Happy Halloween!

Photo Credit

We Win

Now that Bush is out of office, it's okay to acknowledge that he was 100% right on stem cells. Not that we'll acknowledge he was right, just that we'll pretend we didn't spend 8 years denying what we are now reporting as the simple truth.

Remember how California bucked the Bush anti-science and funded embryonic stem cell research? No more (or almost no more --only 4 of 14 funded projects involve embryonic stem cells).

Get a load of The Grey Lady's lede (but put your neck brace on first) I

n a tacit acknowledgment that the promise of human embryonic stem cells is still far in the future, California’s stem cell research program on Wednesday awarded grants intended to develop therapies using mainly other, less controversial cells.

Oprah's Dr. Oz told Michael J. Fox that last year. The founder of embryonic stem cell research left the biz in favor of adult stem cell cures a couple of years ago, taking all his cutting edge labs with him. But the Times could never bring itself to report such things as long as they would prove Bush right.

A Gossip Of Mermaids

Collective nouns you need this weekend. Click to enlarge.

Shamelessly pinched from here (where does he find these things?)

Appropriate For Halloween

Ugh! Those iconic Lennart Nilsson stills of fetuses? You don't wanna know.

I don't know if curtsy is the right word under the circumstances, but .... picked this up here.

Soccer Fans

Shamelessly pinched from a friend's FB page.

Try Saying "Czar" With A Western Twang

Joe Lieberman keeps making me fond of him in spite of myself. Congress has been discussing the legitimacy of "czars" -- a term which used to mean the head of some isolated special project, but has come to mean a person with cabinet-level authority not vetted in any way by the Congress. I hate the czars, but I don't know why Congress is surprised. It created them by being so stupid and political in the petty sense about confirmation hearings. Corrupt a process, and you stop nothing, you just force a circumvention of law, to the detriment of the rule of law.

Stop me before I rant too much. Too late? Sorry.

Here's what Lieberman said about it:

"I will ask the witnesses if there isn't some more American title that we could use instead of 'czar,' " he announced, calling the term "ethnically inappropriate" and a bit too "autocratic."

Recognizing a chance for shtick, Lieberman described a scene from "Fiddler on the Roof" when one of the townsfolk asks the rabbi if there is a prayer for the czar. "The rabbi answers, 'Yes, my son, there is. It is: God bless and keep the czar -- far away from us.' May I paraphrase that prayer this morning: God bless and keep the title 'czar' forevermore away from the American government. I'm going to try to do my best not to use the word 'czar' in this regard again."

You know, actually, I take it back, I don't like Lieberman for this upon second reading, because he's taking the word away without objecting to the fact. Olympia Snowe's more honest when she replies

I will continue to call them czars

Call 'em what they are. If "czar" calls up the image "unelected tyrant," well...good.

Get how the conversation continued:

Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) had a solution, based on his service in the Nixon administration. "The White House is a court, the president is the king, the White House staffers are courtiers," he said, "and it is the century-long duty of every courtier to keep everybody else from having access to the king."

Lieberman mulled over this substitution of "courtier" for "czar." "That actually describes more appropriately the powers," the chairman said. "But it's not quite American enough."

Good night. This is a Republican Senator? Does it occur to no one that the problem isn't that the words aren't American enough, it's that the position isn't democratic enough? or republican enough, either? (Please to note lower case "d" and "r".)

Franklin's "if" is starting to look pretty big, no?

Pro-Life Fail

Behold, pro-life Democracy (capital D) at its finest:



This is the strongest, pluckiest pro-life Democrat in the Congress, and it turns out his position is: I'm going to vote against abortion funding until the moment I vote for it. What's the old yarn about having established the profession, now just haggling over the price?

See Hadley Arkes, below.

Curtsy: CMR

National Endowment For Sucking Up

Mr. W. found this depressing address from the new NEA (Arts, not Education) chairman.

Some quote-unquote “journalists” have recently accused this agency of losing its independence and becoming a propaganda machine. While I want to state in no uncertain terms that the NEA is not a political agency and that when art becomes propaganda I lose all interest in it.

Which would be hopeful, except that he also says this:

Which brings me to President Obama, our Optimist in Chief. He is a writer, an artist but we’ll come to that later. His second book had a title that would resonate with Lionel Tiger: “The Audacity of Hope”. This is much more than a felicitous phrase that he found in a sermon: it is the manifesto of this presidency and will lay the groundwork for the most arts-supportive administration since Roosevelt.

Again, optimism presumes positive outcomes, the exigencies of the real world notwithstanding. The Obama campaign, and now the Obama presidency, has always been about aspiration: the idea that our current reality, our circumstances, if you will, need not determine our future.

Which I think he means to be complimentary, although it's rather damning, isn't it? That followed soon by this:

This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln. If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar.

Mr. W. says if a GOP flack said that, he'd be accused of calling for the President's assassination. Again, it's meant to be complimentary, but Powerline explains why it ain't. And is remarkably stupid as well:

Landesman compares Obama favorably with Julius Caesar as "a powerful writer." Landesman is not referring to Obama's skills as a writer, but rather to the power he holds by virtue of his office. Some might think that the literary comparison sells Obama short. Caesar was something of a self-promoter and propagandist in his writing.

Yet Landesman knows Obama is like Caesar, somehow -- a friend asks, is it in the transformation of a republic into an empire with a divine ruler? Perhaps if Landesman had his wits about him, he would note instead that Obama is the most powerful speaker since the other JC.

Well, so what if Landesman is a bootlicker? Landesman is also an idiot. Lincoln never wrote a book, although I believe he did compile the texts of his 1858 debates with Douglas for publication in book form. And Landesman misses a few presidential authors since Theodore Roosevelt.

Woodrow Wilson wrote several influential books as a Princeton professor. Herbert Hoover wrote books including, I am reliably advised, a classic book on fishing. Richard Nixon wrote books before and after his presidency. And even Bill Clinton wrote his apologia pro vita sua.

Landesman leaves JFK unmentioned by name. JFK was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Profiles in Courage in 1957. My guess is that JFK and Obama share the attribute of authorship in roughly equal measure.

Nope, no propaganda here.

Aggravating

rant/ Dear non-profit groups: have you no idea how much ill will you generate in me when you disrupt the peace of my home early in the morning?

Morning is my quiet time.

Sort of. Actually, it often involves shouting, because children are involved, particularly a 6-yr-old who thinks if he can't find his uniform or some piece thereof, moaning in the middle of the hallway will cause the missing item to fly into his lap. Something is always missing, because this same child --quite bright in academic subjects-- is capable of saying he can't find an item in plain sight at his feet.

But anyway, in theory, the uniforms having been laid out the previous evening, at which time also the lunches were made and bookbags packed with completed assignments --in theory I say-- morning is time for prayer and then reading as the kids go about their routine. Then kisses and have-a-good-days and more reading while the coffee is kicked in and while my brain can absorb (which is not the case after 9 pm).

I do not want to hear the telephone ring at 7:48 am.

Nor again at 8 am.

I do not want to hear it again at 8:30 am.

Nor again at 8:47.

I am reading, which is short for quietly gathering myself for the day. If I am not reading, I am storming about the house in search of a missing shoe or misplaced book report or both and cannot handle an interruption. I need peace in the morning, not jangles.

If the phone does ring before business hours, it had better be a friend or family member in distress and apologetic about the interruption and not a solicitation as all four calls this morning were. I didn't answer them, but the damage is done by the interruption of the sound.

I am not even slightly tempted to give to a cause that can't wait until 9 am.

Mr. W. says things will only get worse, since not-for-profits were exempted from the Do Not Call registry. Since soon the government will own everything, everything will be a non-profit.

/rant

What The Press Hasn't Noticed About Health Care

It's all about abortion, says Hadley Arkes. Even though only 13% of Americans support federal abortion funding --because even "pro-choicers" don't think a private "choice" should be funded as a public good-- the Congressional committees have refused to allow amendments cutting off funding to come to a vote.

What the media have not understood is that the removal of abortion could doom the whole bill. For even they seem not to have grasped the truth that dare not speak its name: that the paramount, defining issue for the Democrats now – the issue that gives scale and place to everything else – is that commitment to abortion, for any reason, at any time. For people on the Left, that right to abortion has become the “first freedom,” taking the place of freedom of speech and religion. If abortion were explicitly barred from a vast new program of medical care, that would be taken as another, telling sign that the public has refused to accept the legitimacy of abortion as just another form of surgery. For the National Organization of Women, and the Left at the core of the Democratic Party, that kind of judgment is just not to be brooked. If that is the cost of national heath care, they would rather not have it than suffer this moral reproach running to the core of their lives.

In other words, the Dems could have had a health care bill months ago if Nancy Pelosi weren't simply the head on top of the neck that is the abortion groups.

As it stands, if Bart Stupak, pro-life Democrat, can hang onto the 40 Democratic pro-life and Blue Dog votes he's got against abortion funding in the health care plan, that --combined with GOP votes-- would be enough to defeat health care in the House.

Unless the administration buys off a couple Blue Dogs, or they prove this stupid:

the Democrats will accept the temporary exclusion of abortion if they can get their main measure passed. Once the new scheme is in place, all of the trends at work in the bureaucracy and courts will be on the side of accepting abortion as a medical procedure thoroughly legitimate.

Which brings us to our old (at this blog anyway) and highly controversial point that there's no such thing at the federal level at this time as a pro-life Democrat.

Past the feistiness of Bart Stupak and his gang of Blue Dogs is the hapless, if not witless, condition of the pro-life Democrats and the voters who keep them there. It is the same incoherence that afflicted the pro-life voters who voted to put Bob Casey in the Senate in Pennsylvania. If they were really pro-life, what sense did it make to vote for a man who would help put in control of the Senate or the Congress the party that is radically pro-abortion? If the Bart Stupaks truly regarded the protection of life as the issue that rises above all others, why have they been willing to make themselves agents for putting into power the party that regards the defense of abortion as its first, controlling principle?

This Just In...Fox Out

Lee Habib with what's supposed to be satire, but seems entirely plausible to me. Including the end.

My spy in New York adds (since he asks for updates):

January 14, 2010: This just in from the US Weather Bureau. In an exclusive interview with David Broder of the Washington Post, Bureau Director Thomas Witherspoon announced that Fox News will no longer be allowed to report the weather: "They consistently report the temperature as being untrue things like"chilly" "blustery" or "20 degrees" in an obvious effort to undermine the passage of Cap and Trade, the most important weapon in the government's arsenal against Global Warming. We have observed that many of their viewers have been so brainwashed by this false propaganda, that they're actually wearing coats and mufflers. Fox's scurrilous pandering to the coat and muffler industry has put it beyond the pale."

But He Could Be Re-Elected Anyway?

Grrr. Mr. W. told me about this at lunchtime, but did I post it then and beat ninme? No, I did not. (It's not getting scooped I mind, so much as having to come up with a different headline.) Anyway, Krauthammer gave an absolutely yummy interview to Der Spiegel. Yummy because he mocked Obama and their love of him right in their European faces.

in the American context, to be the hero of five Norwegian leftists, is not exactly politically positive.

Then:

SPIEGEL: Why do Europeans react so positively to him?

Krauthammer: Because Europe, for very understandable reasons, has been chaffing for 60 years under the protection, but also the subtle or not so subtle domination of America. Europeans like to see the big guy cut down to size, it's a natural reaction. You know, Europe ran the world for 400 or 500 years until the civilizational suicide of the two World Wars. And then America emerged as the world hegemon, with no competition and unchallenged. The irony is America is the only hegemonic power that never sought hegemony, unlike, for example, Napoleonic France. Americans are not intrinsically imperial, but we ended up dominant by default: Europe disappeared after the Second World War, the Soviet Union disappeared in 1991, so here we are. Of course Europeans like to see the hegemon diminished, and Obama is the perfect man to do that.

Speaking of which (that last bit), folks in Mr. W's office are convinced the decline of the dollar is part of Obama's overall strategy. His entire purpose in life is to have America "taken down a peg," including by having the dollar mean nothing much.

But anyway, read the interview. It's going to leave a mark.

Who's Giving Odds?

Mr. W. & I are betting health care is dead.

• Bellwether elections in VA & NJ looking bad for Dems. Creigh Deeds, who's going down in double digits next week according to local polls, wouldn't even have Obama in to stump for him. The papers have made more of his opponent (and likely next VA Gov) not allowing Palin to stump for him than of Obama having the booger touch 9 months after his historic election. (Palin is more newsworthy than Obama?) Which means if the Dems don't pass health care before January, all their people will flee: no one wants to cast that vote so close to November 2010.
  
• Joe Lieberman says he'll join a GOP filibuster against any health care plan that includes a public option --even an opt-out public option.
• And the Dems keep saying they're acting, but nothing happens. Seems like prolonged dithering to us.
  

Who will take our bet?

Cinderello

A nurse's aide from around these parts has been crowned a king in Uganda.

On Sale In Beijing

Found in a Beijing market. No comment.
Photo credit.

Smells, Bells Against Jihad

Here's a take I haven't yet seen on B16's opening to Anglicans.

What’s being interpreted, for now, as an intra-Christian skirmish may eventually be remembered as the first step toward a united Anglican-Catholic front — not against liberalism or atheism, but against Christianity’s most enduring and impressive foe.

Curtsy: Ken Thomas

Nothing Like Consensus

Christopher Booker on The Real Global Warming Disaster. The astonishing thing, he says, is how few scientists are involved.

Thanks to misreading the significance of a brief period of rising temperatures at the end of the 20th century, the Western world (but not India or China) is now contemplating measures that add up to the most expensive economic suicide note ever written.

How long will it be before sanity and sound science break in on what begins to look like one of the most bizarre collective delusions ever to grip the human race?

Carbon & Tax Credits For Murder

Let's not be sissies about this, says I.

Take That, Einstein

You can learn things from the papers your kids bring home from school.

Our middle son, now 9, was "Student of the Week" for his class. The kid fills out a series of questions about himself/herself, the answers to which are shared with the class. Then the classmates write one nice thing about you on a sticky note and you take home a little sticky-booklet of praise.

When you are a 9-year-old boy, that means 26 versions of "You rock, Dude!" with awkwardly drawn action hero cartoons surrounding the words.

Yes, it sounds like a syrupy exercise in false self-esteem building, but as it is a Christian school, I choose to view it as an exercise in teaching kids to be kind and think well of one another.

I digress. The point is that when put the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Middle Weed answered, "artist/soldier." Which seems weird to you, no doubt, but if you knew how much he idolizes his uncle, who is precisely those things, you would only laugh.

Another question asks who you would like to be your teacher if not your present teacher. Answer?

1. My mom
2. My uncle (the one he idolizes)
3. Albert Einstein

Illustrious company I'm keeping. Bonus: I rock, Dude!

Liars Club Author Joins Club Sin

Mary Karr gives a great interview about her conversion to Catholicism. Tastes:

Were you brought up with a particular religion?

No, nothing. Both my parents were agnostic. My mother was kind of a Buddhist. She had some spiritual tendencies, but they were kind of flaky -- New Agey, you know? Which is partly why I'm suspicious of that sort of thing. I'm skeptical of any spiritual practice that doesn't involve other people and doesn't involve some sort of consistent tradition.

A lot of people I know call themselves spiritual. They sit around and light candles and think happy thoughts, which is great. I'm not saying they're not enlightened. I'm just saying that for me, as somebody whose chief sin is intellectual arrogance, I can't afford to do that. Because right away I'll just decide that I know what should happen, and nobody else does.

Chavez In The White House

The latest in the WH -coordinated attack on Fox News. I know someone else who shuts down networks he doesn't like.

Every day in every way we become more like a banana republic.

How Shall We Celebrate?

It's United Nations Day. Festive celebrations include:

• Dumping on Israel
• Abandoning persecuted peoples to their fate
• Protecting Hamas & Hezbollah
• Making sex-slaves
• Embezzling aid money meant for oppressed peoples
• Denouncing the Pope
• Making the U.S. pay for Sudanese & Iranian "human rights" conferences
  
• Pretending to change the weather

Have fun, you crazy kids!

Tony Blair: "Never Marry A Catholic"

Tony Blair talks to Sally Quinn about his conversion.


Curtsy to Ken Thomas for sending me that. Follow the link to the other portions of the interview.

In other ex-Anglican news, I suppose you've noticed the Papal Putsch. (Not that I'd characterize it that way, but WaPo does.) Fr. Z. has loads of stuff on it if you'd like to understand it better. Vatican pressers. A canon lawyer's commentary. Fr. Rutler (ex-Anglican himself)'s reaction. And more if you scroll around.

Heaven bless us, Fr. Tom Reese thinks it's great --even though it will unfortunately make the Church more "conservative" -- ...wait for it... because it will give us married priests.

Update: The Anchoress w/ a great round-up.

The Church in Africa Is In Rome

The Synod of Bishops for Africa's going on, you know. Only I can't cover it because I'm running a conference. So far the most interesting interventions have been about reconciliation --including a stunning testimony from a nun who survived the Rwandan holocaust.

Anyone want to wade through the Synod dailies for me?

Rough Childhood

The classic 4 Yorkshireman sketch.

Because some folks were discussing it recently.

Mass In Mosul

Catholic chaplain offers Mass in an abandoned monastery.

Wine Just Doesn't Excite Me

At least not like this.

Perhaps this is merely further to the VDH grump post below, but I was getting my hair cut mid-morning and the salon had the tv going.

Some show was on. You know the kind. It wasn't "The View," but it was Viewish. (As are some of my best friends.)

There was some guest wine expert. I could only hear her, as the screen was out of my line of sight, but truly, even for a wine person, this seemed excessive.

First she talked about a "sexy, voluptuous" wine. And then she talked about a "strapping young Portuguese."

Sometimes I just have no idea what anyone is talking about.

He Needs To See "UP"

VDH on the culture, and why he's involuntarily dropped out of it. Me too, except for Pixar and the odd novel. He says things here Mr. W. & I say to each other so often the post made me laugh out loud, even though it's kind of dreary in a yummy way. It's a rainy day here, enjoy a good grump.

Re the dirth of Hollywood plots (everything is the evil, white, corporation --preferably the CIA-- carelessly destroying the good little guys):

Can’t they make one movie of the Lewis and Clark expedition or Lepanto, and one less with Tom Hanks as the anguished and caring postmodern man?

Then he says even with DVDs he tends to go back over and again to the Westerns. Shades of Mr. W's distaste for anything in color. (Nothing against the spectrum, just better odds of seeing something worthwhile.)

Today’s under thirty American male actors sound like they either have sinus congestion, or are trying to convince someone they are not as effeminate as their contrived appearance otherwise suggests. If my life depended on it, I could not identify any of the current leading actresses. The country needs a screen presence of a Burt Lancaster or Frederic March and it gets instead a Ben Affleck or Leo DiCaprio.

He adds parenthetically

(A Mickey Rourke, Gary Oldman, or John Malkovich are at least originals and, like real people, look the worse for it).

Amen to that. A month or so ago we watched an old (1986) British tv production of All Passion Spent. It was very good, but what was absolutely wonderful was the eccentric, craggy, beautiful variety of the actors' faces --faces that never turn up in a Hollywood production, even on the sick, elderly or malign.

On music:

One Otis Redding had more talent than the entire hip-hop industry.

Doesn't watch network news, can't keep the anchors straight, likes C-SPAN & Brian Lamb, but can't abide PBS & PR anymore:

The laudable shows are far outweighed by the race/class/gender agendas, usually someone in a soft drone, talking scarcely above a whisper, about some new heretofore unnoticed pathology of the US military, corporation, or government (pre-Obama).

Ha! I was listening to Saturday afternoon opera in the car yesterday, the beginning of the Fall Membership Drive, and the ads our local PR station ran for itself included clips of the "great" stories from the previous 6 months: three --three!-- different clips from their best shows about Al Franken's being seated as senator. Oh, and a bit of the late Teddy Kennedy promising us health care. ("How much is this worth to you?" Honey, any money I might have been tempted to send you for opera was just cancelled out by the reminder of what's on at every moment except Saturday afternoon.)

He's soured on sports. Me, too. The sad state of the Washington Redskins has something to do with it, but it's the absence of sportsmanship. Doesn't seem like a contest of human ability anymore, just like a bunch of cyborgs using the right combination of drugs and super uniforms to improve performance. I know that's not really fair, but that's the impression I have.

The two moments that killed it for me were the change of the Washington Bullets' name to "Wizards" (I will never understand how our race-conscious town let that happen), and the "Dream Team" we sent to the Barcelona Olympics. Magic & Kobe at an "amateur" competition? That just sucked the glory of the "miracle on ice" --our amateurs against a bunch of steroid-amped Soviet professionals-- right out. Now we were the ones sending steroid-amped pros out to stomp on the world.

Like most of America I do not read the New York Times

And:

Nobel Prizes I stopped noticing a while back. Literature and Peace Prizes are awarded mostly on either race/class/gender considerations or utopian pacifism; that a Toni Morison won and a John Updike or Philip Roth (neither of whom I was all that fond of) never did, says all you need to know.

He has an odd postscript --and I wonder how many others are having this precise reaction to decline? He says as he becomes less engaged with the culture, he's become more engaged with politics and military decisions. And...

Lately more than ever I try to obey the speed limit, overpay my taxes, pay more estimates and withholding than I need, pay all the property taxes at once, pick up trash I see on the sidewalk, try to be overly polite to strangers in line, always stop on the freeway when I see an elderly person or single woman with a flat, leave 20% tips, let cars cut me off in the parking lot (not in my youth, not for a second), and patronize as many of Selma’s small businesses as I can (from the hardware store to insurance to cars). I don’t necessarily do that out of any sense of personal ethics, but rather because in these increasingly crass and lawless times, we all have to try something, even symbolically, to restore some common thread to the frayed veneer of American civilization.

Living well is the best revenge?

Obamlet

Shamelessly pinched from two sources:


To surge, or not to surge: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous battles,
Or put down arms against a sea of troubles,
And by withdrawing end them?
To retreat: to fight
No more; and by retreat to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d.
To retreat, to leave; To leave: perchance to lose: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that leaving, what defeat may come
When we have shuffled off this Afghan soil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of a long war;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of polls,
The oppressor’s wrong, the talking head’s contumely,
The pangs of pacifists, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his swift exit make
With a curt order? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary war,
But that the dread that some would cry “defeat,”
That vicious accusation from whose bourn
No politician returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Nobel Committee! Wimps, in thy orisons
Be all my sins forgotten.

Soliloquy by neo-neocon. Illustration by Vanderleun.

I Wasn't Beating My Girlfriend, Your Honor

I was helping her procure an abortion. From the Salt Lake Tribune:

A judge has released a 17-year-old Vernal girl from jail after ruling she did not commit a crime when she allegedly paid a man to beat her in an attempt to end her late-term pregnancy.
snip
"Women may use any procedure or method of terminating pregnancy, by abortion or by miscarriage, and they cannot be charged with a crime," King said.

That'll set us back about 1000 years. But who the hell cares? It's only women.

Curtsy: CMR

Obama Crusades for Same Sex Marriage

There is a battle President Obama is willing to lead. By implication, it happens to be against the Catholic Church rather than the Taliban or al-Qaeda. Here's the text of his address to the Human Rights Campaign Dinner October 10.

I want to thank the Human Rights Campaign for inviting me to speak and for the work you do every day in pursuit of equality on behalf of the millions of people in this country who work hard in their jobs and care deeply about their families — and who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. (Applause.) For nearly 30 years, you’ve advocated on behalf of those without a voice. That’s not easy. For despite the real gains that we’ve made, there’s still laws to change and there’s still hearts to open. There are still fellow citizens, perhaps neighbors, even loved ones — good and decent people — who hold fast to outworn arguments and old attitudes; who fail to see your families like their families; who would deny you the rights most Americans take for granted. And that’s painful and it’s heartbreaking. (Applause.)

[Snip]

I’ve said this before, I’ll repeat it again — it’s not for me to tell you to be patient, any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African Americans petitioning for equal rights half a century ago. (Applause.) But I will say this: We have made progress and we will make more. And I think it’s important to remember that there is not a single issue that my administration deals with on a daily basis that does not touch on the lives of the LGBT community. (Applause.) We all have a stake in reviving this economy. We all have a stake in putting people back to work. We all have a stake in improving our schools and achieving quality, affordable health care. We all have a stake in meeting the difficult challenges we face in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Applause.)

For while some may wish to define you solely by your sexual orientation or gender identity alone, you know — and I know — that none of us wants to be defined by just one part of what makes us whole. (Applause.) You’re also parents worried about your children’s futures. You’re spouses who fear that you or the person you love will lose a job. You’re workers worried about the rising cost of health insurance. You’re soldiers. You are neighbors. You are friends. And, most importantly, you are Americans who care deeply about this country and its future. (Applause.)

So I know you want me working on jobs and the economy and all the other issues that we’re dealing with. But my commitment to you is unwavering even as we wrestle with these enormous problems. And while progress may be taking longer than you’d like as a result of all that we face — and that’s the truth — do not doubt the direction we are heading and the destination we will reach. (Applause.) [Emphasis mine --ed.]

[Snip]

My expectation is that when you look back on these years, you will see a time in which we put a stop to discrimination against gays and lesbians — whether in the office or on the battlefield. (Applause.) You will see a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men or two women as just as real and admirable as relationships between a man and a woman. (Applause.) You will see a nation that’s valuing and cherishing these families as we build a more perfect union — a union in which gay Americans are an important part. I am committed to these goals. And my administration will continue fighting to achieve them.

[Snip]

Together, we will have moved closer to that day when no one has to be afraid to be gay in America. (Applause.) When no one has to fear walking down the street holding the hand of the person they love. (Applause.)

[And snip]

It is no secret that issues of great concern to gays and lesbians are ones that raise a great deal of emotion in this country. And it’s no secret that progress has been incredibly difficult — we can see that with the time and dedication it took to pass hate crimes legislation. But these issues also go to the heart of who we are as a people. Are we a nation that can transcend old attitudes and worn divides? Can we embrace our differences and look to the hopes and dreams that we share? Will we uphold the ideals on which this nation was founded: that all of us are equal, that all of us deserve the same opportunity to live our lives freely and pursue our chance at happiness? I believe we can; I believe we will. (Applause.)

And that is why — that’s why I support ensuring that committed gay couples have the same rights and responsibilities afforded to any married couple in this country. (Applause.) I believe strongly in stopping laws designed to take rights away and passing laws that extend equal rights to gay couples. I’ve required all agencies in the federal government to extend as many federal benefits as possible to LGBT families as the current law allows. And I’ve called on Congress to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and to pass the Domestic Partners Benefits and Obligations Act. (Applause.) And we must all stand together against divisive and deceptive efforts to feed people’s lingering fears for political and ideological gain.

Got that? To oppose same-sex marriage is un-American, hateful and divisive.

Welcome to Obama's "common ground" and abstinence from the politics of division.

Kicking Bush In The Shins Thrice

What do you jump after the shark?

The Nobel Prize for peace goes to President Obama. The nominations had to be in in February.

I did not think they could do anything more ridiculous than grant the prize --the peace prize-- to Jimmy Carter to kick George Bush in the shins. But at least Carter has built some actual houses for the underprivileged. Then they gave it to Al Gore for narrating someone else's slide show, which was clearly a 2nd kick for Bush. And now the man's off the world stage and they felt the need to kick him yet again.

The nomination had to be in in February, when Obama had been on the job for two weeks. And now the Nobel Prize for Big Talk has been unanimously (!)bestowed upon a guy even SNL recognizes has achieved "jack" and "squat." Unanimously? Seriously? There's no one else in the whole world who has done more for peace?

They say this award is to encourage his efforts more than to reward them. But why not encourage something real? How about awarding teachers in schools for girls in Afghanistan? Or Bishop Chacour in the Middle East --he's left-wing and anti-American enough for the Committee, but still genuinely deserving. Doctors Without Borders couldn't win a second time?

The Nobel Prize for Peace: Norway's consolation prize when the Olympic Committee humiliates you.

Update: I was just plucking ideas off the top of my head, but Mary Katherine Ham has some of the people actually passed over for the prize. Apparently accomplishment was a disqualifier.

For Our Lady of The Rosary

Curtsy to Danielle Bean for this interview with Ingrid Betancourt --interviewed by her fellow Columbian captive, Melissa Fung. The link is to the fifteen-minute version, and you can find the full interview (twice as long) there, too. They speak about captivity, forgiveness and the rosary.

You know I never use this space for personal prayer intentions, but I make an exception today. Someone very dear to me is in serious trouble and I ask for your prayers.

Our Lady of the Rosary, Comforter of the Afflicted, pray for us!

No Rant Necessary

Lots of blogosphere ranting about the Conservative Bible Project. Read more carefully, folks. It's a parody. Eg:

The earliest, most authentic manuscripts lack this verse set forth at Luke 23:34:^[7]

Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

Is this a liberal corruption of the original? This does not appear in any other Gospel, and the simple fact is that some of the persecutors of Jesus did know what they were doing. This quotation is a favorite of liberals but should not appear in a conservative Bible.

Duly Noted

George Will on the Copenhagen debacle.

In the 41 sentences of her remarks, Michelle Obama used some form of the personal pronouns "I" or "me" 44 times. Her husband was, comparatively, a shrinking violet, using those pronouns only 26 times in 48 sentences. Still, 70 times in 89 sentences conveyed the message that somehow their fascinating selves were what made, or should have made, Chicago's case compelling.

Then he notes what I've noted previously, that sophomores seem to have the run of the White House speechwriting office. Envisioning a computer program to improve our nation's official rhetoric he writes,

the software should delete the most egregious cliches sprinkled around by the tin-eared employees in the White House speechwriting shop. The president told the Olympic committee that: "At this defining moment," a moment "when the fate of each nation is inextricably linked to the fate of all nations" in "this ever-shrinking world," he aspires to "forge new partnerships with the nations and the peoples of the world."

there was also "what was best about humanity," and "bringing people together." Oh, please, make it stop before they "end the day" by telling our allies, "stay as sweet as you are," and "LYLAS."

The cliches are bad enough, but did he really say this in an international forum?

Nearly one year ago, on a clear November night, people from every corner of the world gathered in the city of Chicago or in front of their televisions to watch the results of the U.S. presidential election. Their interest wasn't about me as an individual. Rather . . .

There is no one in his shop sensitive enough to understand how gross that is? Is this American humility?

Will's conclusion:

Presidents often come to be characterized by particular adjectives: "honest" Abe Lincoln, "Grover the Good" Cleveland, "energetic" Theodore Roosevelt, "idealistic" Woodrow Wilson, "Silent Cal" Coolidge, "confident" FDR, "likable" Ike Eisenhower. Less happily, there were "Tricky Dick" Nixon and "Slick Willie" Clinton. Unhappy will be a president whose defining adjective is "vain."

Richard Cohen, of all people, understands why this is more than an unfortunate tic.

the ultimate in realism is for the president to gauge himself and who he is: Does he have the stomach and commitment for what is likely to continue to be an unpopular war? Will he send additional troops, but hedge by not sending enough -- so that the dying will be in vain? What does he believe, and will he ask Americans to die for it? Only he knows the answers to these questions. But based on his zigzagging so far and the suggestion from the Copenhagen trip that the somber seriousness of the presidency has yet to sink in, we have reason to wonder.

But perhaps the problem is best summed up by a commenter at American Digest, who writes:

Some of my family who voted for the community organizer are now coming to realize that what they really got was the world's most comprehensive vanity publishing gig

Celebrities Who've No Problem With Child Rape

They're signing a list.

Someone asks a good question in comments at that link. How many of these same folks turned their backs on Elia Kazan, do you suppose?

Richard Reeb has a nice post on the depravity of Polanski & Letterman --and what men as disparate as Rousseau and Lincoln had to say about it.

as artists and scientists gain prominence they regard themselves as beyond criticism and become indifferent to the fate of their fellow citizens. They even become toadies of corrupt regimes as long as they are left free to do as they please, and those who lived under monarchies were willing to glorify them.

Rousseau believed that the passion for distinction could find an outlet in the arts and sciences no less than in politics and war, and saw clearly that many whose ambitions far exceeded their talents would attempt nonetheless to reap the rewards of celebrity and fame.

Of All The Anti-Christian Bigotry...

After seeing Capitalism, A Love Story, Ann Althouse notes that Moore calls Obama a socialist straight up, and presents the cheering for his election as everyone happy we've become a socialist nation.

But then:

The most striking thing in the movie was the religion. I think Moore is seriously motivated by Christianity. He says he is (and has been since he was a boy). And he presented various priests, Biblical quotations, and movie footage from ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ to make the argument that Christianity requires socialism. With this theme, I found it unsettling that in attacking the banking system, Moore presented quite a parade of Jewish names and faces. He never says the word ‘Jewish,’ but I think the anti-Semitic theme is there. We receive long lectures about how capitalism is inconsistent with Christianity, followed a heavy-handed array of — it’s up to you to see that they are — Jewish villains.

I will not have the pope blamed for Michael Moore movies.

Instacurtsy

As long as we're demonstrating the Aristotelian claim that corruption of the best leads to the worst, Abombnjihad's secretly Jewish. ninme thinks maybe he'll nuke himself in self-loathing.

Obama's First MSM Hit

The President loses SNL for his two major accomplishments: "jack" and "squat."



Curtsy: fb pages

Brilliant On Polanski

Mark Steyn's take on Hollywood's defense of Polanski. It's a stunning take-down of Polanski himself and all his defenders --well worth reading for that alone.

Harvey Weinstein, the man behind the pro-Polanski petition, rejects the idea that Hollywood is "amoral": "Hollywood has the best moral compass, because it has compassion," he told an interviewer.

Let us agree that Hollywood bigshots have "compassion" for people in general, for people far away in a big crowd scene on the distant horizon, for people in a we-are-the-world-we-are-the-children sense. But Hollywood bigshots treat people in particular, little people, individuals, like garbage. To Polanski, he was the world, you are the children; now take your kit off and let's have a "photo shoot."

He also shows they don't know what art is or how it comes about.

all truly great art is made in the tension between freedom and constraint. In demanding that an artist be placed above the laws of man, Harvey Weinstein & Co. are also putting him beyond the possibility of art. Which may explain the present state of the movie industry.

We're Lame & Unfriendly, Choose Us!

Not exactly the strongest case made in Copenhagen.


Although, actually, the Danes say it was because Obama did no prep work and truly thought a speech from him would be everything.

Curtsies to Gateway and Insta Pundits, respectively

Actually, The Apes Come From Us

We have a new ancestor, and she's got teeth and hands like us, so science now thinks:

the new finds show that what seems most ancient about modern chimps and apes -- such as canine fangs, long limbs with hooked fingers for swinging through trees, and hands designed for knuckle-walking -- may actually be more recent developments, the researchers said. In that sense, the human hand today actually may be the more primitive appendage, they said. "It is the chimps and gorillas that have been evolving like crazy in terms of limbs and locomotion, not hominids," said Kent State University anthropologist Owen Lovejoy, a senior scientist on the research team.

UN Gets The Internet

Well, not exactly, but, we just ceded control over it. The story makes it sound like a reasonable move --some countries didn't want the US to have total control over it.

Yeah. Countries that want to tax, regulate and control access to it.

It's a good time to be a tyrant.

Make My Own Health Care Decisions? Why?

Curtsy: CMR

Distrust But Verify

Thanks to the Queen of Links for sending me this from Theodore Dalrymple about vaccines. Unfortunately, the particular vaccine he's defending (HPV against a certain form of cervical cancer) is indefensible for other reasons in my view --the least of which being its short shelf-life, such that if you vaccinate young girls at 11 as they're recommending here in the US (I got the pitch for Girl Weed at her latest check-up), the protective effect starts wearing off at just the moment your daughter will most need it if she's a sexually active teen, so what's the point of the initial risk --all vaccines containing some risk?

Putting that aside, though, I appreciate this point. In medical school he saw a young man die of small pox induced by a vaccination he shouldn't have received because of a pre-existing condition. It horrified him --but should it have turned him against the small-pox vaccine? In the absence of perspective, information can be dangerous; and nothing is harder to assess than the proper significance of a single dramatic event. Such an event can be greeted by complacency when, in fact, it is the harbinger of disaster; or it causes panic when there is little to worry about. Panic itself can be more dangerous than what gives rise to it. We have, therefore, to control our first reactions by rational thought.
Apparently Britain's just suffered its first death thought to be HPV-vaccine related. He writes:

When the immunisation programme against cervical cancer started, it was estimated, or guessed, that the vaccine might cause one death in a million cases: 1.4 million girls have been immunised, and this might be the first death caused by it.

The estimate, or guess, has therefore proved accurate; and if the trials of the vaccine are to be credited, the estimated number of lives eventually saved will far exceed one, and the extra years of life saved will be far in excess of those lost. This is no consolation to the grieving parents, of course; but it is how the rest of us ought to think.

I think in the US we've had more deaths and more reason, therefore, to blame the vaccine (the CDC reports "serious" reactions, including 27 deaths and induced Guillane-Barre syndrome in up to 7% of cases), but the larger point is well-observed. People seem to have forgotten we're always playing the odds.

Nothing is sooner forgotten than that we have much to be grateful for. Therefore a current death from immunisation counts more than a thousand lives saved by it, in part because a death is tangible but saved life abstract. Conspiracy theories flourish easily on immunisation. It is not difficult to find websites dedicated to the exposure of supposed cover-ups by governments of its alleged harmful effects.

He offers a really interesting history of opposition to the smallpox vaccine -- a campaign that pitted George Bernard Shaw against Louis Pasteur, and whose side are you going to be on? The faithless socialist or the devout, rosary-praying science-savior?

Of course, there are reasons not to trust the government: thalydomide, the Carter-era swine flu vaccine, SARS, general principles. But that's weak thinking.

We mistrust the authorities so much in general that their reassurances, even when justified, are disbelieved. Their credit has been so exhausted by past untruths on many matters that we no longer take the trouble to judge properly what is true and what is false: we assume that all is false alike.

Well, distrust all you like, but verify. And knowing someone to whom the worst happened does not count as verification, however traumatic the experience.

Ouch!

After all that buzz about the Obamas going to Copenhagen to lobby for Chicago, it was eliminated in the first round.

That leaves a mark.

No One Expects The New Jersey Inquisition

Caption contest at CMR