US Trying To Destabilize Honduras

I thought such imperialism was uncool?

Four months after a presidential election, reports from Honduras suggest the Obama administration remains obsessed with repairing its foreign-policy image by regaining the upper hand. The display of raw colonialist hubris is so pronounced that locals now refer to U.S. ambassador Hugo Llorens as "the proconsul."

Features, Not Bugs

"Oh, there's no single payer system."
Just every pressure in the world to create one.

John Deere, Caterpillar, Verizon announce rise in health care costs from Obamacare taxes.
Here's what Verizon wrote to its employees.
AT&T to take $1 billion charge on the health care bill, is re-thinking its coverage.
Plus, here are two doctor reactions.
One immediately upon passage stopped participating with any insurance company (read why).
And Dr. Bob gives us his take.
Update: sell-off of US t-bonds.

why would anyone choose to go into this profession today? Why would any sane man continue to practice medicine in this environment? Why, indeed, do I continue in this insanity?

Photo credit

Archbishop Dolan Speaks For Me

His remarks after Palm Sunday mass today. This is formatted as a press release, which is why all the quotation marks. Too bothersome to remove them, sorry.

“May I ask your patience a couple of minutes longer in what has already been a lengthy — yet hopefully uplifting —Sunday Mass?

 

 “The somberness of Holy Week is intensified for Catholics this year.

 

  “The recent tidal wave of headlines about abuse of minors by some few priests, this time in Ireland, Germany, and a re-run of an old story from Wisconsin, has knocked us to our knees once again.

 

 “Anytime this horror, vicious sin, and nauseating crime is reported, as it needs to be, victims and their families are wounded again, the vast majority of faithful priests bow their heads in shame anew, and sincere Catholics experience another dose of shock, sorrow, and even anger.

 

 “What deepens the sadness now is the unrelenting insinuations against the Holy Father himself, as certain sources seem frenzied to implicate the man who, perhaps more than anyone else has been the leader in purification, reform, and renewal that the Church so needs.

 

 “Sunday Mass is hardly the place to document the inaccuracy, bias, and hyperbole of such aspersions.

 

 “But, Sunday Mass is indeed the time for Catholics to pray for “ . . . Benedict our Pope.”

 

 “And Palm Sunday Mass is sure a fitting place for us to express our love and solidarity for our earthly shepherd now suffering some of the same unjust accusations, shouts of the mob, and scourging at the pillar, as did Jesus.

 

 “No one has been more vigorous in cleansing the Church of the effects of this sickening sin than the man we now call Pope Benedict XVI. The dramatic progress that the Catholic Church in the United States has made — — documented again just last week by the report made by independent forensic auditors — — could never have happened without the insistence and support of the very man now being daily crowned with thorns by groundless innuendo.

 

 “Does the Church and her Pastor, Pope Benedict XVI, need intense scrutiny and just criticism for tragic horrors long past?

 

 “Yes! He himself has asked for it, encouraging complete honesty, at the same time expressing contrition, and urging a thorough cleansing.

 

 “All we ask is that it be fair, and that the Catholic Church not be singled-out for a horror that has cursed every culture, religion, organization, institution, school, agency, and family in the world.

 

 “Sorry to bring this up … but, then again, the Eucharist is the Sunday meal of the spiritual family we call the Church. At Sunday dinner we share both joys and sorrows. The father of our family, il papa, needs our love, support, and prayers.”

Same As Ever

To be connected with the church is to be associated with scoundrels, warmongers, fakes, child-molesters, murderers, adulterers and hypocrites of every description.

It also, at the same time, identifies you with saints and the finest persons of heroic soul of every time, country, race, and gender.

To be a member of the church is to carry the mantle of both the worst sin and the finest heroism of soul because the church always looks exactly as it looked at the original crucifixion, God hung among thieves.

--Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, OMI, "Holy Longing"

Hosanna To The King

James Tissot, Procession in the Streets of Jerusalem

Upon The Asse That Bore Our Savior

Hath only anger an omnipotence
in eloquence?
Within the lips of Love and Joy doth dwell
no miracle?
Why else had Baalam's Ass a tongue to chide
his Master's pride?
And thou (Heaven-burden'd Beast) hast ne'er a word
to praise thy Lord?
That he should find a tongue and vocal thunder,
was a great wonder.
But o me thinks 'tis a far greater one
that thou find'st none.

--Richard Crashaw 

Bye To The Party of No

Reality Check

Curtsy to Hanc Aquam, post is quoted almost in full. Regarding that anti-Obama rhetoric:

Bush Hitler (925,000 images)

Bush Stalin (325,000 images)

Bush Fascist (226,000 images)

Bush Dictator (326,000 images)

Bush Anti-Christ (112,000 images)

Bush Satan (321,000 images)

Assassinate Bush (626,000 images)

Impeach Bush (92,000)

Bush Monkey (916,000 images)

Bush Joker (112,000 images)

35% of Democrats believe 9/11 was Bush's doing

"Death of a President," a Bush-assassination movie that won six international prizes

Not suggesting two wrongs make a right, just noting that we reap what we sow.

Irrefutable Sign Of The Apocalypse

In First Things' March Madness book tournament, Wuthering Heights trounced Pride & Prejudice 89 to zilch. The readers of First Things! Of all audiences not to understand how bad Wuthering Heights is and honestly prefer the silly romantic tosh of a 19-year-old-girl to the keenly observed and mature satire of Miss Austen?

Oh, wait. Nevermind. Apparently there was a rally for common sense overnight, because P&P has advanced to the second round even though when I checked last, the voting was closed and no one had voted for it.

As you were. Unless you care to vote in the second round.

If The Sun Is Shining, You're Free

You're foolish to be concerned about such things.
Curtsy:CMR

Communist Miracles

Castro confuses me. I thought Communists didn't believe in miracles.

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Thursday declared passage of American health care reform "a miracle" and a major victory for Obama's presidency, but couldn't help chide the United States for taking so long to enact what communist Cuba achieved decades ago.
"We consider health reform to have been an important battle and a success of his (Obama's) government," Castro wrote in an essay published in state media, adding that it would strengthen the president's hand against lobbyists and "mercenaries."

Bibi Gets It Worse Than Gordon Brown

Great. We'll meet terrorist states without pre-conditions, but play hardball with our friends.

the meeting began with the president presenting a list of 13 demands to Netanyahu. These included a complete freeze on Jewish building in eastern Jerusalem. When Netanyahu did not immediately accede to this diktat, Obama left him saying he was going to go eat dinner with his wife and daughters. Netanyahu and his party were left to wait for over an hour for Obama’s return. The paper claims that as Obama left, he told the prime minister to consider “the error of his ways.” Yediot Ahronot reported that Obama merely said, “I’m still around. Let me know if there is anything new.”

A second brief meeting followed, which apparently consisted of the president restating his demands. As a punishment for Netanyahu’s failure to immediately bend to Obama’s ultimatum, there was no joint statement issued about the meeting and no press coverage of the visit. Friday’s Ma’ariv describes the scene thusly: “There is no humiliation exercise that the Americans did not try on the prime minister and his entourage. Bibi received in the White House the treatment reserved for the president of Equatorial Guinea.”

The Jerusalem Post is reporting that Obama wants an answer to his demands by Saturday so he can then present them to a meeting of the Arab League going on in Libya...

I thought we were going to be civil in cases of plain disagreement on policy? We have had this disagreement with Israel since the Clinton presidency. What gives the President the right to behave this way about it?

The President's character is tyrannical. He treats other free peoples with childish petulance, demanding his way and being swift to anger if he doesn't get it. And with those over whom we wield power, he smiles and bows with the condescension of the slavemaster. This is not the humble foreign policy we were promised: quite the opposite.

What The Times Neglected To Mention

Vatican Declined to Defrock US Priest Who Abused Boys says the Formerly Grey Lady. Looks bad for then-Cardinal Ratzinger, because he didn't have the priest defrocked.

What's not mentioned in the story was the teeny-tiny detail that at the time, abuse cases were not under the jurisdiction of the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith (Ratzinger's congregation). No one is defending the priest or the failure to remove him from ministry...such failures are part of the reason CDF does have jurisdiction now. However, a lawyer well-acquainted with the Church's handling of abuse cases said in an email to Fr. Thomas Berg of the Westchester Institute:

Between 1983 (the new Code of Canon law) and the motu proprio of 2001, the CDF did not have jurisdiction over child sex abuse cases.  That is the time period when the letters were written to the CDF.
The CDF handled the case properly, under the law -- they told the bishop to start a canonical trial (although the offenses would have been time-barred anyway), and it was his responsibility to take the appropriate action.In this particular case, it was his obligation as the ordinary of the archdiocese to take appropriate action against the priest who committed crimes against youth.Whether prosecutable under civil law or canon law, it was still his duty to do remove that priest from ministry -- not Rome's.

Phil Lawler points out several other such teeny-tiny details.

The allegations of abuse by Father Lawrence Murphy began in 1955 and continued in 1974, according to the Times account. The Vatican was first notified in 1996: 40 years after Church officials in Wisconsin were first made aware of the problem.

Shameful, hideous, ugly. Better for him that a millstone be put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea, as the Lord said. But it's a little much for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee to ignore the case for 40 years and then accuse the Vatican of being slow because they took 8 months to answer. (Whose case gets handled w/n 8 months in our civil courts?) There are other points worth noting, but Lawler's conclusion is this:

This is a story about the abject failure of the Milwaukee archdiocese to discipline a dangerous priest, and the tardy effort by Archbishop Weakland--who would soon become the subject of a major scandal himself--to shift responsibility to Rome.

Nice try. Pope is still the good guy here.

Not By Content Of Character Doth WaPo Judge

Sheesh.

Hail, Full of Grace

Annunciation, this John Collier, not this John Collier

Ave Maria, Gratia Plena

Was this His coming! I had hoped to see
A scene of wondrous glory, as was told
Of some great God who in a rain of gold
Broke open bars and fell on Danae:
Or a dread vision as when Semele
Sickening for love and unappeased desire
Prayed to see God's clear body, and the fire
Caught her brown limbs and slew her utterly:
With such glad dreams I sought this holy place,
And now with wondering eyes and heart I stand
Before this supreme mystery of Love:
Some kneeling girl with passionless pale face,
An angel with a lily in his hand,
And over both the white wings of a Dove.  

--Oscar Wilde

Some Ratzinger for the solemnity. Why was Christ born of a virgin?

We find the answer when we open the Old Testament and see that the mystery of Mary is prepared for at every important stage in salvation history. It begins with Sarah, the mother of Isaac, who had been barren, but when she was well on in years and had lost the power of giving life, became, by the power of God, the mother of Isaac and so of the chosen people.

The process continues with Anna, the mother of Samuel, who was likewise barren, but eventually gave birth; with the mother of Samson, or again with Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptizer. The meaning of all these events is the same: that salvation comes, not from human beings and their powers, but solely from God—from an act of his grace.

Curtsy: Students, publish here!

Bust Up

You know how I periodically argue that Western promiscuity and radical Islam's misogyny are two sides of the same movement -- both ways of coping with a feminine sexuality neither knows how to deal with in healthy fashion?

Behold, my point is made in the strangest possible fashion. The rude jokes make themselves, but it is Lent, so I am endeavoring not to think of them. /snicker

"A Bad Bill & How We Got It"

Chaput the Great's column this week. He's still right...and still incomplete, I think. Curtsy to James Kushiner who adds:

Was the real intention what David Leonhardt seems to say in the New York Times, "wealth redistribution"? Who knows--it's such a massive bill with multiple personalities. It's for the poor, It's for the uninsured, It's for fining free citizens for not buying coverage, It's Life Affirming, It's for financial efficiency, It's for driving down the cost of health care, It's for driving down the abortion rate. Whatever you're for, that's what it's for.

How we got it was through Chicago-style politics, which is to say, say whatever you have to say to get it done.

Update: In re the "incompleteness" of the argument. Ahem. And: all the ways HCR violates Catholic social teaching...beyond abortion.

Safe Bet

Two years from now, twice as many people uninsured. Reason? The new bill makes it cheaper for individuals and companies to pay the fine for not being insured/providing a plan than to do so. Since insurance companies cannot exclude pre-existing conditions, you don't have to think about your health until the day you're sick.

As of now, a rational individual would not choose to obtain health insurance, and a rational new business would not offer health insurance. In both cases, that is because the legislation has made it illegal for health insurers to discriminate against people on the basis of health status. So the cost of obtaining health insurance while you are healthy will stay high--in fact, market forces should send it higher--while the cost of remaining uninsured has dropped dramatically.

What you subsidize --in this case, being uninsured-- you get more of. Any suckers wanna take my bet?

Added To My List

...of reasons not to support the UN: UNICEF funds hate tv for Palestinian kids.

An ad that bears the UNICEF logo promotes a PYALARA program on Palestinian Authority TV that is devoted to promoting a boycott of Israel. The ad depicts an axe smashing a Star of David, which has on its side not only additional Jewish stars but also the stars and stripes of the United States. Interestingly, the ad acknowledges that a PA program that advocates such a boycott is a blatant violation of the peace accords that the Palestinians have signed with Israel. PYALARA is, in fact, an NGO closely associated with the moderate peace-loving PA government of Mahmoud Abbas. Its weekly two-hour children’s program “Speak Up,” which promotes anti-Israel propaganda, is supported by UNICEF.

While we're at it, why is UNICEF funding any tv at all? I thought it was supposed to feed and clothe impoverished kids. Do you suppose all those folks moved to help the needy on Halloween would give to buy television ads for the world's poor?

Living Document

Shamelessly pinched from Powerline.

Click to enlarge & see if you can make out Article I, Sec. 1.

The President Is A Demagogue

Lest you had any doubts after the farrago of constitutional and ethics violations used to enact health care legislation, get this: the White House is inviting supporters to co-sign the Health Care Bill with him. 

President Obama will soon sign comprehensive health care reform into law. Supporters now have a chance to add our names as "Co-signers" of this historic legislation -- adding our names next to President Obama's to show our pride in helping bring about this great achievement.
Organizing for America will establish a permanent archive with all the signatures, so that generations to come will have a record of those who stood together in this moment and won this fight for our future.

Laws are enacted by Congress and signed by the President. Period. Every chance the President gets, he corrupts or confuses the process in violation of his oath of office.

Canadian Hospitality Not What It Once Was

I don't usually bother to defend Ann Coulter: as a provocateur, she gives as good as she gets, and seems never happier than when saying something a bit outre. This, however, is over the top. The provost of a Canadian school where she's speaking has written this warning letter.

We have a great respect for freedom of expression in Canada, as well as on our campus, and view it as a fundamental freedom, as recognized by our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I would, however, like to inform you, or perhaps remind you, that our domestic laws, both provincial and federal, delineate freedom of expression (or “free speech”) in a manner that is somewhat different than the approach taken in the United States. I therefore encourage you to educate yourself, if need be, as to what is acceptable in Canada and to do so before your planned visit here. You will realize that Canadian law puts reasonable limits on the freedom of expression. For example, promoting hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges. Outside of the criminal realm, Canadian defamation laws also limit freedom of expression and may differ somewhat from those to which you are accustomed. I therefore ask you, while you are a guest on our campus, to weigh your words with respect and civility in mind.

Coulter says she was hoping for a fruit basket, not a threat to prosecute.

Democrats Are Mean

I've been thinking about the Stupak sell-out speech and the body language. Look at it again. He can't look up, he seems flustered. You know what's obvious? The guy finally gives up and they humiliated him by dragging him in to speak against his own amendment. No reason at all to do that to a man you've already forced to capitulate. Except meanness.

See How They Like It

 Sen. Grassley to offer amendment to the reconciliation bill applying health care reforms to the President and WH staff.

Don't see that passing, somehow.

Fight! Fight! Fight!

One more thing and then I'm going to drop the topic for awhile until I cool off.  The idea that bi-partisanship in itself is a rational goal was always silly. Your goal should be to pass prudent legislation (or prudently refrain from tinkering with what's not yours to tinker with) and lead others to support your goals. However, there is an irony that the man who promised post-partisanship has created the biggest partisan battle this country's ever seen short of the civil war.

Efforts to throw the bums out; to repeal; the States' AGs suing; insurance companies suing; this is nothing like over --the acrimonious debates have just begun.

That is the inevitable result of ramming legislation through over the objections of 60-70% of the people. Just as, by attempting to wrest the abortion question away from the citizens in whose hands the decision rightly belonged, the Supreme Court created the culture war it foolishly and arrogantly thought to end, so The Usurper has provoked a debate about the size and role of government that will be either disastrous or very cleansing for this nation.

I vote for very cleansing. (Let 1000 book clubs on Democracy in America bloom!) Never let a good crisis go to waste.

A Republic, If You Can Keep It

At least the Archbold boys aren't too depressed to photoshop.

Gird Your Loins

When a people passes the tipping point where more people are on the dole than off it, it becomes extraordinarily difficult not only to shake off deeply misguided laws (every generation has 'em), but to shake off the cultural lethargy that accepts as inevitable the increasing littleness and barbarity of our lives.

Centralized health care allows more accidental atrocities to happen because the government is so far removed from actual problems. As the debate was going on in Congress last week, several more examples we should have taken as warnings emerged from Britain's NHS.

• Like this woman left to die because a government agency decided it knew better than emergency professionals and a widely accepted international system how serious a fall of more than 6 ft was and in tinkering with the system created a flaw in it.

the government committee which governs its use in this country decided that such cases should be deemed less urgent

• the government declined to punish in any way people responsible for a hospital corruption scandal that left 1200 patients dead (apparently the system worked as it should!)

• The NHS hospital system is notoriously slow, careless and unsanitary -and its bureacracy only has to handle 30 million people. We're going to centralize care for 300 million people. This is an enormous IRS expansion, not a health care expansion.

But the logically necessary and utterly unsurprising decline in care and increase in accidental deaths caused by centralization is not the worst thing. (What we have may be worthless, but at least we all have it, and that's a relief!)

The worst thing is that when you come to accept poor care as inevitable --as just the way things are and something about which nothing can be done-- you start thinking about life differently. Which is why it's a skip of about a half a beat from nationalized health care to nationalized euthanasia,as the Dutch, Scandinavians, Brits and now even our Canadian brethren are showing us.

We may hate the profit motive in health care, but the greediest SOB in a free market system has an incentive to improve care and standards. Bureaucracies have no such incentive, and the larger they get, the more people used to living under them accept death and decline as the easiest answer to everything. (Read that Canada link --it's a David Warren essay on this same topic). Abuse and neglect of elderly in hospitals? People dying of bedsores? Whatevs. You come to accept barbarity.

As Mark Steyn notes, it's a small world after all.

Look around you, and take it all in. From now on, it gets worse. If you have kids, they'll live in smaller homes, drive smaller cars, live smaller lives. If you don't have kids, you better hope your neighbors do, because someone needs to spawn a working population large enough to pay for the unsustainable entitlements the Obama party has suckered you into thinking you're entitled to.

I don't care so much about the smaller cars and houses. But I care very much about the long lines and long tax forms and spending your life answering to bureaucrats instead of living it. I fear an America become like Greece, where the economy utterly collapses and rather than rolling up their sleeves to reclaim their nation, the Greeks go marching in protest against program cuts. Hello...what part of this is a failed and bankrupt nation do you not understand? Give us more! Give us more! Give us more!

It's the learned helplessness, Stupid.

Jubilation T. Cornpones For Life

Here's the press release of Democrats for Life of America.

Democrats for Life of America (DFLA) applauds President Obama for his bold leadership in agreeing to an Executive Order that bans taxpayer funded abortions in the health care reform bill expected to pass the House this evening."

"We are proud to support this historic healthcare legislation. President Obama's Executive Order shows that when we work towards common ground in Washington we can do the people's business and end the gridlock. By working with House Leaders and the White House, DFLA shows how the pro-life Democrats are a key and growing constituency.

Whether that is the greatest lie or greatest self-deception ever heard of I leave to the judgment of the Almighty, but I never want to hear about pro-life Democrats ever again. Everyone sensible understands that politics is the art of the possible as the cliche goes: but these people have allowed their opponents to pick up their quarterback, carry him down field to his own end zone, and then rejoiced over the touchdown.  They nationalized abortion -- a thing no radicals in the history of this country have ever been able to accomplish!

We should not be surprised, however. This is the group that offered no pro-life amendments to the Dem party platform back in 2008. Complete capitulation is their announced strategy --Stupak included, as we noted back in October. There is no principle for Democrats for Life higher than being a Democrat...for life.

But at least they've got Stubby Kaye to sing for them.

Not Over, Just A Steeper Hill To Climb

Barto Calrissian

Compare: Stupak reduced to denouncing his own amendment as anti-life:



And: Lando Calrissian strikes a deal with Vader (warning, rude language):


Curtsies to Gateway Pundit and American Digest

The Usurpation Congress

Democrats to America: Drop Dead. A Congress that succeeds in getting what it wants by shredding the Constitution this time will not go back to the rule of law.

Megan McArdle on The Future After Health Care.

Are we now in a world where there is absolutely no recourse to the tyranny of the majority?

Republicans and other opponents of the bill did their job on this; they persuaded the country that they didn't want this bill.  And that mattered basically not at all.  If you don't find that terrifying, let me suggest that you are a Democrat who has not yet contemplated what Republicans might do under similar conditions.

Here's the roll of shame. In addition to this bill disastrous for health care, the economy and the national character, it also undoes most of the pro-life movement's legislative successes in one fell swoop. As Congressman Mike Pence said to Stupak,

You traded 30 years of pro-life legislation for the promise of the most pro-abortion President in history.

By the way, would you like to know the Wales it profiteth Bart Stupak not to lose his soul for? $726,409 worth of grants for his district's airports. And for what? No one on the right or left thinks the Executive Order means anything. As Ezra Klein says, the President "will sign an executive order stating, essentially, that the law will follow the law."

My advice? Get that surgery you've been putting off now. And take your vitamins. (Does anyone fear violence when these lawmakers go home? We were talking about that at dinner tonight.)

Update: VDH agrees, crosses the rubicon

I don’t see why the ram-it-through, health care formula won’t be followed by similar strategies for blanket amnesty, cap and trade, and expansions of the state takeover of cars, banks, student loans, and energy.
Remember, all these will be packaged as “comprehensive” reform — comprehensive health care, comprehensive immigration, comprehensive energy, comprehensive monitoring of even the banal decisions we make.

Which was, of course, the point all along.

the bill was about assuming a massive portion of the private sector, hiring tens of thousands of loyal, compliant new employees, staffing new departments with new technocrats, and feeling wonderful that we “are leveling the playing field” and have achieved another Civil Rights landmark law. (NB: do the math: add higher state income taxes in most states; the new Clinton-era federal income tax rates to come; the proposed lifting of limits on income exposed to FICA taxes; and now new health care charges — and I think you can reach in some cases a bite of 65%to 70% of one’s income.)

At which point, people wise up and stop working. That little revolution over an entirely justifiable 1-cent tax on tea looks rather quaint, doesn't it?
 Upper-date: Mr. W. quotes Churchill in comments:

Do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time. 

The "I" Word

So... does anyone doubt the President knows full well his EO on health care will be an unconstitutional nullification of a validly passed law?

If he knowingly issues an unconstitutional EO, is that not an impeachable offense?

Don't Blame The Judge

The Executive Order "allowing" Stupak to vote for ScaryCare is blatantly unconstitutional. Executive Orders allow the President to carry out the law. They don't allow him to nullify the parts of a law he doesn't like. He is the Chief Executive, not a lawmaker.

So, the instant the law goes into effect (if it does; still crossing fingers) --or even beforehand-- the women's groups will challenge the EO in court and the judge will rule that the EO is unconstitutional for the reason already stated. If the President could make law by diktat he'd be the king.

(And then certain pro-life groups will go ballistic over the judge's "anti-life" stance, rather than recognize the fitness of his ruling.)

Stupak Caves

Watching the presser as I type in which he swallows the Executive Order hocus pocus. A week ago I was prepared to eat crow and be proud of him. Today I am exceedingly sorry to be proven right: there is no such thing as a pro-life Democrat.

Hope springs eternal, though. The GOP seems to have found a procedural problem that may spare us after all.

Update: K-Lo is saying Stupak thinks Gramma has the votes and therefore is doing the best he can do, as Bush did in the stem cell situation when Congress had the votes to override an outright ban. If it were so, it would excuse him, but I call foul on that. No way she has the votes w/o him and his coalition.

Upper-date: Lord, have mercy! Stupak ended the night by denouncing the GOP for re-offering his own amendment and claiming the Democrats were the ones who were really pro-life.

$625 Billion Deficit in 10 Years

The President just asked me to make my voice heard this morning.

The vote in the House is just hours from now and could still go either way. It's up to every American who believes in reform to call our representatives and speak up -- right now.

So, if you haven't yet, please pick up the phone and call Rep. Edwards's office at (202) 225-8699. And afterward, or if you've called already, make it your mission today to get 5 friends or neighbors to call, too.

Forward this email widely. Save the Congressional switchboard number -- (202) 224-3121 -- in your cell phone, and then hand your phone to a friend, a co-worker, a family member. Capitol Hill offices are open and accepting calls.

Call the folks you know who share our vision for change, and let them know that today is their chance -- our chance -- to not just witness history, but to make it.

Thanks for being there for every step of this final march for reform. And thanks for making it possible.

About that possible executive order.
Update: Bishops condemn the Stupak/Executive Order ploy. Stupak presser cancelled. Jiminy! Such a beautiful day outside; you wouldn't now the constitutional order hangs in the balance and keeps switching over minute by minute.

Birdcams

Courtesy of Danielle Bean, your choice of live bird cam.

Molly & McGee, the owls
or
Mama Hummingbird

Reason Saves Cleveland

Part one of Drew Carey's 6-part charming and interesting series on how to revive dying cities. This installment with cameo appearance by Dennis Kucinich as the former mayor of Cleveland.

Chaput The Great Unloads

Archbishop Chaput lets the fake Catholic groups have it. Money quote:

people who claim to be Catholic and then publicly undercut the teaching and leadership of their bishops spread confusion, cause grave damage to the believing community and give the illusion of moral cover to a version of health care “reform” that is not simply bad, but dangerous.

Agree with him completely. However, must the bishops not examine themselves on the prudence of taking policy stands on various and sundry matters --and so many of them--on which Catholics may in good standing disagree? By lending their weight to all kinds of contingent matters on which they have neither (as a body) expertise nor jurisdiction nor the promise of the Holy Spirit to guide them, have they not thereby diluted the impact of their serious moral teaching and created the habit in laypersons of not having to take episcopal teaching very seriously?

There is of course the necessary distinction between essential doctrines and prudential judgments...but since the bishops' conference doesn't make that distinction when cheering for programs like S-Chip, the faithful might be forgiven for not understanding it. Even the opposition to the health care bill is only because it funds abortion and denies conscience protections. Otherwise, the USCCB would be as strongly in favor of the health care plan as it is against it in its current form.

Yet by what right of their office do they opine that the socialist solution to health insurance woes is better than Paul Ryan's or another --especially since a sizeable number of the individual bishops themselves are on record as personally opposed to the government takeover approach? Were NARAL only slightly less stubborn, it would be the bishops themselves who were giving the illusion of moral cover to a version of health care "reform" not simply bad, but dangerous. (As I say in the S-Chip link: "Respect for life, living wages, universal health care: choose any two. But insisting upon the last is highly likely to hasten our culture's abandonment of the first.")

If the USCCB stayed out of politics and weighed in only to defend attacks on the human person and the family, they would do better. I hazard a guess Chaput would agree.

Update: Take a look at this statement from the Catholic Medical Association. Appropriately it denounces anti-life and anti-conscience measures in the bill. But look at the argument:

In so doing, they have intentionally and publicly contradicted the policy position of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

They say that as if Catholics were bound by every policy position of the USCCB, which they aren't. I intentionally, publicly disagree with the USCCB on in any number of positions as a Catholic in good standing who fully submits to the Magisterium.

I'd argue that the objection ought to hold true. The bishops should only weigh in on matters that truly and rightly bind in conscience.

Health Care In 30 Seconds

Shamelessly pinched from American Digest.

Stand With The Pope

Sigh. Seems we are always going to have "the myth of the silent pope." Now that the black legend of Pius XII is finally giving way, we must invent a new narrative, by which the guy who comes riding in wearing a white cassock to clean up the filth of the 1970s is the bad guy.

"Grossest yuckiness of all gets closer and closer to the Pope" say the headlines in the London Times, Formerly Gray Lady et al.

Actual stories?

• Some choir boys were abused at the choir where the pope's brother taught. Before he was there.
• Then-Cardinal Ratzinger is alleged to have returned a pedophile to ministry, even though he didn't, and the priest's relapse into sin took place when he returned to another diocese after the Cardinal was in Rome.

I'm not sure when not having done something became proof of having done it, but I guess in the world where measurable global cooling is proof of man-made global warming, anything goes.

Too sickened to comment further, but wanted a defense on the record.  Read up.

• The fable of the silent pope
• Jimmy Akin w/ the facts of the story and an interview with the AG of the Vatican
• Phil Lawler: the fable of the silent pope
• "Myth of the silent pope" comes from Bp. Zollitsch in Die Welt; awkward translation here
• Sandro Magister thinks this week's audience was the Pope's response.
• Fr. Z. with a journalism lesson
• Damian Thompson on the counter-reform...of the newspapers

Update: The Pope's open letter to the Irish Church.

The New Secession Crisis

In spite of the moral and legal parallels between slavery and abortion and the long cultural battles to end those respective crimes against humanity, I have always maintained the fight over abortion would never trigger a civil war because there was no geographic divide between pro and anti abortion forces.

However, Virginia and some 37 other states are working on what amount to secession laws if this health care bill passes. (Well: only some of the proposed laws are secessionist. Idaho is passing a law requiring the state AG to sue if the bill passes. But the VA bill sure is.) Abortion's not the direct reason for state opposition, but it is the reason the House can't easily pass the bill. What we have here is more than a wicked and unpopular law; it is an incipient constitutional crisis. And I can assure  you no matter how skillful the photoshops, and no matter what he says in his new Gettysburg address, Obama is no Lincoln.

I take heart only because I'm among those thinking they won't get the votes. (Here's why.)
Update: Ruh-oh. 11 am presser w/ Stupak & other pro-lifers. 

Gramma Is A Very Vulgar Woman

Because the father who fled into exile to escape the slaughter of innocents definitely backs this Herodian health care bill. I'm pretty sure St. Joseph is on Bart Stupak's side. Curtsy: RCP

St. Joseph the Just, pray for us!

Update: Fr. Z. points out this is a double fail, since it's the solemnity of St. Joseph, but St. Joseph the Worker is May 1st. The Anchoress enumerates the umpteen mistakes in this brief comment and really goes to town:

In her upside-down world, Pelosi may think that this monstrosity she is laboring so mightily to deliver is “life-affirming;” that is because she is -like so many of her generation- unable to imagine life after her own. It takes a “my life right now is more important than any future life” mentality to be this committed to abortion, and to insuring that every means of preventing or ending life, at every stage, is introduced into the public mind as a godly and enviable thing. It takes a mind that willfully misunderstands the nature of both light and life, as taught by the Church she professes to love, to stand there with a smug "unicorns and rainbows" demeanor and spout these deceitful platitudes that are not grounded in any sort of reality.

 I think I just heard The Anchoress say, "Die, Boomers, Die!"

The "I Was In The Bathroom" Rule

When the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan, Politburo members asked how the foolish decision to send them in the first place came to be were known to demur: "I don't know. I was in the bathroom when the decision was made."

This is now to be our representatives' argument about how the ScaryCare bill no one wants happened to pass.

Don't call it the Slaughter rule, call it the, "I was in the restroom" rule.

Barack O'bama

No time for Gordon Brown or the Aussies (just postponed his trip Down Under again), but Brian Cowen made the President's schedule.

(This was just for you, adb).

ScaryCare Makes Me Feel Dirty

Or suicidal. One.

Posted without further comment except to say I feel I need to shower after bathing in this bathos, here is the email I just received from the President.

RC2 --

"I'm here for Natoma."

That's what President Obama wrote us yesterday about Natoma Canfield, an Ohio woman whose story helped inspire the President and the nation to keep fighting for reform.

As we speak, each member of Congress is preparing to cast their last vote on health reform, while insurance-company lobbyists bombard D.C. with a million-dollar-a-day campaign of distortions and threats. To break through in these final moments, we must show Congress why we'll never forget the choice they make: Because we're fighting for the people who matter most in our lives.

So today, we've launched a new tool to help OFA supporters show Congress the names of the people who drive us to support reform. It might be a sick father. Maybe it's a friend who lost her job. Or maybe it's a daughter who simply deserves to grow up knowing that affordable care is always within reach. Whoever you know that's inspired you to fight for reform, the time to act is now.

Our voice is strongest when we speak out together, so we're aiming to send 89 messages from Hyattsville to Representative Edwards today. Submitting your letter takes just a moment -- please click here to join in.

Representative Edwards has stood with the President and fought for reform since the very beginning. And as the insurance companies launch their desperate attacks, a message about why you're fighting too -- combined with your thanks and knowing that you stand with them -- will offer extra inspiration to carry this fight to the finish.

As the President reminded us, reform is not just about helping those who struggle today -- it's about making sure that no American is ever just one job loss, accident, or illness away from going without the care they require. That's why we're committed to reform that ends insurance-company abuses, guarantees affordable choices, and brings down costs.

But it all depends on the upcoming vote in the House of Representatives -- and with just a day or two left, it's still too close to call.

Our new online tool makes it easy to tell Rep. Edwards who you're fighting for, and you can even submit a quick photo to drive the message home. Your words and images will be sent straight to your representative, and they'll be visible to every member of Congress before the final vote is cast.

Together, we can send a unique message, powerful enough to break through when it matters the most.

Thanks for making it possible,

Natalie

Natalie Foster
New Media Director

I lied. Some further comments. Blech, blech and double-blech. Nothing about the common good, fidelity to the Constitution or use of reason. Just tell a sob story. This form of argument is itself deeply corrupting, no matter what it's advocating.

There is no sob story like that of a people who once knew freedom. I already told Donna Edwards that.

My Sisters Can Out-Vote Your Sisters

You probably read that the heterodox sisters from orders with no vocations and median age of 70-something are for ScaryCare.

They claim to represent 59,000 sisters, but the Math is dubious, to say the least.

Whatever.  The young, orthodox, flourishing orders who outnumber all those grannies but could also take them in a fair fight think otherwise. 

Cardinal George reiterates the bishops' thinking.

'Raqi Reporters

Rich Lowry is right; this is indeed the picture of the day.

For info to go along with this wonderful shot, read the Weekly Standard's cover story this week, Hope & Change in Iraq. The bad news is that things are not going well for the Christians in and around Mosul. I would like to see our reporters cover that story while they're rightly cheering the success of the Iraqi state.

Con Census

Filled out our census form this morning, and realized I am peeved about it. There's the race thing, which I'll get to in a minute, but what really froths me is the advertising. Census-takers are desperate for Hispanics and other folks believed to be under-counted to take part, so every public space is plastered with posters and the radio's running ads.

Fine and dandy, but the rationale given is so that your town will get federal money! That is NOT the rationale for the census, though it happens to be true that population determines your take of the federal program monies. The census determines apportionment, which is about representation and taxes. Fill out your census so you have adequate representation in Congress and you aren't overtaxed.

So even filling out the census has been turned into an exercise not of self-government and national solidarity, but of bellying up yet more to the government trough.

And there is the race thing, which others have beefed about before me. I don't have anything to add to their objections, I'll just note that there are not one but two race questions for every person in the household, which I note here for the external hard drive and because I have no idea what some of these things mean --tell me if you do.

Please answer BOTH question 1 about Hispanic origin and question 2 about race. For this census, Hispanic origins are not races.

1. Is Person 1 of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin?

• No, not of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin?
• Yes, Mexican, Mexican Am, Chicano
• Yes, Puerto Rican
• Yes, Cuban
• Yes, another Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin (print origin, for example, Argentinean, Colombian, Dominican, Nicaraguan, Salvadoran, Spaniard and so on).

Mr. W.'s grandmother was born in Uruguay to full Italian parents. Does that make our kids of mixed Hispanic origin or not? Is it nationality or "not race" that's being asked for?

2. What is person 1's race? (Mark one or more)

• White
• Black, African Am, or Negro [or?]
•  American Indian or Alaska Native (print name of principal tribe)
• Asian Indian
• Chinese
• Filipino
• Other Asian (print race, for example, Hmong, Laotian, Thai, Pakistani, Cambodian and so on)
• Japanese
• Korean
• Vietnamese
• Native Hawaiian
• Guamian or Chamorro
• Samoan
• Other Pacific Islander (print race, for example, Fijan, Tongan, and so on)   
• Some other race (print race)

Um...so each Asian country or island is its own race, but Hispanic is not a race? I don't get it. But then, I'm stuck in 1977 Social Studies, where we clearly learned the world has only three races: mongoloid, negroid and caucasoid.

I checked "other" and put American. Which I'm guessing census readers will interpret as "white," but the defiance felt good. (If you choose to do the same, and there's a national movement to respond so, be aware that if the feds choose to be picky, you could be fined up to $500. On the other hand, if "Laotian" is a race, so is "American," so I don't see that happening.)

Update: I sense an opening for Rage Boy to make an appearance. ninme writes:

I wonder how many hours of sensitivity consultants were racked up determining the order of some of these questions, for instance, “Other Asian (print race, for example, Hmong, Laotian, Thai, Pakistani, Cambodian and so on)”. Hmong, Laotian, Thai, and then Pakistani?

How Right He Was

Nuns justifying the apostolic visitation.

Flag On The Play

So after that little fooferal about whether it's apt to think of the Extraordinary Form of the mass as a flag, can we at least agree that it's appropriate for a country to fly a flag?

The Administration doesn't think so; it's refusing to fly Old Glory over our base in Haiti.

The Obama administration says flying the flag could give Haiti the wrong idea.
“We are not here as an occupation force, but as an international partner committed to supporting the government of Haiti on the road to recovery,” the U.S. government’s Haiti Joint Information Center said in response to a query about the flag.

Bah on that. Every other nation helping out there is flying its flag. As Ed Morrisey notes:

The decision not to fly the flag is an embarrassment of weakness on the part of Obama.  Our nation has conducted relief efforts for decades through our military, saving millions of people from death, disease, and starvation.  Like France, Britain, and Croatia, we have flown our flag during those operations not to note occupation but to represent the American people’s solidarity with those suffering from disaster.

Ripley's Improbable Explanations

From my spy in flyover country comes this from Mother Jones. The huge health care and abortion hullaballoo? Apparently just a typo.

"It seems that this is something that slipped by," Jost says, "because elsewhere in the bill they made [funding] subject to [the Hyde amendment]."

Yes, dears. You do realize you've just admitted the bill permits abortion funding, right?

And if it were truly just an error, don't you think Reid or Pelosi or someone might have said so by now? I don't think Bart Stupak's defying his party for his health.

Beware The Ides of March

The USCCB is calling on Catholics to call or email their Congressmen today to oppose the Pelosi-Reid-Obama monstrosity. If you want help contacting your reps, go here.

Bishop Loverde has gone so far as to declare this day one of prayer and fasting against the bill. Chaput the Great has pre-released his Wednesday column in order that Catholics "may not be misled."

The Senate version of health-care reform currently being forced ahead by congressional leaders and the White House is a bad bill that will result in bad law.  It does not deserve, nor does it have, the support of the Catholic bishops of our country.  Nor does the American public want it.  As I write this column on March 14, the Senate bill remains gravely flawed.  It does not meet minimum moral standards in at least three important areas: the exclusion of abortion funding and services; adequate conscience protections for health-care professionals and institutions; and the inclusion of immigrants. 

Groups, trade associations and publications describing themselves as “Catholic” or “prolife” that endorse the Senate version – whatever their intentions – are doing a serious disservice to the nation and to the Church, undermining the witness of the Catholic community; and ensuring the failure of genuine, ethical health-care reform.  By their public actions, they create confusion at exactly the moment Catholics need to think clearly about the remaining issues in the health-care debate.  They also provide the illusion of moral cover for an unethical piece of legislation.

Laetare!

As it's "Lighten Up" Sunday, we must have a joke, and hence the Misfortune Cookie.

Ms. Notsohumble writes:

I have always wanted to do a dark humored twist on the standard fortune cookie. I had long assumed that fortune cookies were a pain to make, so I had been putting them off for months. Finally, I made them and learned that yes, I was correct in my assumption. They are an absolute chore to bake.

I can affirm the truth of that, as one Christmas Eve my brother and I stayed up all night trying to create fortune cookies for a Christmas brunch gag. We didn't even start until after midnight because certain guests who shall remain nameless <cough sister and brother-in-law cough>would not leave. (Which was weird because they are usually early-to-bed types.) Then batch after batch of the dang things didn't come out right. (We were googling different recipes-- what do we know from fortune cookies?)

We were so exhausted by the time 4 am came around that the actual jokes were the product of punchiness rather than humor or judgment, so I'm not sure it was our most effective Christmas pranking ever. But I do remember howling with laughter with my brother over utterly unfunny items in the wee small hours -- so we enjoyed ourselves, even if no one else did.

I can at least pass along some advice if you like the idea of misfortunes. Zap store-bought fortune cookies for a few secs in the microwave and they'll be soft enough for you to slip the fortune out and substitute anything you wish before gently re-sealing.

Matt & Marion, BFFs

Marion Barry showed up for Matt Labash's book party. Cool.

All My Nemeses Mocked Simultaneously

Go Green

Lower quality, higher prices. Get less for your money. Cleaners that don't clean. Paint that doesn't stick to anything. Harsh, retina grating light bulbs full of toxic chemicals. Electric vehicles that ultimately use more energy than they save. Wind powered turbines that destroy acres of land for a minuscule few kilowatts of unreliable power. Equally unreliable solar grids more poisonous than a cyanide farm.
And don't forget the endangered species. Outlaw surfing because it might annoy some life form somewhere under water. Forget about trout streams, and surf fishing. Shut down the water for California's agriculture to prevent a negligible risk to a tiny fish while billions of acre feet flow out to sea unused. Don't worry. All your produce is coming from Mexico, Chile, and Peru anyway. Forget about the energy it takes to move it those thousands of miles. In the mean time, tax Co2 emissions until your winter heating bills run higher than your mortgage- in Southern California. And lower emissions standards until the internal combustion engine is outlawed altogether. We'll all get around on high speed railways that don't go anywhere anyone wants to go. There's a great future in bicycles. Made in China.

The only thing he missed was George Will's note that we can imagine the combustion engine gone, but not Chrysler. Curtsy: commenter at American Digest

What Is This Special Relationship Of Which You Speak?

Barack Obama's offhand approach to Gordon Brown's Washington visit last week came about because the president was facing exhaustion over America's economic crisis and is unable to focus on foreign affairs, the Sunday Telegraph has been told. 

Of course that's utter BS, but how could anyone in the White House tell anyone in the press that the President of the United States is unable to focus on foreign affairs?

British officials, meanwhile, admit that the White House and US State Department staff were utterly bemused by complaints that the Prime Minister should have been granted full-blown press conference and a formal dinner, as has been customary. They concede that Obama aides seemed unfamiliar with the expectations that surround a major visit by a British prime minister.

More:

Washington figures with access to Mr Obama's inner circle explained the slight by saying that those high up in the administration have had little time to deal with international matters, let alone the diplomatic niceties of the special relationship.
Allies of Mr Obama say his weary appearance in the Oval Office with Mr Brown illustrates the strain he is now under, and the president's surprise at the sheer volume of business that crosses his desk.

 Curtsy: ninme

We'll Get It To You

Bart Stupak on health care negotiations



Curtsy: I don't recall

As If Observing Lent Weren't Hard Enough

The President wants to ban fishing. Really.

And New York wants to ban salt.

Curtsy to Brutally Honest for the fish story.

Endangered Species

Women have been in the news this week. Or actually, they haven't, since the news is about women who should be but aren't.
First, the Economist reports on Gendercide: the worldwide war on baby girls. (It's not just for China anymore!)

Parts of India have sex ratios as skewed as anything in its northern neighbour. Other East Asian countries—South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan—have peculiarly high numbers of male births. So, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, have former communist countries in the Caucasus and the western Balkans. Even subsets of America’s population are following suit, though not the population as a whole.
The real cause, argues Nick Eberstadt, a demographer at the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank in Washington, DC, is not any country’s particular policy but “the fateful collision between overweening son preference, the use of rapidly spreading prenatal sex-determination technology and declining fertility.” These are global trends. And the selective destruction of baby girls is global, too. 

Then the International Agency for Research on Cancer  proves or admits what studies since at least the 1990s have steadily shown -- but "Science" has been settled-ly denying: that you don't mess with female hormones.

(IARC) Monographs Working Group has concluded that combined estrogen-progestogen oral contraceptives and combined estrogen-progestogen menopausal therapy are carcinogenic to humans, after a thorough review of the published scientific evidence[i].

American Thinker, reporting the story, notes,  

One can imagine that if, in the epigraph, the words "oral contraceptives" were replaced with, say, "peanut butter" or "Republican Party membership," the political posturing and shouting in the media would never stop.

But we're talking birth control pills, so the silence is deafening.

And not just from the media --or better, the media follow cues.

Given that we're talking about the most widely used class of drugs on the planet, and one of the commonest forms of malignancy in women, the implications are not trivial. But the spin of the medical establishment, as well as cancer charities including the National Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society, and Susan Komen Foundation, is to push these findings under the rug.

One would think that women deserve to be fully informed of the implications and risk factors so they can make free decisions, but one would be wrong. Is there any paternalism worse than that created by the contraceptive/abortion industry? Just take your pills, dear, and leave the stressful questions to us.

The Susan Komen Foundation thing particularly irks me. You can hardly buy anything now that doesn't have the little pink ribbon indicating your purchase will help support breast cancer research. Breast cancer awareness is everywhere-- and all we're told is to eat more carrots and get screened. No one ever says, "...and you might want to think hard about whether someone with your risk factors should be on the Pill." You know, because heaven forbid that the rate of nookie be even ever-so-slightly inhibited.

If women aren't killed in or just barely out of utero, or don't die of Pill-induced breast cancer they didn't know they were at risk for, still, the womanly form itself is fading. The Telegraph reports the hourglass figure is disappearing, and blames it on broken families and stress from the workplace. Apparently stress hormones alter the way women carry weight. (Though on this point, Reuters reports a simple possible cure.)

Vanderleun provides pictorial evidence of the disappearance of women, although in this case I'm not sure stress is at fault so much as women allowing men who hate their mothers to define beauty. It is worth studying those photos, though, and asking whether our culture has a healthy relationship with the feminine.

You know, if you have some time to kill. Otherwise, who the hell cares? It's only women.

Update: Oh, brother. C-FAM reports on a no-adults-allowed panel at the UN this week by the World Association of Girl Scouts. I am linking, but you don't wanna know. Is there anyone employed by international organizations who doesn't outright hate little girls? Because there's no way anyone who cared about girls would be peddling this stuff to 10-yr-olds, making them fodder for pederasts.

More Honest Times

From a Planned Parenthood pamphlet, 1952. Click to enlarge. Curtsy: CMR

Obama the Fifth

Beware an f-bomb in this St. Crispin's day soliloquy from an alternate universe.

...he to-day that sheds his approval ratings with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er entangle in scandals so vile,
This day shall gentle his legacy;
And squishy Dems from swing states now in flight
Shall think themselves accurs'd they chickened out,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That voted with us upon Reconciliation day.

No Ring To It

About six weeks ago I suddenly started getting email from the President or David Plouffe. I don't know why, as I'm not aware of signing up for it --and it comes to my personal address, not the various addresses I use to collect blogosphere stuff. Not that you care, but this just arrived.

This is not a death panel allusion, but hasn't the word "Final" been rather discredited in this sort of context?

...the House is now expected to hold its final vote as soon as one week from today.
As we speak, insurance-industry lobbyists are gathering at the D.C. Ritz-Carlton to stage a last-minute blitz to block reform -- even as they jack up premiums by as much as 60% for small businesses and families across the country.
So starting today, we're launching an unprecedented week-long campaign sprint -- our "Final March for Reform." 

I'm thinking if my enemies were calling me a Socialist, I wouldn't be "Final Marching" anything.

Each day until the vote, we'll feature a powerful new way for OFA supporters to speak out in our communities and weigh in directly with Congress. Today, we'll start by spreading the facts about reform in our communities.Smears and falsehoods have clouded this debate -- Congress must understand that if they pass reform, their constituents will know the truth about what we've finally achieved.

Then I'm led to a page you can't see unless you register for the site, but it's awesome. You have to see this website, which has the amazing name mybarackobama.org. You know how lobbying groups will help you write a letter to your congressman? The President will not only do that, he'll write a letter to the editor for you, too, and send it to any paper you check. Which explains that little dust-up about the sock-puppet letters to the editor from a few weeks back. You really must check it out, if only for the amazing use of the Obama logo.
 Afterwords, revisit this 8-minute lecture from Bill Whittle about how Obama uses his logo and what it means.

Update: and while we're at it, ninme has another triumph of government health care for us.

Never Feel Out Of The Loop Again

Every Hollywood flick from 1980 to the present summarized here in under four minutes.

Favorite bits: what's written on the blackboard, and the desperate, "Lead female's naaaaaaaame!"

Answered Prayer

Remember this, the last half of which includes the litany of the oscars? Behold.

Tell The Kids I Loved Them, II

We're going to Prokofiev's War & Peace and may never be seen again.

(Though we did get home eventually last time.)
Let no one say I don't adore my husband, his preference for tub-thumping over melody notwithstanding, nor that I don't take on impressive Lenten penances.

Update: Well, the opera ended before we dehydrated, which is all I really ask of any 12-tone composition. Verdict: Russians can sure sing, but Prokofiev is a tease. You keep thinking you're about to hear a nice melody, but never do.

When liner-note translation goes bad:

Disgusted with his wife, his brother-in-law, and the others, Pierre wishes he could live according to his humanitarian instincts.

Hilarious. I told Mr. W. the next time the house is a mess, dinner's not ready, the kids are bickering and I have a column due, I am going to pound my hand on the table and shout, "I wish I could live according to my humanitarian instincts!"

Mass Laughter

Faithful Catholics: we may be inside-baseball-fixated theology nerds, but we're hilarious. Behold this witty counterpoint between Extraordinary Form aficionado John Zmirak: All Your Church Are Belong To Us and Tom Hoopes, who thinks he goes too far: Wave Your Freak Flag High.

I have more sympathy with Mr. Hoopes, although I'm not sure I can take advice on either liturgy or marriage from a guy who brings Journey into the bedroom, even once.

Update: as was predictable, commenters have turned Hoopes' mild corrective into a full-blown fight about liturgy on three blogs now, which would be tiresome but for its having provoked this smack-down from Zmirak. It's overkill, because he's defending against arguments Hoopes nor made nor intended, but it's a wonderful, artful polemic and persuades me never to make an argument against John Zmirak in public.

As we await the promised Hoopes response, I have to point out Zmirak's rejoinder to a critic who accuses him of self-righteousness, preaching to the choir and not being out to persuade any liberals:

No, I'm not. I leave the job of convincing liberals who attend drag queen acts where it belongs--with wonder-working icons, green scapulars, and life-threatening illnesses. I know my limitations. But with God, all things are possible.

Bearer Of Glad Tidings