No need to rehearse the Tiger Woods saga that is unfolding. But I, for the life of me, cannot believe that his PR “geniuses” released something this slipshod:

As you all know, I had a single-car accident earlier this week, and sustained some injuries. I have some cuts, bruising and right now I’m pretty sore.
This situation is my fault, and it’s obviously embarrassing to my family and me. I’m human and I’m not perfect. I will certainly make sure this doesn’t happen again.

He is “human” while apparently possessing the power to ensure that he will not participate in future car accidents. It’s unfortunate that Princess Diana, Princess Grace, and President John F. Kennedy could not have made similar promises prior to their demises in an automobile. It seems that they were not as “human” as Tiger Woods.

Huckabee’s bad judgement has come full circle. Apparently, his judgement on clemency while governor was soooo bad that the people of Arkansas actually considered amending the state constitution in order to curtail his ill-informed promiscuous grants of clemency to violent criminals.

Huckabee must never be allowed anywhere near a Republican presidential primary, much less the presidency!

Hat tip to Ace of Spades for the heads up.

The Grinch has come early in the People’s Democratic Republic of Montgomery County, Maryland. Turns out that a little known ordinance prohibits Christmas tree sales in residential areas prior to December 5th. No one on the Board of Supervisors knew about this law prior to last year. A local scrooge cowardly anonymously called in a local church’s violation of this law with their parking lot Christmas tree sale. There is no doubt that this law is, in fact, absurd and has no rational basis. My hunch is local nurseries and commercial sellers got this law enacted to corner the post-Thanksgiving Day Christmas sales. Be that as it may, it doesn’t strike me that the law is unjust or some grave violation of the natural law. It’s just stupid. And as Scalia says, not all that is stupid is unconstitutional.

So what’s the correct course of action for the local church: 1) Do they obey the law because the law is the law? or, 2) Do they ignore the law because it’s stupid and the only real way to get the law to change is to bring attention to the situation through violating the ordinance? If they choose option 1 (which they didn’t), are they reading the scriptures too literally or just right? If they choose option two (which they did) are they giving undo scandal or taking a prudent action and engagement in the public square to restore justice under the law?

Alabama emerges victorious in yet another Iron Bowl, this time in Auburn’s backyard. ROLL TIDE!!!!

The envelope has been sitting on my desk for quite some time: renew your subscription to First Things’ today. I’ve been a subscriber for quite some time, since around 2001. And I’ve sat in the school’s library for hours going over old back issues. Countless mid-90s symposia provided fodder for papers and research trails galore. “While we’re at it” and “the naked public square” were necessary reads for wit and perspective. Most articles were often well-thought out and brought a perspective that I would not have otherwise considered on my own. Before there were blogs, there was Neuhaus’s monthly take. But something’s changed.

(more…)

From Kenyon Martin’s back, courtesy of ESPN:

It says, “Fear no man but God.” Does he mean to say that God is a man?

Tattoos are a bad idea. Here’s my theory for why they are in cultural ascendancy: their popularity skips every two generations. Because I was born in 1960, I had the opportunity to view the tattoos of male relatives who acquired these flesh ornaments while in World War II or the Korean War. But by that time, these men had aged, with gravity and diminished elasticity having had decades to work their dermatological mischief. So, the big patriotic American Bald Eagle embossed across my grandfather’s chest now sported wings that drooped as a consequence of his developing and wrinkling man-boobs. This immunized me from ever considering a tattoo. This present generation, however, has not had the benefit of having witnessed such aesthetic atrocities. But their children and grandchildren will get a glimpse of it soon enough. And then tattooing will lose its popularity, only to return again in the middle of the 21st century.

Compare what you read in the prior post to President George Washington’s Thanksgiving Day Proclamation in 1789:

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to “recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”
(more…)

…for the life of me, I can’t think of Whom I am possibly supposed to direct my thanks towards tomorrow other than to myself. This has got to be the most lame and wishy-washy presidential “thanksgiving” I’ve ever read: (more…)

Fox is reporting that three Navy SEALs are facing military prosecution for the abuse of a detainee, Ahmed Hashim Abed.  Abed was the mastermind of the ambush that resulted in the mutilation and killing of four Blackwater employees in Fallujah.

The three, all members of the Navy’s elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called an admiral’s mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named “Objective Amber,” told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

A bloody lip?  You could expect far worse for taking a swing at a New Orleans cop during Mardi Gras.  I sure hope there’s more to this story to justify not dealing with this informally within the unit.  Otherwise, it looks like an exercise in CYA by their superiors in a climate of hypersensitivity.

On September 26, 2009, Andrew Sullivan, writes: “No Suicide: That’s the one thing we know for certain now in the case of the Kentucky lynching…But the most worrying possibility – that this is Southern populist terrorism, whipped up by the GOP and its Fox and talk radio cohorts – remains real.”

What we learned today:

A U.S. Census worker found dead in a secluded Clay County cemetery killed himself but tried to make the death look like a homicide, authorities have concluded.

Bill Sparkman, 51, of London, might have tried to cover the manner of his death to preserve payments under life-insurance polices that he had taken out. The policies wouldn’t pay off if Sparkman committed suicide, state police Capt. Lisa Rudzinski said.

“We believe it was an intentional act on his part to take his own life,” said Rudzinski, who helped lead the investigation.

Apparently, when not investigating Palin’s uterus, Sullivan is content with making up causal accounts for which he has no evidence. Andrew, if you have an ounce of Catholic moral theory remaining in your bones, discard the slanderous speculations and return to that in which you used to excel: offering careful arguments with respect and rigor.

That’s what I’m rooting for. Honorary coaches for the coin flip: Barry Lynn (Patriots) and Jay Sekula (Saints). No matter what the toss’s result, Lynn attributes it to the laws of physics while Sekula credits providence (though, as a Thomist, I think they’re both right!)

Confession: I get more “news”  than is probably goof for me from the Yahoo homepage.  I think they get their stuff from the Associated Press.

Anyway, I found this article interesting.  Bishop Tobin (RI) has asked Rep. Patrick Kennedy (son of Ted) to stop receiving Communion because of his stance on abortion. In the article, you have to read between the anti-religious lines, and the whole thing is kind of a waste of journalism but I’d like to see more bishops like Tobin.

I’d also like to see a knock-down drag-out fistfight between them.

The UK Daily Mail has an astounding story about a man trapped in a supposed vegetative state for twenty-three years until the advent of new technology and the intervention of neurologist Dr. Steven Laureys.  Student Rom Hubens was left paralyzed in an apparent coma after a car accident, but remained in the hellish state of perfect comprehension and total paralysis.  His consciousness, based on current standards, was pronounced ‘extinct.’

But three years ago, new hi-tech scans showed his brain was still functioning almost completely normally.

Mr Houben describes the moment as ‘my second birth.’

Therapy has since allowed him to tap out messages on a computer screen.

Mr Houben said: ‘All that time I just literally dreamed of a better life. Frustration is too small a word to describe what I felt.’

His case has only just been revealed in a scientific paper released by the man who ‘saved’ him, top neurological expert Dr Steven Laureys.

My mother, in an odd trick of fate, was one of Terri Schiavo’s hospice nurses.  We talked very carefully about her case, aware of the profound difference in our views.  She was certain that what was being done was the best, most compassionate thing.

What this story reminds us is to never, ever bet against life.

HT Steyn in The Corner

As part of my campaign for State Representative in Illinois, I spoke yesterday at a candidate forum sponsored by the Lake County (IL) Right to Life organization. Over 20 candidates spoke there, including six Republican Candidates for governor.

I noticed something that bothered me: Almost every candidate began by talking about his religious upbringing.

This one was the son of a pastor, that one was one of nine children of a Catholic family, one was a conservative Jew, another an Indian Hindu, but almost every one, if not in fact every one, started discussing the life issue from a religious perspective.

And, what makes me crazy, some of them use that religious foundation as an excuse to avoid facing the abortion issue in law.

The argument goes something like this:

1. The Catholic Church teaches me that abortion is an intrinsic evil.
2. This is part of my faith.
3. I cannot use the force of law to impose my faith on others.
4. Ergo, I cannot support restricting abortion in law.

This is why, as you can see in the video linked below, I eschewed all discussion of religion to assert the importance of protecting human life in terms that should be equally accessible to anyone.

And they say I’m a religious fanatic.

Regular Guy at the Candidate Forum

Another Mule was born to the world this week.  Mrs. Mule is doing fine after the c-section.  The new arrival has a v-shaped mark between his eyebrows that the nurses referred to as a ‘stork bite.’  I had to point out that they were clearly mule’s ears.

What’s been interesting is the hospital chatter regarding ObamaCare.  During the surgery, the doctors were lamenting the new recommendations regarding mammograms and speculating about the next targets for rationing.  Once in our room, Mrs. Mule had sufficient morphine in her system to watch CNN.  Two of our nurses (one a native of Ireland) have started conversations about ObamaCare after hearing a commentator.  Both were opposed, and the Irish lass suggested we had better get used to ‘queueing up.’  Even the tech taking vitals had a few dire predictions.

This kind of anxiety is not a good thing when we need more nurses, more doctors, more techs.  If ObamaCare passes, that anxiety is going to worsen over the three or four years to full implementation.  A lot of decisions will be made in that time, and far too many of them will be against a career in health care.

Every two years, the unwashed LSU faithful crawl out of their brackish swamp and travel to Oxford, MS, bent on defiling our cosmopolitan soil like so many socially-perverse locusts. But we welcome you, that even one of your young might leave with the indelible mark of civility.

As to the game: beware of the man who has singlehandedly redeemed the name “Dexter.” Be sure and wave as he runs past you, because it’s all you can do.

Update: Dexter McCluster also passes.

(Update II: You may download the Manhattan Declaration)
(Update: The Manhattan Declaration’s website)
This, just over the AP wire:

Christian leaders issue ‘call of conscience’

WASHINGTON — More than 150 Christian leaders, most of them conservative evangelicals and traditionalist Roman Catholics, issued a joint declaration Friday reaffirming their opposition to abortion and gay marriage and pledging to protect religious freedoms.

The 4,700-word document, called “The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience,” sounds familiar themes from political and social debates over the health care overhaul and gay marriage battles.

While acknowledging that “Christians and our institutions have too often scandalously failed to uphold the institution of marriage,” the group rejects same-sex marriage. The declaration states that opening a legal door for gay marriage would do the same for “polyamorous partnerships, polygamous households, even adult brothers, sisters, or brothers and sisters living in incestuous relationships.”

President Barack Obama’s desire to reduce the need for abortion is “a commendable goal,” but his proposals are likely to increase the number of elective abortions, the document contends.

“The present administration is led and staffed by those who want to make abortions legal at any stage of fetal development, and who want to provide abortions at taxpayer expense,” it says.

Obama has said he wants to strike a balance on abortion coverage in the health care overhaul. The declaration also cites threats to health care workers’ conscience clauses and anti-discrimination statutes it argues impinge on religious freedoms.

Signatories include 15 Roman Catholic bishops, including New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan and Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl; Focus on the Family founder James Dobson; National Association of Evangelicals president Leith Anderson; seminary leaders, professors and pastors.

Once the Manhattan Declaration is online, I will post a link to it.

(Originally posted on Return to Rome blog)

Rush was talking today about Al Gore’s ridiculous cover illustration for his new book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis.  As reported by Infowars.com, Gore has a rather sexed-up image of the globe conforming to his notion of the coming apocalypse.

Yes, hurricanes will spin the wrong way, they will cross the equator with abandon, and Cuba will disappear entirely.

Calling all American history buffs.  I, along with several other history lovers, have started a new blog: Almost Chosen People.  The blog will cover American history up until the time of Reconstruction.  It should be a fun venture, covering various aspects of our country’s development.

As for the meaning of the blog’s title – my co-blogger Donald McClarey explains here.

Arkansas 2 is part of what I call the Jacksonian belt, the swath of counties from southwestern Pennsylvania along the Appalachian chain and extending to Oklahoma and Texas which were largely settled by the Scots-Irish immigrants that streamed into America in the dozen years before the Revolution and their descendants. Their great hero, and the son of Scots-Irish immigrants himself, was Andrew Jackson, the victor of Horseshoe Bend and New Orleans, who set about removing Indians from much of this territory and was the founder of the Democratic party. In 2008 voters in the Jacksonian belt voted heavily against Barack Obama in both the Democratic primaries and the general election, as you can see on these national maps and by clicking on individual states to see the county-by-county returns. This map showing the counties which cast a higher percentage of votes for John McCain in 2008 than for George W. Bush in 2004 is essentially a map of the Jacksonian belt.

If Vic Snyder is in trouble, it’s a good bet that many other Democrats from the Jacksonian belt are too.

Very interesting. My Scots-Irish ancestors are smiling from heaven. More here.

Don’t despair, Frank.  A few mandatory viewings of the following will help turn things around (on two fronts).

It has been over 20 years since the Notre Dame football team won a national championship.  Its present coach, Charlie Weis, is on the brink of being fired. But it doesn’t matter who is at the helm. The Irish will never be great again. Here are the reasons. First, the cultural memory of Notre Dame greatness has vanished. This means that recruits, all born after the last championship, will not be lured by that tradition. Second, compared to the cities in which the sunbelt football powers reside, South Bend, Indiana feels like a refrain in a Dust Bowl folk song.  If you were 18 years old and had a choice between a football power in the sunbelt or Notre Dame, where would you rather play? Third, the ND campus is a geographic and aesthetic nightmare.  It is both sprawling and cluttered, if you can imagine such a combination.  And because of its geography and infrastructure, it always feels abandoned. Unlike other campuses, you don’t get the sense that there’s anything going on there, except when there’s a home football game. Fourth, ND refuses to join a major conference. Their schedule is haphazard and aside from the lopsided USC rivalry, each season brings no real “big games” to look forward to. At Texas, for example, there is Oklahoma, A & M, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma State. At ND, there is Michigan and Michigan State in addition to USC. But the former two are not in their ascendancy, and ND is no factor in their conference standings. 

Let’s face it.  It’s all over for ND.  Remember the golden age fondly. But it’s gone forever.

This report from ABC News is a bit unfair.  Yes, the administration’s report states that 30 jobs have been saved/created in Arizona’s 15th congressional district and … there are only eight districts in Arizona.  However, the reporter fails to note the profound impact that the creation of another seven congressional districts would have on the state’s economy.  That’s in addition to the eight districts saved by the stimulus plan.

Update:  Good news!  Congressman Obey (or Soros will fund a challenger in your primary) has discovered even more job creating potential in correcting the recovery.gov errors:

Rep. David Obey, D-Wisc, who chairs the powerful House appropriations Committee, issued a paper statement demanding that the recovery.gov Web site be updated.

“The inaccuracies on recovery.gov that have come to light are outrageous and the Administration owes itself, the Congress, and every American a commitment to work night and day to correct the ludicrous mistakes.”

“Night and day,” people.  That means two sets of employees.

Paul Krugman’s recent New York Times column opens by comparing the labor situation in the U.S. and Europe:

Consider, for a moment, a tale of two countries. Both have suffered a severe recession and lost jobs as a result — but not on the same scale. In Country A, employment has fallen more than 5 percent, and the unemployment rate has more than doubled. In Country B, employment has fallen only half a percent, and unemployment is only slightly higher than it was before the crisis.

Don’t you think Country A might have something to learn from Country B?

This story isn’t hypothetical. Country A is the United States, where stocks are up, G.D.P. is rising, but the terrible employment situation just keeps getting worse. Country B is Germany, which took a hit to its G.D.P. when world trade collapsed, but has been remarkably successful at avoiding mass job losses.

What Krugman fails to mention is that unemployment in Germany was high before the crisis. In fact, in many European countries unemployment has been at what in the U.S. would be considered dire levels for decades. (more…)

At UberCommenter Joe’s suggestion, here’s a piece from ‘our favorite atheist’ Christopher Hitchens:

I wrote some years ago that the three most salient characteristics of the Muslim death-squad type were self-righteousness, self-pity, and self-hatred. Surrounded as he was by fellow shrinks who were often very distressed by his menacing manner, Maj. Hasan managed to personify all three traits—with the theocratic rhetoric openly thrown in for good measure—and yet be treated even now as if the real word for him was troubled. Prepare to keep on meeting those three symptoms again, along with official attempts to oppose them only with therapy, if that. At least the holy warriors know they are committing suicide.

From the Concert for New York soon after 9/11.  Who would have thought that we would get fooled again?

According to Yeshiva University law professor, Marci Hamilton, the Stupak Amendment is unconstitutional because its supporters are motivated by religion. It’s not clear how Professor Hamilton knows the motivations of every single person who supports the amendment. But setting that question aside, why should “religious motivation” matter to the legitimacy of a citizen’s participation in the public conversation on an issue over which citizens from a wide variety of traditions disagree? Apparently, according to Professor Hamilton, a citizen who takes his or her religious beliefs seriously is the proper subject of civic disenfranchisement. As I write in an article I published in the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly in 2006 (“The Court of Disbelief: The Constitution’s Article VI Religious Test Prohibition and the Judiciary’s Religious Motive Analysis”)
(more…)