ’round about the 25 minute mark, Scott Pelley spent 10 to 15 seconds on the story, er blurb. ABC and NBC? Nothing at all. Nada, zilch, zippo.

Checking their websites, NBC has nothing on the story at all. CBS has a pretty good article, except they give quite a lot of ink to Planned Parenthoods’ president Cecile Richards, though they wrap it up with a wee snippet from Fr. John Jenkin’s of the University of Notre Dame. The article by ABC News included quotes from Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Fr. Jenkins, and much better background information about what has brought us to this point.

This probably is shocking to no one, but the mainstream media doesn’t seem to be very excited about sharing the wealth of information about this story with the general public.

Frank's got more including a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that pretty much explains it all.

Chris Christie: Obama is “walking around in a dark room trying to find the light switch of leadership”

No holds barred from the New Jersey Governor:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told Kentucky Republicans on Saturday that President Barack Obama was “posing and preening” instead of working to resolve pressing issues facing the country.

“He is the most ill-prepared person to assume the presidency in my lifetime,” Christie told some 600 Kentucky Republicans at a Lexington hotel. “This is a guy who literally is walking around in a dark room trying to find the light switch of leadership.”

Christie was in Kentucky to deliver a pep talk to state GOP leaders. The state’s presidential primary is Tuesday, though it will have no significant impact. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

In his remarks, Christie focused entirely on the general election, drawing a standing ovation for his biting remarks about Obama.

“He has sat in the Oval Office and cared more about posing and preening and making partisan politics the rule of the day in Washington D.C. than he’s cared about progress,” the New Jersey Republican, now in his third year in office, said of Obama.

...

Christie urged Kentucky voters to work hard to defeat Obama.

“Now listen,” he said, “this country’s problems are too serious, too serious, to spend another day with a bystander in the oval office.”

More please Governor Christie, we need more.

It's hope and change I can buy into.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

We Will Not Comply takes on new meaning (UPDATED)

Fascinating happenings coming from many of the nation's Catholics... God bless 'em:

Catholic archdioceses and institutions filed suit in federal district courts across the country Monday against the so-called contraception mandate, in one of the biggest coordinated legal challenges to the rule to date. 

Claiming their "fundamental rights hang in the balance," a total of 43 plaintiffs filed a dozen separate lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the requirement. Among the organizations were the University of Notre Dame and the Archdiocese of New York. 

...

A statement from the University of Notre Dame said the requirement would still call on religious-affiliated groups to "facilitate" coverage "for services that violate the teachings of the Catholic Church." 

"The federal mandate requires Notre Dame and similar religious organizations to provide in their insurance plans abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives and sterilization procedures, which are contrary to Catholic teaching. It also authorizes the government to determine which organizations are sufficiently 'religious' to warrant an exemption from the requirement," the statement said. 

I'm one hundred percent in agreement with the plaintiffs and quite frankly, if you're not, you damned well ought to be.

I don't expect Obama and his minions to take this lying down, in fact, quite the opposite.

Things could get rough for faithful Catholics... not so much for cultural Catholics...

If you consider yourself a Catholic, which are you?

Crossposted at Wizbang.

UPDATE: Bishop Dolan, the proverbial face of opposition to Obama's HHS mandate, has issued a related statement:

“We have tried negotiation with the Administration and legislation with the Congress – and we’ll keep at it – but there's still no fix. Time is running out, and our valuable ministries and fundamental rights hang in the balance, so we have to resort to the courts now. Though the Conference is not a party to the lawsuits, we applaud this courageous action by so many individual dioceses, charities, hospitals and schools across the nation, in coordination with the law firm of Jones Day. It is also a compelling display of the unity of the Church in defense of religious liberty. It's also a great show of the diversity of the Church's ministries that serve the common good and that are jeopardized by the mandate – ministries to the poor, the sick, and the uneducated, to people of any faith or no faith at all.”

Maureen Dowd "has completely bought into the arrested-adolescent perspective"

The Anchoress was asked by a reader to respond to Maureen Dowd's latest anti-Catholic screed and she has obliged.

Oh how she has obliged:

Dowd has demonstrated that she really doesn’t understand much about Catholicism and its unending, beautifully nuanced and constant move toward God’s ever-present “Yes” — a fundamentally sophisticated and paradoxical means toward true freedom. As with many other issues, she has completely bought into the arrested-adolescent perspective, which can only perceive the church as a numbing “no.” Since Dowd is unwilling to plumb the depths of the church in order to seek out its richness, there are absolutely no surprises in the piece, and I was ready to push it aside until she hauled out Mario Cuomo, as she is wont to do from time-to-time.

Just as Nancy Pelosi recently (and badly) tried to give talking points to Catholicswho support gay marriage, nearly 30 years ago Cuomo helped give Catholic politicians and pundits cover and talking points to assist in their dissent on abortion. Now, Dowd was turning to Cuomo again, looking for something cleverer and less ham-handed than Pelosi’s try. Cuomo served up this:

“If the church were my religion, I would have given it up a long time ago,” he said. “All the mad and crazy popes we’ve had through history, decapitating the husbands of women they’d taken. All the terrible things the church has done. Christ is my religion, the church is not.

Oh, heavens, Mario, when did you start channeling Anne Rice? You’re running on the cheap and inefficient fuel of emotionalism, here! There is not a church man or church woman alive — including, I would wager, Pope Benedict XVI — who would not agree that if the institutional church were not surviving by the grace of the Holy Spirit it would have long-sinced ceased to be, because its human administrators have always been faulty, sinful, broken but redeemed people. But to say “Christ is my religion, the church is not,” is both ignorant and laughably self-serving.

She's hardly done so read the rest.

Ignorant and laughably self-serving is a kind way of describing so many who engage in Catholic bashing.  They largely base their criticism on false premises and assertions while completely ignoring the good and the holy that makes the church unique.

I have little tolerance for that 'arrested-adolescent perspective'.

"Never have we seen such an effort to divide the American people..."

Marc Rubio is analyzing the President's strategy for winning in 2012:

It's true. So very true.

H/T to NoisyRoom.Net.

"An ecological activist of the most serious kind"

That from the bio page of on Pentti Linkola... and this apparently is not farce or satire, this dude is a for real self-described eco-fascist:

Pentti Linkola writes about the apocalyptic climactic changes that will soon effect us here in humanityland, but he doesn't take the easy way out that most authors do. Instead, he chooses to be brutally honest and suggests that we've already missed our chance to curb our damage of the world, so what we must do is to begin the elimination of human and technological excesses now.

Quotations

"What to do, when a ship carrying a hundred passengers suddenly capsizes and there is only one lifeboat? When the lifeboat is full, those who hate life will try to load it with more people and sink the lot. Those who love and respect life will take the ship's axe and sever the extra hands that cling to the sides."

"The composition of the Greens seems to be the same as that of the population in general — mainly pieces of drifting wood, people who never think."

"A minority can never have any other effective means to influence the course of matters but through the use of violence."

"Any dictatorship would be better than modern democracy. There cannot be so incompetent dictator, that he would show more stupidity than a majority of the people. Best dictatorship would be one where lots of heads would roll and government would prevent any economical growth."

"The most central and irrational faith among people is the faith in technology and economical growth. Its priests believe until their death that material prosperity bring enjoyment and happiness - even though all the proofs in history have shown that only lack and attempt cause a life worth living, that the material prosperity doesn't bring anything else than despair. These priests believe in technology still when they choke in their gas masks."

"That there are billions of people over 60kg weight on this planet is recklessness."

"Alternative movements and groups are a welcome relief and a present for the society of economic growth."

"We will have to...learn from the history of revolutionary movements — the national socialists, the Finnish Stalinists, from the many stages of the Russian revolution, from the methods of the Red Brigades — and forget our narcissistic selves."

"Everything we have developed over the last 100 years should be destroyed."

"A fundamental, devastating error is to set up a political system based on desire. Society and life are been organized on basis of what an individual wants, not on what is good for him or her...Just as only one out of 100,000 has the talent to be an engineer or an acrobat, only a few are those truly capable of managing the matters of a nation or mankind as a whole...In this time and this part of the World we are headlessly hanging on democracy and parliamentary system, even though these are the most mindless and desperate experiments of the mankind...In democratic coutries the destruction of nature and sum of ecological disasters has accumulated most...Our only hope lies in strong central government and uncompromizing control of the individual citizen."

"If the present amount of Earths population is preserved and is reduced only by the means of birth control, then:
- Birthgiving must be licenced. To enhance population quality, genetically or socially unfit homes will be denied offspring, so that several birth licences can be allowed to families of quality.
- Energy production must be drastically reduced. Electricity is allowed only for the most necessary lighting and communications.
- Food: Hunting must be made more efficient. Human diet will include rats and invertebrate animals. Agriculture moves to small un-mechanized units. All human manure is used as fertilizer.
- Traffic is mostly done with bicycles and rowing boats. Private cars are confiscated. Long-distance travel is done with sparse mass transport. Trees will be planted on most roads.
- Foreign affairs: All mass immigration and most of import-export trade must stop. Cross-border travel is allowed only for small numbers of diplomats and correspondents.
- Business will mostly end. Manufacture is allowed only for well argumented needs. All major manufacturing capacity is state owned. Products will be durable and last for generations.
- Science and schooling: Education will concentrate on practical skills. All competition is rooted out. Technological research is reduced to extreme minimum. But every child will learn how to clean a fish in a way that only the big shiny bones are left over."

Yup.  I'd consider him a most serious ecological activist.

H/T to Fr. Philip Powell

"Straight couples may have a lot to learn from gay and lesbian relationships"

CNN is offering helpful advice to we heterosexuals:

Couples of all orientations find themselves struggling with the same issues, from mismatched libidos to sex ruts to infidelity. “The underlying dynamics are identical,” says Emily Nagoski, sex educator and author of "A Scientific Guide to Successful Relationships."

“They may play out differently because of the differences in gender or because of external social pressures, but the rules are the same – and there's some clear indications that gay couples are actually better at following those rules than straight couples!”

Nagoski pointed me to a 12-year study of same-sex couples by eminent marriage therapist Dr. John Gottman, which concluded that all couple types - straight or gay - have many of the same issues and the same paths to staying happy together.

But Gottman’s research also indicated that gay/lesbian couples are more upbeat in the face of conflict and, compared to straight couples, use more affection and humor when they bring up a disagreement.

"When it comes to emotions, we think these couples may operate with very different principles than straight couples,” says Gottman. “Straight couples may have a lot to learn from gay and lesbian relationships."

Studies suggest, for instance, that gay male couples tend to have sex more often than any other type of couples, while lesbian couples tend to have the least amount of sex. Since women often value emotional intimacy over sexual intimacy, low sex drive may not be a concern.

Likewise, two men who have strong libidos may be able to accommodate their sexual desires within an open relationship.

“A number of my gay clients prefer to be sexually open but emotionally monogamous,” says sex and relationship therapist Joe Kort. “They can have lovers on the side and not have it be a threat to the relationship.”

Being sexually open with lovers on the side is something straight couples ought to learn from gay and lesbian relationships as it leads to happiness together.

These same gay and lesbians who apparently think it wise, presumably, to be married and who think this redefinition of the term are simply being prudish, backwards, intolerant and bigoted.

So. Much. To. Learn.

"It’s all so tired, the kind of fake praise showered upon those one views as easy to impress"

Campbell Brown, former news anchor for CNN and NBC, is talking about Barack Hussein Obama:

WHEN I listen to President Obama speak to and about women, he sometimes sounds too paternalistic for my taste. In numerous appearances over the years — most recently at the Banard graduation — he has made reference to how women are smarter than men. It’s all so tired, the kind of fake praise showered upon those one views as easy to impress. As I listen, I am always bracing for the old go-to cliché: “Behind every great man is a great woman.”

Some women are smarter than men and some aren’t. But to suggest to women that they deserve dominance instead of equality is at best a cheap applause line.

My bigger concern is that in courting women, Mr. Obama’s campaign so far has seemed maddeningly off point. His message to the Barnard graduates was that they should fight for a “seat at the table” — the head seat, he made sure to add. He conceded that it’s a tough economy, but he told the grads, “I am convinced you are tougher” and “things will get better — they always do.”

Hardly reassuring words when you look at the reality. 

...

I have always admired President Obama and I agree with him on some issues, like abortion rights. But the promise of his campaign four years ago has given way to something else — a failure to connect with tens of millions of Americans, many of them women, who feel economic opportunity is gone and are losing hope. In an effort to win them back, Mr. Obama is trying too hard. He’s employing a tone that can come across as grating and even condescending. He really ought to drop it. Most women don’t want to be patted on the head or treated as wards of the state. 

Yet many women will settle for exactly that.

Here's hoping Campbell Brown's awakening is the beginning of a trend.

The gay marriage bottom line

Bonchamps at American Catholic cuts to the chase:

In the case of “gay marriage”, the big lie is that there is some desire on the part of conservatives and Christians in this country to actually deny some right, some liberty, some freedom to people who identify themselves and live as homosexuals. As abhorrent, disordered and immoral as I find the “gay lifestyle” to be, the truth is that – and here I speak for virtually every conservative Christian I know or have read – we really are not the least bit interested in micro-managing the sex-lives of our fellow citizens. We have absolutely no desire to have uniformed gendarmes kick in your bedroom doors to make sure no acts of sodomy are taking place in the middle of the night. The only thing more repugnant to me than such acts would be the prospect of becoming comfortable with the sort of routine invasions of personal privacy that would be required to ensure that no one was living out their life as a homosexual. 

To be even more specific, to the gay couple we say: we do not care if you visit one another in the hospital. We do not care if you grant one another medical power of attorney. We do not care if you jointly own property. We do not care if you leave property for each other inherit when one of you dies. We do not care if you own a home together and live in it. We do not care if you get dressed up, rent a local hall, stage whatever sort of ceremony you like, and even refer to yourselves as “married.”

We may object, on different grounds, some secular, some religious, to your adopting children. After all, there are now other human beings in the equation- and there seems to be at least some kind of moral consensus across political lines that the interests of children do sometimes take precedence over the rights and privileges of adults. In any case, its something we can safely set aside for the moment.

To reiterate, this time specifically to the radical homosexual: on all the  issues that concern the consenting adults only, we don’t care. Of course we care in the abstract that you are leading lives of grave sin in open defiance of God, but then so do millions of “heterosexuals” who fornicate, commit adultery, use artificial contraception, sterilize themselves, and so on. Not every sin can or should be a matter for the state to concern itself with, and we are content to let God judge in these matters; but no sin, and this brings us closer to the main point here, can ever be called a virtue, no evil can ever be called a good, by any Christian with a conscience, or by any citizen who cares about the integrity of society.

You can live as you want, engage in whatever sort of contracts you like, conduct any sort of ceremonies you please. But there is one thing you cannot have, and it is the one thing you seek through this radical political agenda, these hysterical protests and complaints about Christians: our approval. It cannot possibly be about anything else, because it is really the only thing you are missing. You want to live in a world in which everyone regards what you do and how you live not only as normal, but as a positive good. And your attempts to legalize “gay marriage” are about this and this alone. It is not about “equal rights” that you already possess, it is not about the freedom to openly identify as gay, which you already have. It is about using the power of the state to force society to recognize your living arrangements and lifestyle choices as legitimate. It is about policing the thoughts and opinions of the American people. It is about sharing prestige with properly and truly married couples. It is about envy and resentment, and a deep, abiding hatred of religion in general and Christianity in particular.

Let me be blunt: your disordered lifestyles are not equal to the traditional marriage or the traditional family, which have served as the foundation of civilization since its very beginnings. You do not deserve equal prestige, and nor, for that matter, do “straight” couples who actively choose not to procreate. And you have no right to such things. You have no right to have the state give you extra benefits, tax breaks, or anything of the sort – you have no right to have your romantic choices ratified by society. You don’t have the right to go through life without being heckled or bullied, as you heckle and bully the Christians you hate, as you mock with the most disgusting outrages imaginable all that we hold sacred.

In the face of your tyranny, your bullying, your mockery, your boundless hate, we will continue to persevere.

H/T Mark Shea who adds:

It’s ironic really.  The draconian demand for approval that cannot settle for mere tolerance shows that, at some level, that the gay “marriage” movement which holds Christians in such deep contempt hungers–with the hunger of a child eager to hear a word of praise from her Father–to hear praise from exactly the people that movement claims to despise.  And above all, it seems to me that this, in turn, demonstrates that such folk hunger to hear a word of love and welcome from God (as do we all).

We Christians, it seems to me, need to find a way to communicate that the homosexual is loved and welcomed by God–just not the sin of homosex.  But that requires that both we and they regard them as something more than their appetites and grasp that they are not identical to or co-terminous with those appetites.

God grant us wisdom.

Mother Mary, pray for us.

Will Smith... intolerant homophobe

And a bully to boot... slapped the reporter in his face when all he was trying to do was kiss him on the mouth...

C'mon Will... quit being such a neanderthal...  

Dan Savage could not be reached for comment.

NOW holds massive rally against Rush Limbaugh

I counted 7 women.

And the leader of the group claimed she didn't want to fall into the trap of this being all about Rush.

Really.

She also said that Rush was all about silencing women... while she seeks to get Rush taken off of radio.

Really.

In the mean-time, Rush Babes for America has 65,000+ likes as of this writing.

H/T to Creative Minority Report.

Amen!

I have no problem whatsoever with this coming our way via The Anchoress:

I love our priests, and honor them, but it’s hard to argue that an unfaithful straight priest is better than a faithful gay one. I would rather see a homosexually-inclined happy, celibate priest be able to live in honesty about who he is, than learn about a hetero priestliving a lie. A faithful priest is a faithful priest. A happy, joy-filled priest serves the body of Christ in a powerful way.

Allow me to anticipate the argument that the priesthood cannot be open to people the Eastern religions call “imbalanced” and our church calls “disordered.” Find me a priest who doesn’t have some sort of disorder, whether it’s an eating disorder, or an attention-seeking disorder, or a disorder of social ineptness, a hearing disorder, or even a learning disorder. Our priests are human, imperfect, faulty and sometimes broken, just like the rest of us. I think as a church we do ourselves and our dear priests a disservice by pretending that one particular disorder is not represented among them — and we do our gay brothers and sisters a disservice, too, by rendering them only partly visible.

Listen to me carefully.

I am disordered.  I need Christ and His Church to bring order to my disorderedness.

But what I don't do is attempt to have my readers, my family, my friends and coworkers or anyone within earshot, affirm my disorderedness, celebrate my disorderedness, cajole you into thinking that there's nothing wrong with my disorderedness.

A priest who considers himself gay but who is celibate and who is fulfilling his God ordained role as pastor and shepherd is a priest I'll have no problem with.

And let me change those words just a little.

A man or woman who considers himself or herself gay but who is celibate and who is fulfilling his or her God ordained role as a child of God I'll have no problem with.

Period.

Thank you Elizabeth for this much needed post and the opportunity it avails me to set the record straight.

"It takes some resume juicing to be really legit in the diversity crowd. So, you lie."

Melissa Clouthier has the most plausible of posts up explaining the Obama was born in Kenya stories bolstered by recent revelations uncovered by Breitbart:

Barack Obama’s promotional materials, as late as 2007, said he was born in Kenya. Read about it here and then, come back.

Why would he do this? It seems crazy.

Imagine you’re a hippie kid. Your dad is some Kenyan big wig. Your mom is a self-important sociologist doing such important work that you, Barack Obama, must be left home with grandma and grandpa.

You are boring.

You are a mixed race kid on Hawaii in the sixties which is not a big deal because everyone has Hawaiian blood and has mocha skin. You are relatively wealthy and end up at a prep school with other wealthy kids.

You have to justify your existence.

No mom. No dad. Rather provincial, if privileged, Hawaiian life, but lots of questions from peers.

What do you do?

Well, nothing, other than smoke dope, do cocaine (expensive – but no big deal for rich kids), and hang out acting like a badass.

And then, there’s privileged college where you lead a rather mundane and calculated existence.

You don’t find yourself there. You just find out how you don’t want to self-identify.

Like Elizabeth Warren, it’s really not enough to be a white, privileged kid. Or even a mixed-raced privileged kid.

It takes some resume juicing to be really legit in the diversity crowd.

So, you lie.

You pretend you’re a man of the world. You tell people you were born in Kenya. You brag about your time in Indonesia.

You don’t talk about Hawaii.

You don’t talk about your white mother.

You don’t talk about your white grandparents who raised you and gave you a conventional, privileged upbringing.

You pretend you’re part of the victim class.

You pretend you’re worldly wise.

Given this President's penchant for lying, his penchant for pretending, this I think at this point makes the most sense.

But boy oh boy will the birthers take this story and run with it... and who can blame them.

How did the prosecution decide on 2nd degree murder charges against Zimmerman?

When the evidence for that charge is so scant?

Two police reports written the night that George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin said that Zimmerman had a bloody face and nose, according to police reports made public today.

The reports also note that two witness accounts appear to back up Zimmerman's version of what happened when they describe a man on his back with another person wearing a hoodie straddling him and throwing punches.

It has been such a contentious case that even the evidence is being disputed.

The police report states that Trayvon Martin's father told an investigator after listening to 911 tapes that captured a man's voice frantically callling for help that it was not his son calling for help.

...

Two police officers reported that when they arrived at the scene of the shooting, Zimmerman seemed to have a battered nose and bloodied face. One wrote that his "facial area was bloodied," and the back of his clothing was soiled with wet grass.

"Zimmerman was also bleeding from the nose and the back of his head," Officer Ricardo Ayala wrote.

Another officer wrote, "I saw that Zimmerman's face was bloodied and it appeared to me that his nose was broken."

Witnesses, whose names were redacted from the report, also lent support to Zimmerman's version of what happened.

"He witnesses a black male, wearing a dark colored 'hoodie' on top of a white or Hispanic male and throwing punches 'MMA (mixed martial arts) style,'" the police report of the witness said. "He then heard a pop. He stated that after hearing the pop, he observed the person he had previously observed on top of the other person (the male wearing the hoodie) laid out on the grass."

A second witness described a person on the ground with another straddling him and throwing punches. The man on the bottom was yelling for help, the witness told police.

The documents state that Zimmerman can be heard yelling for help 14 times on a 911 call recorded during the fight.

Yet another witness described the confrontation in emotional terms.

The witness heard "someone yelling, almost crying. Then I heard a gunshot." The witness wrote that he or she "saw a man on top of a guy laying on the ground. He was putting his hands on his neck or chest."

The man asked the witness to call 911.

"He stood up and took a couple steps away and put his hands on his head and then walked back over to the guy on the ground. He looked at him for a minute, then started to walk away toward the road. That is when the police walked up," the witness wrote.

The lead investigator on the case, Officer Christopher Serino, wrote that Zimmerman could be heard "yelling for help as he was being battered by Trayvon Martin."

...

The autopsy also shows that Zimmerman shot Martin from a distance of between 1 inch and 18 inches away, bolstering Zimmerman's claim that he shot Martin during a close struggle.

Martin's autopsy report also revealed that there was a quarter-inch by half-inch abrasion on the left fourth finger of Martin, another indication of a possible struggle.

The teen, who lived in Miami, was in Sanford while serving a suspension for a bag of marijuana being discovered in his possession. Martin had THC, the drug found in marijuana, in his blood on the night of his death, according to the autopsy. 

The prosecution better have some blockbuster stuff in their hip pocket or this will prove, once and for all, that the only reason we're even to this point is because a political agenda is at stake.

And a quick final note.  Yesterday, I wrote about NBCs scandalous headline as to Zimmerman shooting Marting at 'intermediate range'.

ABC deserves some credit.  In their report I've excerpted here at length, they cite the autopsy report as showing Zimmerman shooting Martin from a distance of 1 inch to 18 inches.

More heads should roll at NBC.

NBC continues their attempt to foist false narratives on the Trayvon Martin shooting

Yesterday, my oldest son showed me a tweet that referenced the following MSNBC article (that's still there at this writing) headlined as follows:

Trayvon Martin killed by single gunshot fired from 'intermediate range,' autopsy shows

The suggestion is clear.  Trayvon Martin was shot by George Zimmerman from a distance, going against what Zimmerman has been stating since the incident.  Clearly, if true, a revelation that would be most damaging to Zimmerman's entire case.

Bob Owens however is setting the record straight:

NBC also uses the phrase “intermediate range,” a very precise forensic term referring to the patterning of powder burns at a range of 6-40 inches… inside arm’s length, which is consistent with Zimmerman’s defense. They refuse to explain this distance in their article. Was this done in the hope of misleading people who would infer “intermediate range” means “medium distance” in an effort to deceive the public?

They’ve only had to fire 3 reporters for doctoring the story so far. Obviously, they didn’t fire enough.

Mr. Owens includes other details that strongly suggest NBC is continuing to sell lies as truth.

Here's hoping more heads at NBC will roll.

And that justice prevails despite the best efforts of some to derail her.

First they came for military chaplains

Obama's promise to fundamentally transform this country marches on: 

Remember how no clergy member will be forced to perform same-sex marriages against their will. If the Obama administration has its way, all US military chaplains will have to do so. Excerpt:

 The Obama administration “strongly objects” to provisions in a House defense authorization bill that would prohibit the use of military property for same-sex “marriage or marriage-like” ceremonies, and protect military chaplains from negative repercussions for refusing to perform ceremonies that conflict with their beliefs, according to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

If this goes through, the Catholic and the Orthodox chaplains will have to be withdrawn from the US military. Many Evangelical chaplains will choose to leave. If same-sex marriage is constitutionalized by Supreme Court ruling, then I don’t see how even a legislative exemption would be possible. This is another one of the answers to the question, “How does my gay neighbor’s marriage to his partner affect me?”

Americans need to get a clue.

This guy is radical.  This guy must not be re-elected in November.

See if you can keep up

Mike at Cold Fury is about to walk us through the maze that is the liberal mind:

Okay, let me see if I have all this straight. Bill Clinton, a white Southerner, was the first black president. Obama, an apparently straight guy, is the first gay president. George Zimmerman, a Hispanic, is a white guy. Elizabeth Warren, the whitest white woman anybody ever saw, is an Injun.

Andrew Sullivan, a liberal, considers himself the last “true conservative.” The Democrat Socialists, left-wingers to a fault, consider themselves “centrist” or “moderate,” and Mitt Romney, who is a liberal, is a “right-wing extremist.” Of course, Mittens calls himself a “severe conservative,” although nobody really believes it. Not even the Democrat Socialists.

The overwhelming majority of people who call themselves “journalists” actually function as advocates, while laughably declaiming their unbiased impartiality to anyone gullible enough to buy it. Violent OWS revolutionaries are “mostly peaceful.” Layabouts who collect government benefits are “hard-working Americans,” and people who actually want to work but can’t find a job in the Obama Depression and have abandoned all hope aren’t even counted as unemployed at all. More than three straight years of economic stagnation in the Obama Depression is some kind of “recovery,” and as for the real people whose lives have been marred by the inevitable and predictable result of Obama’s muttonheaded policies, “you’d think they’d be saying thank you.”

Families of four who make a combined 250k a year are “the rich,” and the top one percent of income earners who actually pay the overwhelming majority of taxes aren’t paying “their fair share” and “have no skin in the game.” Hollywood rich people worth bajillions perfectly comprehend the travails of workaday Americans and portray them with unfailing accuracy in movies and on TV, but Romney, who actually has done useful work and created lots of jobs in his life, is “out of touch.” And those same rich Hollywood pigs squeal “tax me more!” but never, ever avail themselves of an existing IRS program that affords them the opportunity to pay as much as they like, anytime they feel like taking advantage of it.

The people who rule us with an iron fist, governing against the clearly-expressed will of the people as often as not, are “public servants.” Fossil fuels, of which America has more than any other nation in the world, are “unsustainable,” while unworkable and expensive alternatives like solar and electric cars are what we should be relying on instead. Windmills, which date back to the 15th century or thereabouts, are the way of the future. Just as “progressive” ideas, which have been toxifying the body politic for more than a hundred years now and were not only precursors to fascism (now assumed to be a “right-wing” phenomenon, even though it was implemented and advocated mostly by left-wingers) but representative of some of the worst instincts of the feudal era, are “new” and “forward-thinking” and…well, progressive.

There’s no one more illiberal than a liberal...

I don't know about you but I think I sprained something reading through that... which I'll take as an indication that my threshold for nonsense is still in place.

Thank almighty God.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Tribal thinking

by BroKen

A couple of weeks ago a facebook friend of mine posted a graphic containing these words. “Alex and Chris want to get married. I don't know if they are male & female, male & male, or female & female, and I don't really care.... because it's none of my business.” Isn't that cute? Cute, but it is a crock.

The fact is, since marriage is a social institution, who marries whom is everybody's business. Saying that it is none of my (or your) business is merely a way to stifle dissent. Imagine what you would say to someone who declared, “I want to marry my brother and it's none of your business!” or “I'm gonna marry this ten year old girl AND IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!” You see, we all agree, at least in those two cases, that marriage IS other people's business.

But the saddest comment in all the lengthy discussion that followed came from my friend who posted the graphic. As I tried repeatedly to make my non-controversial point that marriage is a social institution and therefore everybody's business, she replied, “No, Ken, it is indeed NOT my business who marries whom. If I were to post something to that effect, countless people would jump all over my case just like you did this one. I will take ONE any day of the week and twice on Wednesday.”

While I take exception to the characterization of my disagreement with her as “jumping all over her case”, it is deeply troubling that she feels countless numbers of her friends would do just that if she simply acknowledged the truth. Talk about stifling dissent!

So, I can't help but wonder, who are these people and why would they jump all over a friend for speaking the truth. Perhaps my friend is overly sensitive to disagreement. But I don't think so. She has always struck me as strong and outspoken. No, I think the problem is in the “countless people” she fears. There are people who, rather than just disagree and argue a point, will insult and berate and demean those they disagree with. It leads to a kind of groupthink. Anyone who doesn't toe the party line is shamed into submission. “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.”

So, I've come to see my friend as a kind of hostage surrounded by guardians of “right thinking”. It is unlikely that she sees herself that way. After all, as long as she makes no waves, she and all her friends get along swimmingly. But the fear she expressed in her comment is certainly sufficient to prevent any divergent expression.

So I will continue to try and reach out to her and her friends. I hope that one day they will learn to disagree agreeably. If you have any suggestions about how to help, I'd welcome any advice.

This optional extra

Jennifer Fitz is lamenting the state of American Catholicism:

The American church has spent I’m not sure how many decades wallowing in a lukewarm faith — my entire life, at the very least.  Do an exit poll after Mass this Sunday:  How many parishioners really believe all that the Church holds to be true? In many quarters, the simple act of asserting that the Church holds some things to be true incites an outcry of protest about rights of conscience, and personal discernment, and accusations of judging other souls*.

And we’re still wallowing.

On one hand I get it: Patience.  Pastoral Care.  I appreciate all that.  I’m certainly glad the CDF inquires thoroughly and charitably before taking action.

But what’s the reality we’re living with, here in the US and elsewhere?  Do I have any confidence that my local Catholic hospital (where, incidentally, I first learned NFP) will stick to Catholic teaching in its medical care?  No I don’t.  I have no idea.  I could ask around and get the lowdown, but until I check, I don’t know.  Are my local Catholic schools really Catholic?  I think they might be, because I’ve known a few good folks associated with them . . . but I don’t know.  I don’t know.  The brand name is no guarantee.  You have to check every institution one by one. Some are excellent.  Some are positively shining beacons of the Faith.  But you really can’t know until you check for yourself.

My new pastor?  Great guy.  Fabulously Catholic sermons, right to the point — every reason to believe he’s spot-on in his faithfulness to Church teachings.  (And a decent person besides.  Wish he had more free time to hang around and have a beer or something.)  But there was a tense time wondering — now who have we got?  The fact that someone is an ordained priest, or professed religious sister or brother, or DRE, or catechist . . . is no guarantee they actually believe and teach what the Church believes and teaches.  You have watch and see.

I don’t mean, here, that you have to watch and see in the normal sense of prudence and discernment about the weaknesses and failings of all men.  We all sin.  We all struggle with our faith.  We all grow in our understanding and practice of our faith over time.   What I mean is something more insidious: The Catholic faith as taught in, say, the Catechism, is not something everyone in the Church assumes is the standard. 

And those who take the Catechism-optional approach are, in a sense, correct to do so.  They are only guilty of believing what the Church practices.  The practice of Catholic institutions not following Church teaching is so widespread that those religious orders who do stick with the magisterium make sure they mention the fact in their advertisements for vocations.  It is so rare for a homily to explain Catholic teaching on contraception that if it should happen, Catholic bloggers talk about it for days.

This isn’t about pant suits or folk guitars**.   The investigation into the LCWR isn’t about legitimate theological or practical disagreements on the innumerable topics about which Catholics are free to disagree.  It isn’t about emphasis of ministry — there are topics that might never come up at the food bank, but that matter very much at the hospital, and vice versa. No one expects the ladies sorting boxes of pasta to explain to you the details of licit and illicit fertility treatments.  (Also: Don’t necessarily ask your doctor to cook for you.)

This about the fact that a lot of Americans, including a lot of American Catholics, think the bishops are making this stuff up.  That noise about birth control and sterilization?  Well, that’s not really Catholic teaching, it’s just this optional extra, like saying the Rosary or wearing a hair shirt, that we can do if we feel called, but we don’t really have to, right?  This business of Jesus and the Church being the only way, and myriad new age practices being in fact demonic?  Oh come on.  Yes, Catholicism is a Jesus-Brand spiritual path, but don’t we each have to find our own path? And anyway, who believes in Satan? So 12th Century.

That’s the faith Americans have been practicing.  That’s what people really think the Church teaches.  The average American has a better idea of what the Amish or the Muslims believe and practice than what comprises the Catholic faith.  That is, at the very least they’d be willing to consider the possibility that the Amish have religious objections to birth control, or that Muslims think their faith is in fact the one true faith. Catholics? That birth control and catechism-stuff is just one extremist current in our multi-faceted approach to the spiritual life, right?

Profoundly insightful... and a baseline from which American Catholics should move away.

Lord have mercy on us and grant us more faith.

What have grievance mongers and race hustlers wrought?

A censored race war:

When two white newspaper reporters for the Virginian-Pilot were driving through Norfolk, and were set upon and beaten by a mob of young blacks — beaten so badly that they had to take a week off from work — that might sound like news that should have been reported, at least by their own newspaper. But it wasn’t.

The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel was the first major television program to report this incident. Yet this story is not just a Norfolk story, either in what happened or in how the media and the authorities have tried to sweep it under the rug.

Similar episodes of unprovoked violence by young black gangs against white people chosen at random on beaches, in shopping malls, or in other public places have occurred in Philadelphia, New York, Denver, Chicago, Cleveland, Washington, Los Angeles, and other places across the country. Both the authorities and the media tend to try to sweep these episodes under the rug.

In Milwaukee, for example, an attack on whites at a public park a few years ago left many of the victims battered to the ground and bloody. But when the police arrived on the scene, it became clear that the authorities wanted to keep this quiet.

One 22-year-old woman, who had been robbed of her cell phone and debit card, and had blood streaming down her face, said, “About 20 of us stayed to give statements and make sure everyone was accounted for. The police wouldn’t listen to us, they wouldn’t take our names or statements. They told us to leave. It was completely infuriating.”

The police chief seemed determined to head off any suggestion that this was a racially motivated attack by saying that crime is color-blind. Officials elsewhere have said similar things.

A wave of such attacks in Chicago were reported, but not the race of the attackers or victims. Media outlets that do not report the race of people committing crimes nevertheless report racial disparities in imprisonment and write heated editorials blaming the criminal-justice system.

What the authorities and the media seem determined to suppress is that the hoodlum elements in many ghettoes launch coordinated attacks on whites in public places. If there is anything worse than a one-sided race war, it is a two-sided race war, especially when one of the races outnumbers the other several times over.

Thomas Sowell has more.  Read it.  Pass it on.

Franciscan University - First institutional Catholic casualty of Obamacare

From the Catholic university's own website:

The Obama Administration has mandated that all health insurance plans must cover “women’s health services” including contraception, sterilization, and abortion-causing medications as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Up to this time, Franciscan University has specifically excluded these services and products from its student health insurance policy, and we will not participate in a plan that requires us to violate the consistent teachings of the Catholic Church on the sacredness of human life.

Additionally, the PPACA increased the mandated maximum coverage amount for student policies to $100,000 for the 2012-13 school year, which would effectively double your premium cost for the policy in fall 2012, with the expectation of further increases in the future.

Due to these changes in regulation by the federal government, beginning with the 2012-13 school year, the University 1) will no longer require that all full-time undergraduate students carry health insurance, 2) will no longer offer a student health insurance plan, and 3) will no longer bill those not covered under a parent/guardian plan or personal plan for student health insurance. The current student health insurance plan will expire on August 15, 2012.

We encourage you to decide how you are going to provide for accidents or illnesses requiring visits to physicians, health clinics, or the hospital emergency room while you are a student here. As always, our Health Center on campus will be staffed by a certified nurse practitioner Monday – Friday during normal business hours. No insurance is necessary to receive basic health-related services at the Health Center, and the visits cost only $5 at the time of service. However, if you are referred off campus for further lab testing, physician specialists, X-rays, etc., you will be responsible to pay for those services.

Tom Crowe at CatholicVote adds:

“If you like your health care coverage you can keep it. ”

In various phrasings this was one of the more oft-repeated reasons  we were given to support, or at least not to oppose, Obamacare. But like so many other things that have come out of this administration, it also turns out not to be true.

To be sure, the President and HHS are not forcibly kicking anyone off their health insurance plan. Yet. But we knew before the ink was dry that companies would very likely have a financial incentive to drop health care coverage altogether and dump their employees onto the public exchanges.

No, we were told, that wouldn’t be the case. Lo and behold...

And so it starts.  

This is your hope and change.