April 26, 2005
The former Hollywood bad boy had daytime viewers choking on their cornflakes when he made the remark on ITV1 show This Morning.Kelly, wearing an orange cardigan and black camisole which revealed a hint of cleavage, was hosting the show in place of Fern Britton.
She welcomed Downey Jr to the show by telling him: "You look fantastic, you look really well."The 40-year-old actor replied: "Thanks. I was going to say that your t*ts look great too!"
A clearly shocked Kelly, 45, said "Thank you, that's nice," as Downey Jr added: "Particularly today."
Kelly managed to say: "Oh good, well I'm glad I made you happy."
Gazing down at her cleavage and adjusting her top, she said: "I didn't realise they were so out."
Kelly's co-host Jeremy Kyle, on his first day as temporary replacement for Phillip Schofield, stepped in to change the subject by saying: "Let's move swiftly on."
An embarrassed Kelly agreed: "I think we should."
Could you imagine such an exchange with Katie Couric?
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PIKESVILLE, Md. (AP) - A herd of buffalo somehow got loose and wandered around an upscale neighborhood Tuesday, disrupting traffic and alarming homeowners before officers managed to corral them in a tennis court.More than a dozen police cars and a police helicopter were used to herd the roughly 10 beasts, authorities said.
"Somehow they figured it out; I've got to give a lot of credit to the creativity of our officers," police spokesman Shawn Vinson said.
Authorities have identified the owner of the buffalo but did not release the person's name immediately.
Residents in the Baltimore suburb first reported that buffalo were meandering along the road about 7 a.m.
Police shut down several major traffic arteries, including a section of the Baltimore Beltway, while they tried to anticipate which way the buffalo would roam.
Officers eventually managed to maneuver the buffalo onto the tennis court about a mile from where they first were spotted.
No word on deer and antelope sightings.
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PIKESVILLE, Md. (AP) - A herd of buffalo somehow got loose and wandered around an upscale neighborhood Tuesday, disrupting traffic and alarming homeowners before officers managed to corral them in a tennis court.More than a dozen police cars and a police helicopter were used to herd the roughly 10 beasts, authorities said.
"Somehow they figured it out; I've got to give a lot of credit to the creativity of our officers," police spokesman Shawn Vinson said.
Authorities have identified the owner of the buffalo but did not release the person's name immediately.
Residents in the Baltimore suburb first reported that buffalo were meandering along the road about 7 a.m.
Police shut down several major traffic arteries, including a section of the Baltimore Beltway, while they tried to anticipate which way the buffalo would roam.
Officers eventually managed to maneuver the buffalo onto the tennis court about a mile from where they first were spotted.
No word on deer and antelope sightings.
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April 25, 2005
That is when the crap hit the fan.
Southern Connecticut State University barred a student from a poetry class after his professor said a poem he submitted contained veiled threats to sexually assault her and her 3-year-old daughter.The student, Edward Bolles, said his poem entitled "Professor White," was meant to be a satirical piece about globalization. In it, a Mexican student named Juan has a sexual encounter with the daughter of his white professor.
Bolles' professor, Kelly Ritter, found the poem "disturbing," according to an April 8 campus police report, and said she believed the poem was a threat. University officials prohibited Bolles, who is Mexican, from attending his poetry class while he was investigated.
Now there are some key differences between Bolles and Juan, and between Ritter and the poem's title character. The main one is that the daughter with whom Juan has a sexual encounter is a college student, not a three-year old, while Bolles was unaware that Ritter had a daughter at all.
Bolles said the poem's interracial affair symbolizes white America's feeling that Mexicans are corrupting their culture. The encounter is not violent, and the professor's daughter brings Juan home to meet her disapproving mother."I came in using a different set of reasoning as context to look at the craft of poetry, and she was put off by it," Bolles said.
The poem ends with the professor trying to get Juan kicked out of school by calling one of his poems racist.
Ritter, claiming that the poem was a threat of sexual assault against bothe her and her daughter, filed a police report and demanded Bolles be removed from her class. Not only that, but she demanded that the student be required to submit to a psychiatric evaluation. Presumably the results of that evaluation, had it been required, would have been the basis for seeking Bolles expulsion from the college.
Bolles, though, fought back. After being put out of his class, he began a protest around campus. It got the results he wanted, probably because of the embarassing publicity that his actons generated.
Bolles began publicly protesting the university's decision Monday, wearing a "Save Professor White" shirt and handing out fliers on campus. After that protest began and university officials received calls from The Associated Press Monday, Bolles received a hand-delivered, one-sentence letter from the administration:"As a result of the investigation, I wish to inform you that no formal disciplinary charges will be filed on behalf of the university and you are permitted to return to your English 202, Section 1, course, Introduction to Poetry," Christopher Piscitelli, director of judicial affairs, wrote.
Bolles remains concerned about his return to the class. He declines to offer Ritter any apology, nor do I believe he should. Of greater concern is how he will be received by classmates following the two week absence from the class and Ritter's possible comments on it. He is also concerned about having fallen behind due to Ritter's persecution of a student she didn't like or agree with, amd whether or not he will be given a fair chance to recover from his forced exile.
And as an outside observer, I have to wonder what action will be taken against Professor Ritter for her unjust and unfounded actions against Edward Bolles.
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Unfortunately, this would also overturn Proposition 22, passed by the voters in 2000. It reads as follows.
"Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."
Now I may be a bit slow, but that seems pretty clear to me. Marriage, according to the California voters, is one man and one woman. It isnÂ’t two guys, two girls, or any other combination. The voters have spoken, approving Prop 22 with a 62% majority, and under the California Constitution the legislature cannot overrule that decision. But the supporters of homosexual marriage are still hell-bent on trying to validate and recognize something other than marriage between a man and a woman -- even if it means violating laws, constitutions, and the will of the people to get it.
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City lawyers overruled the Police Department and charged a band of Brooklyn toughs with a hate crime for allegedly shouting, "Black power!" as they beat up a group of girls in Marine Park, The Post has learned.In a case that roiled racial tensions in Brooklyn — and became a rallying point on white-supremacy Web sites — locals are now second-guessing law enforcement.
Cops locked up five of the alleged attackers — all juveniles — but did not charge them with a bias crime.
The city's Corporation Counsel Office, which prosecutes cases in Family Court, raised the charges against the assailants.
Sources said the initial report did not include the comments allegedly made by the suspects. "It should have been a hate crime from day one," fumed one parent.
The article makes it clear that this was no simple fight in the park, but rather a premeditated action in which the original aggressors repeatedly set out to get more help to make sure they significantly outnumbered the six victims.
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City lawyers overruled the Police Department and charged a band of Brooklyn toughs with a hate crime for allegedly shouting, "Black power!" as they beat up a group of girls in Marine Park, The Post has learned.In a case that roiled racial tensions in Brooklyn — and became a rallying point on white-supremacy Web sites — locals are now second-guessing law enforcement.
Cops locked up five of the alleged attackers — all juveniles — but did not charge them with a bias crime.
The city's Corporation Counsel Office, which prosecutes cases in Family Court, raised the charges against the assailants.
Sources said the initial report did not include the comments allegedly made by the suspects. "It should have been a hate crime from day one," fumed one parent.
The article makes it clear that this was no simple fight in the park, but rather a premeditated action in which the original aggressors repeatedly set out to get more help to make sure they significantly outnumbered the six victims.
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Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.
Also, there is a spot open on the Watcher's Council -- see this link for details.
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April 24, 2005
Greeley begins by noting that young people seem quite entranced by the newly elected Pope Benedict XVI. How strange, he notes, that there is this "rock star" style enthusiasm for an old theology professor who espouses views that so many of these young people reject. Did John Paul II somehow endow future popes with this sort of charisma, an aura, that draws the young?
That possibility raises the question of whether the pope, almost by definition, enjoys an entirely new charisma -- an immediate appeal to young people. A second question follows on this day of Be Ne De To's installation as pope: Given the inexperience and shallowness of the young, how much is this charisma worth?I submit that it is a license for a pope to teach and not an automatic guarantee of any other long-term religious impact. One heard often in Rome before the conclave that the new pope should be able to communicate with young people like the late pope. Yet, in truth, the religious attitudes and behavior of young people in every country where there has been a World Youth Day have not changed -- nor, for that matter, have the attitudes and behavior of adults changed in any of the countries John Paul visited. As collective religious rituals, these events were dramatic. They were a celebration of Catholic faith and Catholic heritage -- and as such eminently effective. But they didn't change much in ordinary human life.
My three pretty young Italian cheerleaders, unless they were different from typical Italian young women, would eventually sleep with their boyfriends before marriage and use birth control after marriage. They would see no contradiction between such behavior and enthusiasm for Benedict XVI. Does it follow that the new pope should try to teach as well as celebrate religious faith when he attends the next World Youth Day in Cologne?
An excellent question indeed, especially in a world faced with rising Islamist extremism and lukewarm Christianity that has too often surrendered to valueless secularism. What can Benedict XVI say to the assembled young people at this year's World Youth Day in Cologne (including some of my own students, traveling with a parish youth group led by one of my colleagues)? Greeley has an excellent suggestion -- start with the basics.
If he should tell them that they should reform their sexual lives, they will simply laugh. Far better that he listen to them talk about their religious faith and urge them to be patient and forgiving in all of their relationships and generous in helping others. Let sex wait for the next time or the time after. The re-evangelization of Europe cannot be done all at once. This is what I mean when I say that youthful admiration for the pope gives a license to teach -- wisely, cautiously and slowly, as any good teacher would.
Greeley is correct. Start with the basics of Christianity, and build from there. Begin with the fundamentals and build up from there. Just as one does not whip out The Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas and make it the starting point of catechesis and evangelization, one cannot begin with the nuanced and beautiful Catholic teachings on human sexuality without laying the basics. Too often since Vatican II, those basics have not been effectively taught, whether through neglect, rejection, or confusion, and have been drowned out by what then Cardinal Ratzinger called a "dictatorship of relativism" only a week ago. The Christian nature of Western society has been eroded over the course of decades, and there is no way that this pope will live to repair the damage. But the job is his to start, using the special affection this generation appears to have for the successor of St. Peter as a tool for evangelization. By beginning with the fundamentals of the faith, Benedict XVI may begin a revival of the Christian West that matches the fervor and explosive growth of Catholicism (and Christianity in general) in other parts of the world.
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That which passes for humor these days is often nothing more than profanity-laced crudity attempting to evoke uncomfortable titters through shock. However, the same shtick that can fetch a living wage on the comedy club circuit can draw the wrath of the politically correct crew on campus.
AdvertisementThat was the scene a little more than a week ago at UNLV during a meeting of the advisory board of the campus newspaper, The Rebel Yell. About 40 students and faculty showed up to protest a column called "Ask Jubert."
Jubert is an amalgam of the names of the paper's editor and managing editor, Justin Chomintra and Hubert Hensen, respectively. The column, two-thirds of which is penned by Hensen, is meant to be a satirical send-up of advice-to-the-lovelorn columns, only written from the perspective of a doltish, misogynistic, rage-prone bully.
Until March the column reportedly had been met approvingly or indifferently. But then the March 7 "Ask Jubert" offered advice on how to "get back at an ex," by recommending -- tongue firmly in cheek and ripping off dialogue from the movie "Anchorman" -- that "the best way to seize revenge is with sudden, blinding violence. Punch the filthy pirate whore in her mouth. Show her exactly how you feel about her. The harder the punch, the more she'll realize how much you care."
Though it carried a disclaimer at the bottom saying, "The Rebel Yell does not condone any form of violence, especially domestic violence, nor cruelty against animals. (The column also contained advice on stringing up the ex's poodle.) 'Ask Jubert' is meant to be humorous and should not be taken seriously," it was taken quite seriously.
Now let's say this very clearly -- the piece is crude and offensive. I don't see why anyone would find it in the least bit funny. I don't understand why the young men in question would even think it was appropriate to publish something like that -- even if it is meant to be a satire on advice columns. That said, I also recognize that the First Amendment applies to it, and that those who wrote the column should not be in any way disciplined for their sophomoric attempt at humor.
Needless to say, there was a huge turnout at the next meeting of the paper's advisory board, demanding censorship of the paper and punishment of the offenders. Several law students had the audacity to demand that the paper be censored (did they sleep through their Constitutional Law class?) and that there be a ban on "hate speech" in The Rebel Yell (I'll bet they only wanted to ban hate speech against "protected classes", not whites, heterosexuals, males, or Christians). Fortunately, the board held the line and refused to impose such measures.
One professor, the head of the Women's Studies Department (raise your hand if you weren't surprised) joined in the call for censorship.
Several people found it a bit ironic that the chair of UNLV's Women's Studies Department, Lois Rita Helmbold, offered a jesting aside about refraining from using her martial arts skills on Hensen.Helmbold conceded she made a joke but declined to elaborate. She described the advocacy of domestic violence as irresponsible journalism and not funny.
The professor also pointed out that student fees pay for operations of the campus newspaper, unlike other newspapers which people may choose to purchase or not. I thought that was a pretty good point and drew an analogy to taxpayers objecting to their money being used to sponsor "art" that consisted of a crucifix in a jar of urine. For some reason she didn't agree.
I love it when a liberal hypocrite doesn't commits the exact same act that she demands others be punished for, and refuses to concede that the principle of censorship that she supports could logically be extended to censor her point of view. After all, I imagine Professor Helmbold arguing, men are oppressors by nature, so they deserve to be beaten as an act of female liberation; and the patriarchal Christians are racistsexisthomophobes whose beliefs and symbols merit no respect.
In the end, the advisory board did not impose any sanctions or restraints on The rebel Yell. It did turn down Hubert henson's application to be the editor of next year's paper, but that decision appears to have been made on the merits of another candidate, not the controversy over teh column that caused such excitement. he plans on leaving the staff, and devoting himself to completing his degree in physics.
Advisory Board member Steve Sebelius, editor of the weekly CityLife newspaper and a former political columnist with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, makes this observation about those who turned out in favor of censorship and against freedom of the press and freedom of speech.
"If these people ever get hold of the apparatus of power, it will be a Hitlerian danger to free speech."
he is, of course, correct. And not just about those on the Left, but also about those on the Right who would require that words pass some ideological litmus test before being granted the protection afforded them without reservation by the First Amendment.
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The BBC was last night plunged into a damaging general election row after it admitted equipping three hecklers with microphones and sending them into a campaign meeting addressed by Michael Howard, the Conservative leader.The Tories have made an official protest after the hecklers, who were given the microphones by producers, were caught at a party event in the North West last week. Guy Black, the party's head of communications, wrote in a letter to Helen Boaden, the BBC's director of news, that the hecklers began shouting slogans that were "distracting and clearly hostile to the Conservative Party".
These included "Michael Howard is a liar", "You can't trust the Tories" and "You can only trust Tony Blair".
Mr Black's strongly-worded letter accused the BBC of staging the event "to generate a false news story and dramatise coverage. . . intended to embarrass or ridicule the leader of the Conservative Party". The letter said that BBC staff were guilty of "serious misconduct". At least one of the hecklers was seen again at a Tory event in the North East, Mr Black added.
Last night, the BBC claimed that the exercise was part of a "completely legitimate programme about the history and art of political heckling" and said that other parties' meetings were being "observed". However, The Telegraph has established that none of Tony Blair's meetings was infiltrated or disrupted in similar fashion.
So, how did these folks get caught? What evidence is there that this was a BBC set-up, not simply a program on the political heckling?
Tory officials became suspicious at the meeting in Horwich, near Bolton, last Wednesday, when they saw BBC camera crew focusing on the hecklers rather than Mr Howard. They twice challenged the two men and a woman involved, and discovered they had been equipped with radio microphones.Mr Black said that they described themselves as "shoppers". In fact, they were under direction from a BBC team making a programme called The History of Heckling for the BBC3 channel. The programme, whose producer is Paul Woolwich, is in the process of being edited.
Mr Black's letter said of the hecklers: "It is entirely clear to me that the success of their presence required an element of performance on their behalf, and that this was a premeditated event intended to disrupt the course of Mr. Howard's speech.
"I do not believe that the BBC should be in the business of creating news. It also appears that the same crew was at the Michael Howard visit to Stockton-on-Tees and it can be no coincidence that someone with them was one of these 'hecklers'.
Absolutely incredible! An arm of the British government supplied equipment to those looking to disrupt a rally featuring the head of the opposition party. This is serious stuff, given the fact that there is no evidence of the BBC sponsoring any such attacks on Tony Blair's Labour Party. Could you imagine the uproar in this country if PBS were to have perpetrated something like this against John Kerry during the last election? It would have been seen as proof positive that the Bush Administration was attempting to create a totalitarian regime (granted, the Left made that claim without any evidence whatsoever, but you see my point) and would have cost the president any chance at reelection. Heck, if the generally conservative Fox News had done this, it would have been viewed as a Karl Rove instigated dirty trick.
And yet this seems to have had little effect in the UK. That is too bad. If the British people had a little bit more spine, they would demand the resignation of the Blair government, the prosecution of those involved in this abuse of government power, and the end of the BBC as a tax-supported entity. Here's hoping there is at least enough spirit left in out cousins on the other side of the pond to see them reject Labour and its dirty tricks.
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April 23, 2005
Forty foreigners, including children, were arrested for proselytizing when police raided a clandestine church in suburban Riyadh, the head of a wide-ranging security campaign in the capital said Saturday.Lt. Col. Saad al-Rashud said the 40 were arrested Friday in the neighborhood Badeea. Their church, he said, contained crosses and was run by a Pakistani man who claimed to heal the sick. He allegedly was holding prayers, hearing confessions and distributing communion.
It is illegal to promote religions other than Islam in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam. There are no legal churches in the conservative kingdom, where members of other religions generally can practice their faith in their own homes, but not try to convert people or hold religious gatherings.
Authorities said those arrested with him were foreigners, but did not specify nationalities.
A conviction on proselytizing can result in a harsh prison sentence followed by deportation.
Multiple thoughts spring to mind -- few of them suitable for publication. But I will say one thing, however unpopular.
If Saudi Arabia cannot see its way clear to allowing fundamental freedoms to its people, maybe it should be the next country liberated by the US military.
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"I argued that lawyering can't be interfered with by government regulations,'' Stewart said. "SAMs now seem to override a lawyer's sense of what is right and proper to do for a client. The government will decide that now.''
Damn straight the government will decide those things, when it comes to protecting national security. You ignore two things in your flawed analysis. First, the man committed an act of war against the United States and had been duly convicted at the time you acted. Second, when an attorney becomes a party to a conspiracy to commit a criminal act, attorney-client privilege no longer applies. Your complaint is, in effect, that you got caught and were not held to be above the law because you are a lawyer.
If you live out in the San Francisco area and want to show your contempt for this traitor, here's where you can view her schedule.
And since the Left has organized a letter writing campaign in an attempt to get her a lenient sentence for her betrayal of the United States, I would like to urge loyal Americans to write the judge urging that Stewart face the maximum possible sentence. Send them to the court at the following address.
Honorable John G. Koeltl
United States District Judge
Southern District of New York
United States Courthouse
500 Pearl Street
New York, New York 10007
My best advice is that they be typed, respectful, and note the seriousness of Lynne Stewart's actions and her utter lack of remorse for them. If you or someone close to you suffered any harm due to the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center or other terrorist attacks on the United States, be sure to share that with the judge. Focus on the fact that America is currently in a battle for its survival against Islamist jihadis of the nature assisted by Stewart, and that her sentence should be severe enough to deter others from following her anti-American example. Urge the judge to sentence her to the maximum penalty of 30 years in prison.
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• In a speech in Kansas in February, not long after his election as DNC chairman, Mr. Dean said the contest between Democrats and Republicans was "a struggle of good and evil. And we're the good."• In Florida earlier this week, he accused Republicans of being "corrupt," saying, "You can't trust them with your money, and you can't trust them with your votes. ... Evangelicals don't like corruption either."
• In a closed-door Democratic fundraiser in Lawrence, Kan., he said conservative Republicans were "intolerant" on the issue of abortion. "They don't think tolerance is a virtue. I'm not going to have these right-wingers throw away our right to be tolerant."
• Speaking to Democrats Abroad, Mr. Dean called Republicans "brain-dead," saying the reason his party lost the 2004 race to the "brain-dead" Republicans was because of the Democrats' "tendency to explain every issue in half an hour of detail."
So, "Mr. Positive" (or should that be "Dr. Positive") has been anything but positive. Rather than defining what the Democrats are, he has maligned the Republicans as evil, corrupt, intolerant and brain-dead. Not only that, but after the Democrats complained about Republicans "politicizing" the Terri Schiavo case, Dean has promised to "use Terry Schiavo" to score political points against the GOP. Along the way, Dean has defined the Democrats as against Bush judges, against the Bush Social Security Plan, against Bush nominee John Bolton, and against virtually every policy initiative proposed or implemented by the Bush Administration.
So, Howard, where are your solutions? Where are your programs? Your platform can be summed up in two words -- "Oppose Bush". How can you claim to be positive when you spend your time engaging in nothing short of anti-Republican hate speech.
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The advent of the papacy of Benedict XVI may send a lot of folks scrambling for Latin dictionaries and classes in the classical tongue (or its ecclesiastical offspring). Just as a knowledge of Polish was helpful in the Vatican during the pontificate of John Paul the Great, it appears that Latin may become an important means of communication in a Church that has practically abandoned the tongue outside of "official" texts of documents.
Latin may be considered a dead language today, but for many centuries it was the language of the Catholic Church.Forty years ago the Vatican decided to drop Latin as the official language of the mass and switch to the vernacular.
In the 1990s, even bishops stopped talking to each other in Latin when they went to official meetings at the Vatican.
When he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI originally supported the idea of dropping the Latin mass.
Now he is Pope, he has apparently had a rethink and Italians are struggling to keep up.
Now I am certain that the Tridentine Mass will not be making a major comeback, though this pope will probably allow its more liberal use where tehre is a desire for it. Nor do I think we will see an end to vernacular liturgies. What I believe we will see, though, is a move back towards the teaching of Latin in seminaries and the revival of the use of the language for liturgical purposes. I would expect that Catholics will be able to find a Latin liturgy in a local parish, if not their own, as one more option. And I suspect that we will see more use of the Latin language in liturgical celebrations for international gatherings, to communicate the message that the Church is universal and timeless institution.
And besides -- if we are to see the continued internationalization of the Catholic Church leadership, there needs to be one language that is shared among those who work in the Vatican and those back in the local dioceses and parishes of the world. It needs to be a langage that doesn't change from pontificate to pontificate, and which is clear and fixed in its meaning. So unless the Church is going to adopt Esperanto, there is one obvious candidate -- Latin, which was the language of choice for most of the history of the Church.
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April 22, 2005
Celebrity Pentecostal preacher Runar Søgaard is under protection by Swedish police after receiving death threats. A high-profile sermon where Sögaard called the prophet Mohammed "a confused pedophile" has triggered fears of religious war.
Excuse me? His sermon has triggered fears of a religious war? I thought Sweden was a Western democracy where religious rights were guaranteed to all citizens. Did I miss it becoming an Islamic caliphate?
Consider this little gem from one Swedish paper, quoting one of the Islamists who dominate Islam today.
"Even if I see Runar while he has major police protection I will shoot him to death," a radical Islamist told Swedish newspaper Expressen.
So what we have here is someone who is prepared to commit murder because a Swede dared to exerciee his rights under Swedish law. I cannot help but notice that the story protects the man's identity, lest he be apprehended by police and prevented from carrying out his religious duty to murder someone for daring to disrespect the founder of the religion that has bred the bulk of modern terrorism. After all, identifying him might also have put the newspaper or the reporter at risk.
And it isn't just a couple of radicals mouthing off, either.
Persons connected to the Kurdish group Ansar al-Islam claim to have received a fatwa, a decree from a Muslim religious leader, to kill Søgaard.Muslim organizations have called Søgaard's sermon, which is on sale on CD at the Stockholm Karisma Center's web site, a hateful attack on Islam and fear the type of violent conflict that scarred the Netherlands after filmmaker Theo van Gogh was killed by an Islamic extremist for a controversial film.
Notice, they claim they fear that the sermon will cause a violent conflict. They claim they don't want it. Well, fine, then why don't you Muslims act to restrain the radicals among you who threaten to murder an innocent man for expressing his opinions? How dare you blame him for the problem, as if his rights were somehow subordinate to the feelings of the followers of your murderous sect?
That isn't, of course, what they are out to do. Instead they are making demands that Swedish Christians submit to Islam in order to be spared bloodshed and a reign of terror in their streets.
Imam Hassan Moussa, head of Sweden's imam council, demanded that Christian communities repudiate Søgaard's remarks, and promised that Sweden would avoid the ugly scenes experienced in Holland.
Yeah. Swedes should submit to the foreigner among them in their own country, and allow an alien cult to determine their religious rights. In other words, the people of Sweden need to submit to dhimmi status.
What needs to happen is for the Swedish government to follow the precedent set by Ferdinand and Isabella at the end of the Reconquista. Muslims must convert to Christianity or be expelled for the good of the nation, to protect the liberties of the Swedish people. Threats of jihad cannot be tolerated.
And as such threats appear in other countries in Europe or the Western Hemisphere, the same course of action must be followed. Otherwise Western civilization is doomed.
UPDATE: DhimmiWatch has this post about the case. It appears that some Muslim authroities are calling for restraint. On the other hand, at least one denies the words of the hadith in order to deny the charge made against Muhammad.
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A federal judge is letting convicted terror lawyer Lynne Stewart jet across the country as part of her campaign to argue that she was unjustly prosecuted and to rally her supporters to raise funds for an appeal.Trial Judge John Koeltl approved Stewart's request to travel to the Left Coast, where she has arranged to speak at nine events in the San Francisco Bay area and participate in at least six radio and TV interviews, starting today.
A jury convicted Stewart Feb. 10 of fraud, providing material support to terrorism, and filing false statements while she represented blind Egyptian terror cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Her sentencing has been pushed back to September.
Stewart faces up to 30 years in prison.
Frighteningly enough, this is not Stewart's first trip to give a speech to her fellow radicals and terrorist supporters. Since her conviction, Stewart has been permitted to travel to Florida, California and Boston. Seems that she is not considered to be a flight risk. Still, isn't she a security risk, given her past actions?
Frankly, I don't know why she was even allowed to stay on the streets pending her sentencing. She ought to be in a cage down at Gitmo, with the low-level terrorists who have made war on our nation!
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VARAZDAT was six when his family were driven from their home by Turkish troops in 1915. But even 90 years after Ottoman troops began the slaughter of up to 1.5 million Armenians, fear still flickers in his eyes.As the family and 200,000 other Armenians fled east from their homes in Van, near modern Turkey’s eastern border, Turk and Kurdish forces opened fire from both sides. “They killed so many. Mothers threw their children in the lake. They said it was better to drown them than let the Turks have them,” Varadzat Harutyuniyan told The Times.
Turkey still denies responsibility, minimizes the number of Armenian dead, and paints the Turkish people as the greater victim. It is illegal in Turkey for anyone to claim that this genocide happened. It refuses to have diplomatic relations with Armenia and refuses to allow traffic across the border the two countries share. This unacknowledged genocide is one of many factors that stands in the way of Turkey’s admission to the EU – no less that 15 countries have demanded that Turkey do so before the EU allow Turkey to become a member.
How deep is this denial and refusal to acknowledge TurkeyÂ’s crime against the Armenians? Look at the high level denial of the genocide by a high level Turkish official.
On Wednesday the head of the Turkish Armed Forces, General Hilmi Ozkok, called on Armenia to drop the genocide allegations. The 1923 Lausanne Treaty, which established modern Turkey, “put an end to the baseless genocide claims politically and legally,” he said.
Yet in the end, this political claim cannot hide the historical truth of the murder of over 1 million people by the Turks. A treaty cannot deny the reality of photographs of Turkish soldiers posing with severed Armenian heads held (or stacked) as trophies. Until Turkey is willing to admit its historical guilt in the matter, there can be no allowing it into the EU.
Former Polish President Lech Walesa makes the case clearly.
“The truth must come out,” said Lech Walesa, the former Polish President, at this week’s conference. “It is a just claim of the Armenians that Turkey’s entrance into the European Union should come after admitting genocide.”
When will our president label what happened as genocide? When will he join other world leaders in making it clear that Turkey cannot be considered a member of the civilized world until it acknowledges the crime of its jihad against the Christian Armenians?
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The necropolis was discovered by a joint US and Egyptian team in the Kom al-Ahmar region, around 600 km (370 miles) south of the capital, Cairo.
Inside the tombs, the archaeologists found a cow's head carved from flint and the remains of seven people.They believe four of them were buried alive as human sacrifices.
The remains survived despite the fact that the tombs were plundered in ancient times.
Egypt's chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, said the discovery would add greatly to knowledge of the elusive pre-dynastic period, when Egypt was first becoming a nation.
The complex is thought to belong to a ruler of the ancient city of Hierakonpolis in around 3600 BC, when it was the largest urban centre on the Nile river.
Egyptologists say the city probably extended its influence northwards defeating rival entities. The unification of Upper and Lower Egypt eventually led to the establishment of rule by the Pharaohs.
Excavations at the site started in 2000 under the leadership of Egyptologist Barbara Adams, who died in 2002.
The site contains some of the earliest examples of mummification found in Egypt.
Call me a geek, but I find this stuff really cool.
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"False advertising is no less harmful when it comes from government-run businesses," said Matthew Penzer, the attorney for PETA in the lawsuit. "Painting a 'happy' image of an industry that sends 400,000 cows to slaughter every year and their calves to the isolation of veal crates is deceptive, no less so because it is the government doing the deceiving."
California courts have ruled that the Board is immune from lawsuits, just like other state agencies.
And the liberals wonder why we need lawsuit reform. This case is a classic argument
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There is only one conclusion to be drawn. The story must be about some school shooting.
And then you read the actual story.
Police in Niagara Falls say a 10th grader was shot and killed after he tried to rob a pizza delivery man Wednesday night.Detectives say the pizza driver admited he shot and killed 16-year-old Anthony Maurice Sheared, after he and another teen pulled a BB gun on him while he was making a delivery on Pierce Avenue.
Police say they will not charge the delivery man. They say he was acting in self-defense. "The driver was told to go to 1319 Pierce and was told to go to the back door and when he got out he was jumped by two men and they tackled him to the ground," says Niagara Falls Police Lieutenant Ernie Palmer.
The other teen, 16-year-old Aldeaz M. Lewis, was located by police and charged with second degree robbery.
Now, why is the fact that the dead felon is in 10th grade the issue being highlighted? He isn’t a victim of anything but his own criminal behavior and the preparedness of a guy just trying to make a living. There is no tragedy here – unless, perhaps, you consider the fact that the delivery guy didn't ventilate the other young felon as well.
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A convicted sex offender apparently committed suicide in despair over signs posted in his neighborhood calling him a child rapist.Clovis Claxton, 38, was found dead by his father with one of the signs beside his body. It was less than a day after his release from a psychiatric hospital.
His mother blames Marion County Commissioner Randy Harris for her son's death. Harris proposed putting up flyers in the neighborhoods of sex offenders to alert neighbors.
Sheriff Ed Dean objected. He says he understands the concern of parents but doesn't want to see hysteria.
Sorry, Sheriff, but you have this one dead wrong. This guy is a convicted sex offender. The public has a right to that information. You have no right to hold it back out of some misguided concern for the criminals. Better that this guy be known by his neighbors to be a potential threat than that we have another kid killed by a child rapist who law enforcement isn’t keeping track of.
And as for the Claxton family, I’d like to say I’m sorry for your loss – but I won’t because I am not. Your son showed himself to be a self-centered bastard who violated others in an attempt to overcome his own inadequacies as a human being. Once he found out that he couldn’t hide from society and its disapproval, he took his own life rather than stand up like a man and face the consequences of his actions. Quite bluntly, I am glad he won’t victimize anyone else, and that is a sentiment I am sure is shared by anyone worthy of being called a civilized human being.
UPDATE: It seems that someone altered the posters in question, adding Claxton's address and the words "CHILD RAPIST" to the poster. That is appears to be a violation of Florida law, and a spokesman for the Marion County Sheriff's Department is talking about investigating the matter and referrign it for prosecution. I hope the local prosecutor has the decency not to file charges over someone adding truthful information to more fully inform the public of the monster in their midst. And if charges are brought, it sounds like an excellent time for a little bit of jury nullification.
UPDATE II: After pawing around Bob's website, I finally found some information to show that the accusation that Claxton was a Child Rapist or a continuing threat was untrue. As such, I have to change my view that his death was anything other than a tragedy/ Those who posted the innacurate signs should be prosecuted and convicted. That said, I still believe that all neighbors should be notified of the presence of sex offenders in their midst.
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A convicted sex offender apparently committed suicide in despair over signs posted in his neighborhood calling him a child rapist.Clovis Claxton, 38, was found dead by his father with one of the signs beside his body. It was less than a day after his release from a psychiatric hospital.
His mother blames Marion County Commissioner Randy Harris for her son's death. Harris proposed putting up flyers in the neighborhoods of sex offenders to alert neighbors.
Sheriff Ed Dean objected. He says he understands the concern of parents but doesn't want to see hysteria.
Sorry, Sheriff, but you have this one dead wrong. This guy is a convicted sex offender. The public has a right to that information. You have no right to hold it back out of some misguided concern for the criminals. Better that this guy be known by his neighbors to be a potential threat than that we have another kid killed by a child rapist who law enforcement isnÂ’t keeping track of.
And as for the Claxton family, I’d like to say I’m sorry for your loss – but I won’t because I am not. Your son showed himself to be a self-centered bastard who violated others in an attempt to overcome his own inadequacies as a human being. Once he found out that he couldn’t hide from society and its disapproval, he took his own life rather than stand up like a man and face the consequences of his actions. Quite bluntly, I am glad he won’t victimize anyone else, and that is a sentiment I am sure is shared by anyone worthy of being called a civilized human being.
UPDATE: It seems that someone altered the posters in question, adding Claxton's address and the words "CHILD RAPIST" to the poster. That is appears to be a violation of Florida law, and a spokesman for the Marion County Sheriff's Department is talking about investigating the matter and referrign it for prosecution. I hope the local prosecutor has the decency not to file charges over someone adding truthful information to more fully inform the public of the monster in their midst. And if charges are brought, it sounds like an excellent time for a little bit of jury nullification.
UPDATE II: After pawing around Bob's website, I finally found some information to show that the accusation that Claxton was a Child Rapist or a continuing threat was untrue. As such, I have to change my view that his death was anything other than a tragedy/ Those who posted the innacurate signs should be prosecuted and convicted. That said, I still believe that all neighbors should be notified of the presence of sex offenders in their midst.
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April 21, 2005
The decision to nuke or not to nuke has obscured the real issue: Are the Republican nominees qualified or are they flat-Earth idiots? As a pro-choice social liberal, I didn't find much reason to like these nominees. However, I also found little basis for a filibuster in most cases. Indeed, for senators not eager to trigger mutually assured destruction, there is room for compromise.
Turley then goes on to analyze each of the judges that the Democrats label extremists who are unfit for the bench – or who they object to because a Republican president is not deferring to their home state Democrat senators. He indicates that the judges in question are generally well-qualified and within the mainstream of the law. In most of the cases he shows that the criticism is either wrong or insignificant. So strong are his objections to the use of the filibuster that he says, “For nine of the Republican nominees, Democratic opposition looks as principled as a drive-by shooting.”
Only three of the nominees present a problem for Turley.
Democrats are on good ground in filibustering William J. Haynes II, who signed a memo that appeared to justify torture of POWs and suggest that the president could override federal law — an extreme view that preceded abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.Then there's 9th Circuit nominee William G. Myers III, a former mining lobbyist who, as an Interior Department official, advocated extreme-right positions on Native American and environmental issues, often in contravention of accepted law. Given the centrality of such issues to the 9th Circuit, there is reason to bar his confirmation.
Finally, there is the closer case of Priscilla R. Owen. She has a "well-qualified" ABA rating, but she is also indelibly marked by a prior public rebuke. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, her colleague on the Texas Supreme Court, said she engaged in "an unconscionable act of judicial activism" in restricting a minor's access to an abortion. That and other charges of activism leave Owen damaged goods for confirmation.
Of these three, I agree on one – the Haynes nomination. It is not that I think that Haynes was necessarily wrong in his position, because I don’t. But at this time, I think the issue is one that is too radioactive. Haynes might be a good nominee in a couple of years – just not now.
I’m not sure about Myers. Do his political positions prevent him from being an acceptable candidate for the judiciary – or at least for the appellate level, beyond which most cases never go? Perhaps. That he lacks experience on a lower court troubles me, because it prevents determining if Myers has an appropriate judicial temperament. I would not be troubled by his confirmation, but would not be troubled by his rejection, either. I just don't see his nomination as a hill worth dying for.
And then there is Priscilla Owens, on whom I steadfastly disagree with Turley. She has been a good justice here in Texas, and while I have disagreed with her position on a number of issues, I have accepted the reasonableness of her rulings. Turley wants to write her off because of an ad hominem attack by one of hercolleagues, the current attorney general. Frankly, I find that to be a pretty weak argument, given that the same statement could have been made against then-Justice Alberto Gonzales in the same case. More to the point, the ABA rated her well-qualified (the alleged “gold standard” for nominees, according to Senate Democrats at the time of Owens' original nomination) and the people of Texas have overwhelmingly reelected her to the bench since that case was decided. Those two facts, taken together, show that she is not an extremist, and is eminently qualified for the federal appellate bench.
Overall, however, I agree with Turley. Now, are there enough honest liberals -- more to the point, enough honest liberals in the Senate -- for such clear thinking to carry the day?
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The author, Laurel Leff, a professor of journalism and a former reporter for TheWall Street Journal, has done a fine job of research in the archives of the paper of record. Others could have done that, but nobody has. More important, she has brilliantly analyzed the reasons Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the German-Jewish publisher of The Times, brought Jewish self-hatred to a head long before the rubric gained popularity.In 1939, when the Nazis began to destroy the Jews of Poland, what bothered Sulzberger was Franklin Roosevelt's casual remark that Jews were a "race." He got FDR to call them a "faith," which settled the issue of the Warsaw Ghetto for him.
On the eve of Thanksgiving 1942, the State Department confirmed that 2 million Jews were dead in Europe, and it allowed Rabbi Stephen Wise, the leader of American Jewry, to announce the news. The Times didn't send a reporter to the press conference in Washington. Instead, it ran a short from The Associated Press - on page 10, surrounded by turkey ads.
What if FDR had announced the news? Then, even a scared Jew like Sulzberger would have been afraid to keep it off the front page. And if that happened, millions of Jews could have been saved.
What if Sulzberger and the Times had spoken out? What if they had actively covered the story of the extermination of Europe’s Jews? They might well have forced Roosevelt to speak out. Instead, over the course of 6 years they buried over 1100 stories in the heart of the paper, somewhere between the police blotter and the grocery ads.
One can always argue that Pius XII didn’t say enough, but it is estimated that the Catholic Church saved between 750,000 and 1,000,000 Jews during the war, much of it with the active encouragement and support of the pope. The charge that Pius was “Hitler’s Pope†is a blood libel.
On the other hand, it seems clear that Sulzberger and the Times were certainly in the pocket of the Roosevelt Administration – and that the muting of the Times at the behest of an anti-Semitic president most likely resulted in the deaths of millions because it allowed the malignant neglect of the Jews at a time when they most needed help. As such, would it not be fair to say, using the standard the New York Times has applied in recent years to Pius XII, that Sulzberger was “Hitler’s Publisherâ€, and the New York Times was “Hitler’s Paperâ€?
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while Pope John Paul was 84 when he died. I wonder if the Vatican's trying to buy time for the right ("younger") Pope when "Papa Ratzi" (ha ha) may die at anytime due to him looking a bit on the frail side.
The author, Laurel Leff, a professor of journalism and a former reporter for TheWall Street Journal, has done a fine job of research in the archives of the paper of record. Others could have done that, but nobody has. More important, she has brilliantly analyzed the reasons Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the German-Jewish publisher of The Times, brought Jewish self-hatred to a head long before the rubric gained popularity.In 1939, when the Nazis began to destroy the Jews of Poland, what bothered Sulzberger was Franklin Roosevelt's casual remark that Jews were a "race." He got FDR to call them a "faith," which settled the issue of the Warsaw Ghetto for him.
On the eve of Thanksgiving 1942, the State Department confirmed that 2 million Jews were dead in Europe, and it allowed Rabbi Stephen Wise, the leader of American Jewry, to announce the news. The Times didn't send a reporter to the press conference in Washington. Instead, it ran a short from The Associated Press - on page 10, surrounded by turkey ads.
What if FDR had announced the news? Then, even a scared Jew like Sulzberger would have been afraid to keep it off the front page. And if that happened, millions of Jews could have been saved.
What if Sulzberger and the Times had spoken out? What if they had actively covered the story of the extermination of EuropeÂ’s Jews? They might well have forced Roosevelt to speak out. Instead, over the course of 6 years they buried over 1100 stories in the heart of the paper, somewhere between the police blotter and the grocery ads.
One can always argue that Pius XII didn’t say enough, but it is estimated that the Catholic Church saved between 750,000 and 1,000,000 Jews during the war, much of it with the active encouragement and support of the pope. The charge that Pius was “Hitler’s Pope” is a blood libel.
On the other hand, it seems clear that Sulzberger and the Times were certainly in the pocket of the Roosevelt Administration – and that the muting of the Times at the behest of an anti-Semitic president most likely resulted in the deaths of millions because it allowed the malignant neglect of the Jews at a time when they most needed help. As such, would it not be fair to say, using the standard the New York Times has applied in recent years to Pius XII, that Sulzberger was “Hitler’s Publisher”, and the New York Times was “Hitler’s Paper”?
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"I do think that what has happened here is there has been a hijacking of the U.S. Senate by what I call the religious right wing of the country," Salazar told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference Wednesday.He singled out Focus on the Family by name, objecting to full-page newspaper ads the ministry's political arm recently placed, targeting 20 senators in 15 states.
"I think what has happened is Focus on the Family has been hijacking Christianity and become an appendage of the Republican Party," Salazar said in an interview. "I think it's using Christianity and religion in a very unprincipled way."
Uh, Senator – who are you to call their religious faith into question? Is that not a religious attack? Isn’t that the exact sort of “unprincipled” behavior to which you are objecting?
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Three hospital employees who thought they were about to split a second-place Mega Millions jackpot worth $175,000 are suing a co-worker who insists he bought the winning ticket for himself."I felt betrayed," said Veronica Edmondson, who is among the trio of Mount Sinai Medical Center office workers suing John Piccolo, the office's regular designated lottery ticket buyer. "We trusted him with our money."
Edmondson, 30, of the Bronx, said joy turned to anger when Piccolo called in late for work on Nov. 3 - a day after the drawing.
"Don't be mad at me, but I just won the Mega Million second prize," he told her, according to court papers.
"I exclaimed: 'We won, John!' to which Mr. Piccolo responded: 'No, I won,'" Edmondson said in an affidavit.
Edmondson told the Daily News yesterday that Piccolo offered to give her a Mega Millions umbrella that officials handed him when he picked up his check.
"He said, 'There is nothing you can do. The courts won't take it.' He even had the nerve to come to work and show us the receipt for the money with the taxes taken out of it," she added.
Guess what – Piccolo was dead wrong. The courts will take such suits – and have so far ruled in favor of the co-workers.
In a decision made public yesterday, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Marylin Diamond said his co-workers have a convincing case.She refused to throw out the lawsuit and froze $81,750 of the $109,000 Piccolo collected after taxes.
Piccolo offered each person in the pool $1,000 - but later halved it to $500 saying he needed money for a down payment on a house. "He offered some money because he thought it was the right thing to do," said his lawyer, Thomas Weiss.
No, Mr. Weiss, the right thing for your client to have done would have been to not rip off his co-workers. I’m hoping that by the time he is done paying damages, attorney’s fees, and court costs, he ends up deep in a financial hole – maybe to the tune of $175,000.
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Three hospital employees who thought they were about to split a second-place Mega Millions jackpot worth $175,000 are suing a co-worker who insists he bought the winning ticket for himself."I felt betrayed," said Veronica Edmondson, who is among the trio of Mount Sinai Medical Center office workers suing John Piccolo, the office's regular designated lottery ticket buyer. "We trusted him with our money."
Edmondson, 30, of the Bronx, said joy turned to anger when Piccolo called in late for work on Nov. 3 - a day after the drawing.
"Don't be mad at me, but I just won the Mega Million second prize," he told her, according to court papers.
"I exclaimed: 'We won, John!' to which Mr. Piccolo responded: 'No, I won,'" Edmondson said in an affidavit.
Edmondson told the Daily News yesterday that Piccolo offered to give her a Mega Millions umbrella that officials handed him when he picked up his check.
"He said, 'There is nothing you can do. The courts won't take it.' He even had the nerve to come to work and show us the receipt for the money with the taxes taken out of it," she added.
Guess what – Piccolo was dead wrong. The courts will take such suits – and have so far ruled in favor of the co-workers.
In a decision made public yesterday, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Marylin Diamond said his co-workers have a convincing case.She refused to throw out the lawsuit and froze $81,750 of the $109,000 Piccolo collected after taxes.
Piccolo offered each person in the pool $1,000 - but later halved it to $500 saying he needed money for a down payment on a house. "He offered some money because he thought it was the right thing to do," said his lawyer, Thomas Weiss.
No, Mr. Weiss, the right thing for your client to have done would have been to not rip off his co-workers. I’m hoping that by the time he is done paying damages, attorney’s fees, and court costs, he ends up deep in a financial hole – maybe to the tune of $175,000.
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I grew up as a typical pre-Vatican II Catholic. I entered the seminary at 13 and became a priest 11 years later, never questioning church teachings. But as a moral theologian in the 1960s, I began to see things differently, ultimately concluding that Catholics, although they must hold on to the core doctrines of faith, can and at times should dissent from the more peripheral teachings of the church.Unfortunately, the leaders of the Catholic Church feel differently. In the summer of 1986, the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, under then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the powerful enforcer of doctrinal orthodoxy around the world, concluded a seven-year investigation of my writings. Pope John Paul II approved the finding that "one who dissents from the magisterium as you do is not suitable nor eligible to teach Catholic theology." Cardinal Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict XVI — told the Catholic University of America to revoke my license to teach theology because of my "repeated refusal to accept what the church teaches."
I was fired. It was the first time an American Catholic theologian had been censured in this way. At issue was my dissent from church teachings on "the indissolubility of consummated sacramental marriage, abortion, euthanasia, masturbation, artificial contraception, premarital intercourse and homosexual acts," according to their final document to me. It's true that I questioned the idea that such acts are always immoral and never acceptable (although I thought my dissent on these issues was quite nuanced).
Unfortunately, the Vatican — which was already moving toward greater discipline and orthodoxy — was having none of it. Seven years earlier, it had punished the Swiss theologian Hans Küng because of his teachings on infallibility in the church. Later, Cardinal Ratzinger "silenced" Brazilian Franciscan Leonardo Boff, an advocate of liberation theology, for a year. Just recently, Ratzinger said U.S. Jesuit Roger Haight could not teach Catholic theology until he changed his understanding of the role of Jesus Christ.
Gee, imagine that. If you are teaching things that run directly contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church, you can’t run around calling it Catholic theology. One would have hoped, of course, that fundamental decency and a sense of honesty would have prevented folks like Curran from making such claims. It didn’t, and so Catholic authorities acted to clarify the situation for the world – you cannot use the forum of a Catholic college or university to put forth ideas that diverge from Catholic truth while claiming that they represent authentic Church teachings.
Curran, of course, is distressed by the advent of the pontificate of Benedict XVI. The result is a call for the rejection of the teachings of the Church. If one is looking for evidence in support of the actions taken against him two decades ago, one need look no further than his continued rejection of those teachings and his attempt to undermine them in the minds of others.
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I grew up as a typical pre-Vatican II Catholic. I entered the seminary at 13 and became a priest 11 years later, never questioning church teachings. But as a moral theologian in the 1960s, I began to see things differently, ultimately concluding that Catholics, although they must hold on to the core doctrines of faith, can and at times should dissent from the more peripheral teachings of the church.Unfortunately, the leaders of the Catholic Church feel differently. In the summer of 1986, the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, under then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the powerful enforcer of doctrinal orthodoxy around the world, concluded a seven-year investigation of my writings. Pope John Paul II approved the finding that "one who dissents from the magisterium as you do is not suitable nor eligible to teach Catholic theology." Cardinal Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict XVI — told the Catholic University of America to revoke my license to teach theology because of my "repeated refusal to accept what the church teaches."
I was fired. It was the first time an American Catholic theologian had been censured in this way. At issue was my dissent from church teachings on "the indissolubility of consummated sacramental marriage, abortion, euthanasia, masturbation, artificial contraception, premarital intercourse and homosexual acts," according to their final document to me. It's true that I questioned the idea that such acts are always immoral and never acceptable (although I thought my dissent on these issues was quite nuanced).
Unfortunately, the Vatican — which was already moving toward greater discipline and orthodoxy — was having none of it. Seven years earlier, it had punished the Swiss theologian Hans Küng because of his teachings on infallibility in the church. Later, Cardinal Ratzinger "silenced" Brazilian Franciscan Leonardo Boff, an advocate of liberation theology, for a year. Just recently, Ratzinger said U.S. Jesuit Roger Haight could not teach Catholic theology until he changed his understanding of the role of Jesus Christ.
Gee, imagine that. If you are teaching things that run directly contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church, you can’t run around calling it Catholic theology. One would have hoped, of course, that fundamental decency and a sense of honesty would have prevented folks like Curran from making such claims. It didn’t, and so Catholic authorities acted to clarify the situation for the world – you cannot use the forum of a Catholic college or university to put forth ideas that diverge from Catholic truth while claiming that they represent authentic Church teachings.
Curran, of course, is distressed by the advent of the pontificate of Benedict XVI. The result is a call for the rejection of the teachings of the Church. If one is looking for evidence in support of the actions taken against him two decades ago, one need look no further than his continued rejection of those teachings and his attempt to undermine them in the minds of others.
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Well, the latest scientific research from the Popcorn Board out of Chicago gives us a potential answer.
It's long been known that popcorn kernels must have a precise moisture level in their starchy center -- about 15 percent -- to explode. But Purdue University researchers found the key to a kernel's explosive success lies in the composition of its hull.Unpopped kernels, it turns out, have leaky hulls that prevent the moisture pressure buildup needed for them to pop and lack the optimal hull structure that allows most kernels to explode.
"They're sort of like little pressure vessels that explode when the pressure reaches a certain point," said Bruce Hamaker, a Purdue professor of food chemistry. "But if too much moisture escapes, it loses its ability to pop and just sits there."
The findings may help popcorn breeders select the best varieties -- or create new ones -- with superior hulls that yield few, if any, unpopped kernels. But for now, there's no way to screen out potential old maids before they end up in bags of popcorn.
Hamaker and his associates compared the microwave popping performance of 14 Indiana-grown popcorn varieties and examined the crystalline structure of the translucent hulls of both the popped kernels and the duds.
I’ll admit, it isn’t rocket science (and living so close to Johnson Space Center, I know plenty of rocket scientists), but maybe it will one day guarantee that that every kernel is “good to the last popâ€.
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Well, the latest scientific research from the Popcorn Board out of Chicago gives us a potential answer.
It's long been known that popcorn kernels must have a precise moisture level in their starchy center -- about 15 percent -- to explode. But Purdue University researchers found the key to a kernel's explosive success lies in the composition of its hull.Unpopped kernels, it turns out, have leaky hulls that prevent the moisture pressure buildup needed for them to pop and lack the optimal hull structure that allows most kernels to explode.
"They're sort of like little pressure vessels that explode when the pressure reaches a certain point," said Bruce Hamaker, a Purdue professor of food chemistry. "But if too much moisture escapes, it loses its ability to pop and just sits there."
The findings may help popcorn breeders select the best varieties -- or create new ones -- with superior hulls that yield few, if any, unpopped kernels. But for now, there's no way to screen out potential old maids before they end up in bags of popcorn.
Hamaker and his associates compared the microwave popping performance of 14 Indiana-grown popcorn varieties and examined the crystalline structure of the translucent hulls of both the popped kernels and the duds.
I’ll admit, it isn’t rocket science (and living so close to Johnson Space Center, I know plenty of rocket scientists), but maybe it will one day guarantee that that every kernel is “good to the last pop”.
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Got a prayer or a problem for the new pope? Now you can e-mail him. Showing that Pope Benedict XVI intends to follow in the footsteps of John Paul II's multimedia ministry, the Vatican on Thursday modified its Web site so that users who click on an icon on the home page automatically activate an e-mail composer with his address.In English, the address is benedictxvi@vatican.va. In Italian: benedettoxvi@vatican.va.
Vatican spokesmen could not immediately be reached for comment on how many messages Benedict may have received already.
Pope John Paul II also had an email address, and made use of computers and the internet.
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April 20, 2005
Two Winona High School students have found themselves in hot water with school officials.Why? Because after Carrie Rethlefsen attended a performance of the play "The Vagina Monologues" last month, she and Emily Nixon wore buttons to school that read: "I [heart] My Vagina."
School leaders said that the pin is inappropriate and that the discomfort it causes trumps the girls' right to free speech. The girls disagree. And despite repeated threats of suspension and expulsion, Rethlefsen has continued to wear her button.
The girls have won support from other students and community members.
More than 100 students have ordered T-shirts bearing "I [heart] My Vagina" for girls and "I Support Your Vagina" for boys.
"We can't really find out what is inappropriate about it," Rethlefsen, 18, said of the button she wears to raise awareness about women's issues. "I don't think banning things like that is appropriate."
Hmmmm.....
I'll tell you, I have some mixed emotions here. There is clearly some redeeming content here, designed to address an "Important Issue" in society. I don't particularly want to see that stifled. Given that we are dealing with high school students, it isn't like they are unfamiliar with what a vagina is, nor with the issues in question. So while I wish the girls would find a different way to address the women's issues (after all, one act in the play glorifies the sexual abuse of a young girl by a lesbian babysitter who plies her with alcohol) I don't find the button that disruptive. I think the school administrators have likely made a serious mistake in their handling of the situation.
The buttons were not disruptive, it seems, until spotted by a secretary. Later, one teacher appears to have completely over-reacted.
Rethlefsen said school officials first told her the button was inappropriate in mid-March when a school secretary spotted it. That started a string of visits -- and debates -- with teachers, counselors, an assistant principal and the principal. A teacher barred Rethlefsen from her classroom as long as she wore her button."The principal said that by wearing the pin, I was giving people wrong ideas," Rethlefsen said. "That I was giving an open invitation [to guys]."
The girls said they tried to explain that the buttons are meant to spark discussion about violence against women, about women's rights. But Principal Nancy Wondrasch said others find the buttons offensive.
"We support free speech," she said. "But when it does infringe on other people's rights and our school policies, then we need to take a look at that."
Wondrasch said she thought they had worked out a compromise with the girls, allowing them to set up a table in the school to discuss women's issues. But Rethlefsen said school officials are insisting that they review and approve any information the girls want to present.
And then comes the issue of the shirts that the girls have ordered. Again, that is political speech that is protected. Here is where the school has gotten particularly heavy-handed, even more that with the prior approval requirement for the information table, which doesn't strike me as particularly unreasonable except for the circumstances that led up to that "compromise".
Nixon said more than 100 students are expected to wear the shirts. She added that officials have threatened real consequences if that happens."They told us that if a single person showed up wearing them, we're going to get expelled," she said. "People are going to wear them anyway."
And these shirts are where I could see a problem arising -- actually the same problem that might have been feared by those who objected to the buttons. What happens when the first satirist shows up wearing a shirt that says "I [heart] My Penis"? What about "My Penis [hearts] Your Vagina"? The whole thing has the potential to spiral out of control. Do we want various and sundry vaginas and penises, each with a different message, wandering the hallways of the high school? Is the decision of the school administration really all that unreasonable?
Frankly, I'm not sure. On the one hand, I applaud the girls in question and their supporters for dealing seriously with a serious issue. On the other, I see the potential difficulties. I am, without question, loathe to see prior restraint based upon a mere hypothetical. And I don't see how or where a bright line can be drawn between supporting the constitutional rights of students and lat the same time letting them know when they have crossed a line. If anything, this case is much more difficult than the Day of Silence/Day of Truth conflict I wrote about over the weekend.
Still, in the end I have to side with the "Vagina Warriors". They seem to have learned their lessons well when it comes to exercising their civil rights. Here's hoping they have learned to do so responsibly and respectfully.
UPDATE: Well, today was t-shirt day in Winona. About 40 kids wore the shirts -- turned inside out -- and two wore them right-side-out. The two girls were suspended.
After all the radio interviews, after all the newspaper stories and television stories and hundreds and hundreds of e-mails, Carrie Rethlefsen ended her lesson in free speech and democracy today by doing a simple thing:She walked into school with her "I [heart] My Vagina" T-shirt's message in plain sight. About 40 classmates had walked in just seconds before after turning their T-shirts inside out.
And, minutes later, she emerged with another lesson learned. The administrators at Winona Senior High School mean what they say. They sent her home for the day.
"I'm happy," said Rethlefsen, 18. "I got my message out there."
Also sent home was senior Katelyn Delvaux.
Congratulations, girls, for standing up for freedom of speech in schools.
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The election of Benedict XVI seems to have put a quick end to the love-feast that we have witnessed in the three weeks since the illness of his beloved predecessor, Pope John Paul the Great. Having been a lightning rod for criticism as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, it was inevitable the new pope would be controversial. Yet when it comes down to it, the real complaint seems to be that Pope Benedict XVI is just plain too Catholic.
Consider the criticisms found in this article. First we get the feminists who are seeking to undo the two millennia old practice of limiting the priesthood (and higher advancement) to men only.
The Women's Ordination Conference, a Catholic feminist organization working for the ordination of women priests, said the church desperately needs a healer, but the cardinals have elected a divider: "This is another example of how the hierarchy is out of touch with Catholics in the pews," said Joy Barnes, executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference.
Sorry, Ms. Barnes, there was never any possibility of you getting what your heart desires. The Church hasn’t survived for two thousand years by taking flash-polls and interpreting survey data. You may not like that – and you may even have survey results showing that two-thirds want just the “reform” you are backing. But that said, I wouldn’t count on that change happening. The weight of scriptural, historical, and theological evidence is against you, as my dear former professor Sister Sara Butler (herself once a vocal supporter of ordaining women until she studied the issue more closely) used to tell us back during my seminary days. And while I may now be an ex-seminarian married to a woman who is a former church pastor, I fail to see how such a change can be made in a Catholic context.
And then there was this comment from the “official” organization of American nuns.
The National Coalition of American Nuns noted that the new pope has the reputation of being "rigid in his position as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, silencing and expelling theologians, priests and nuns whom he perceived as not being orthodox."He certainly is not known for his sensitivity to the exclusion of women in the Church's leadership," the nuns said in a statement.
Uh, ladies, the teachings of the Catholic Church are not the menu of your local Chinese restaurant. You don’t get to pick one from column A and two from column B. The “silenced” theologians (many of whom are incredibly vocal) were not teaching what the Church teaches, but claimed that they were. What else is the individual charged with ensuring orthodoxy supposed to do? And as far as alleged rigidity is concerned, that is a necessary virtue for one who is expected to be the arbiter of orthodoxy.
And where would we be without these words of dissent from those who utterly reject the teachings of the Church on human sexuality, yet insist that they (and not the Church hierarchy) get to redefine the historic teachings of the Church to meet their own desires?
"The new Pope is seen as the principal author of the most virulently anti-gay, anti-GLBT rhetoric in the last papacy," said DignityUSA President Sam Sinnett."The elevation of Cardinal Ratzinger is being seen by many GLBT Catholics as a profound betrayal by the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church and betrayal of one of the most fundamental teachings of Jesus Christ as the loving Good Shepherd who reached out to the ones separated from the flock."
Sinnett called the election of the new pope a test of faith: "We express deep sadness for all those who will find themselves further alienated from the church because of Cardinal Ratzinger's assumption of the papacy. With their support and that of all our members and allies, we will re-double our efforts to speak the truth of our lives as faithful GLBT Catholics."
Never mind that the teachings of the Church are congruent with the words of the Bible itself in a way that the position of DignityUSA is not – they’ve got the truth and the new Vicar of Christ has it all wrong.
I could go on, but it is simply more of the same. Such theological luminaries as Maureen Dowd and Andrew Sullivan have weighed in, as has the New York Times. Their words lead me to ask one pressing question -- How did Catholicism ever manage to make it through its first two millennia without their prophetic voices to guide it?
UPDATE: Seems that I'm not the only one to have noticed that the objections to Ratzinger boiled down to his being too Catholic. This piece showed up in the London Times.
WHAT HAS been most enjoyable about the stunned reaction of the bulk of the media to the election of Pope Benedict XVI has been the simple incredulousness at the very idea that a man such as Joseph Ratzinger could possibly have become leader of the universal Church.Journalists and pundits for whom the Catholic Church has long been an object of anthropological curiosity fringed with patronising ridicule have really let themselves go since the new pontiff emerged. Indeed most of the coverage I have seen or read could be neatly summarised as: “Cardinals elect Catholic Pope. World in Shock.”
As headlines, IÂ’ll grant you, itÂ’s hard to beat GodÂ’s Rottweiler, The Enforcer, or Cardinal No. They all play beautifully into the anti-Catholic sentiment in intellectual European and American circles that is, in this politically correct era, the only form of religious bigotry legitimised and sanctioned in public life. But I ask you, in all honesty, what were they expecting?
Did the likes of The Guardian, the BBC or The New York Times think there was someone in the Church’s leadership who was going to pop up out on the balcony of St Peter’s and with a cheery wave, tell the faithful that everything they’d heard for the past 26 — no, make that 726 — years was rubbish and that they should all rush out and load up with condoms and abortifacients like teenagers off for a smutty weekend? Or did they think the conclave would go the whole hog and elect Sir Bob Geldof (with Peaches, perhaps, as a co-pope) in an effort to bring back the masses?
Right on the head, Mr. Baker -- I only wish I had written it so well!
Update 2: I thought I had seen it all when it came to the anti-Catholic garbage of the Left. The I found this piece from SFGate.com, which is the web portal for the San Francisco Chronicle. Talk about disgusting and sacriligious!
This, then, was to be your biggest challenge. To make yourself relevant again, make yourself known. To make open-hearted and sex-positive and choice-happy and pantheistic changes to your dusty dying church that make the world sit up and take notice and applaud.Is it still possible? Is there still a glimmer of hope that you might choose to buck dour church tradition and kick down the doors and throw open the stained-glass windows and remake yourself as modern, as inclusive, as the Pope That Changed Everything? Because right now, the world has this sad, sinking feeling again. All signs point to more of the same as the last bitter and bilious 2,000 years, if not even worse. All signs point to more repression, homophobia, intolerance, denial, insularity, guilt like a weapon.
Be thankful that the dark, evil hateful repressed, < YOUR BIGOTTED ADJECTIVE HERE > Catholics are restrained by a moral code that says to love their neighbor and turn the other cheek. If you wrote this about Muslims, they'd be purchasing an orange jumpsuit and sharpening their scimitars.
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John McGivney had enough.He loaded his .380-caliber handgun Friday afternoon, walked out to the parking lot of his Lauderdale-by-the-Sea apartment building and fired four shots into the hood of his ailing Chrysler.
"I'm putting my car out of its misery," McGivney told his landlord.
But the Broward Sheriff's Office didn't see it as a mercy killing. They arrested McGivney on a misdemeanor charge of discharging a firearm in public.
After a night in jail, he was back at his Bougainvilla Isles apartment on $100 bond -- the bullet-riddled 1994 Chrysler LeBaron LX dead in the spot where he left it. McGivney said Tuesday he hasn't tried to start the car and suspects that the four slugs he fired into it probably made his car trouble worse.
McGivney, 64, said the car has been giving him trouble for years and had "outlived its usefulness."
He called the shooting "dumb," and said he'll probably be evicted. But he doesn't regret a thing.
"I think every guy in the universe has wanted to do it," McGivney said. "It was worth every damn minute in that jail."
I'm curious -- which old car does this story make you fondly (o not so fondly) remember?
Mine would have to be that old Plymouth Volare wagon, painted silver-gray.
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John McGivney had enough.He loaded his .380-caliber handgun Friday afternoon, walked out to the parking lot of his Lauderdale-by-the-Sea apartment building and fired four shots into the hood of his ailing Chrysler.
"I'm putting my car out of its misery," McGivney told his landlord.
But the Broward Sheriff's Office didn't see it as a mercy killing. They arrested McGivney on a misdemeanor charge of discharging a firearm in public.
After a night in jail, he was back at his Bougainvilla Isles apartment on $100 bond -- the bullet-riddled 1994 Chrysler LeBaron LX dead in the spot where he left it. McGivney said Tuesday he hasn't tried to start the car and suspects that the four slugs he fired into it probably made his car trouble worse.
McGivney, 64, said the car has been giving him trouble for years and had "outlived its usefulness."
He called the shooting "dumb," and said he'll probably be evicted. But he doesn't regret a thing.
"I think every guy in the universe has wanted to do it," McGivney said. "It was worth every damn minute in that jail."
I'm curious -- which old car does this story make you fondly (o not so fondly) remember?
Mine would have to be that old Plymouth Volare wagon, painted silver-gray.
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In the case of Bush's nominees, Democrats have scarcely tried to mount a campaign on the merits. The quick, now-routine resort to the filibuster suggests that Democrats don't think they can muster convincing, substantive arguments that the nominees are extreme.George Washington University Law professor Jonathan Turley, himself a liberal, thinks that good cases could be made against Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, District Judge Terrence Boyle and former Pentagon counsel William Haynes.
However, he says that most of Bush's other nominees, including California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown and Alabama Attorney General William Pryor, while ideologically conservative, have demonstrated that they are principled jurists who put the law ahead of their beliefs.
Now I can agree with that sentiment. There could be among the judges denied an up-or-down vote some who are clearly unworthy. But the Democrats have not made that case – they have simply refused to allow the nominations to be voted upon as a matter of course. They haven’t debated or deliberated – they have insulted and assassinated their characters. In the end, real debate is needed on each nominee. A vote is necessary for each and every judge. And if the Democrats have any actual basis upon which to reject a judge, they should prove it before the entire Senate – and the American people.
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In the case of Bush's nominees, Democrats have scarcely tried to mount a campaign on the merits. The quick, now-routine resort to the filibuster suggests that Democrats don't think they can muster convincing, substantive arguments that the nominees are extreme.George Washington University Law professor Jonathan Turley, himself a liberal, thinks that good cases could be made against Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, District Judge Terrence Boyle and former Pentagon counsel William Haynes.
However, he says that most of Bush's other nominees, including California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown and Alabama Attorney General William Pryor, while ideologically conservative, have demonstrated that they are principled jurists who put the law ahead of their beliefs.
Now I can agree with that sentiment. There could be among the judges denied an up-or-down vote some who are clearly unworthy. But the Democrats have not made that case – they have simply refused to allow the nominations to be voted upon as a matter of course. They haven’t debated or deliberated – they have insulted and assassinated their characters. In the end, real debate is needed on each nominee. A vote is necessary for each and every judge. And if the Democrats have any actual basis upon which to reject a judge, they should prove it before the entire Senate – and the American people.
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