Check With Us First Before Doing Your Little Religious Thingy

Enviro-wackos proclaim Palm Sunday services to be environmentally risky. I wonder if anyone has ever told these yayhoos that their own breathing adversely impacts the environment.

Chantal Line Carpentier of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation recommends "environmental certification," or "eco-labeling," which tells buyers the palms were harvested in a way that environmentalists accept.

Both the CEC and Rainforest Alliance described themselves as "pioneers in forest certification," and they said they are now working on a pilot project to "link [approved] chamaedorea suppliers in Mexico and Guatemala with Canadian and US churches."

High School "Honor" Student Threatens President

Why did he do it? In order to "get back" at a fellow student he had a dispute with. Just goes to show you that good grades do not equate with intelligence. Dan Quayle is yet again vindicated.

Catholic Rad Trads

Or as some Catholic bloggers refer to them, the Lidless Eye crowd. I've recently had my first, and hopefully last, direct encounter with some on a Catholic singles website I recently joined. (Why the heck not?) Except for the fact that they reject sola scriptura and call themselves Catholic, I'm readily convinced that they are intellectually indistingiushable from most Protestant Fundamentalists. First of all, Rad Trads absolutely reject almost any semblance of logic or reasoning. To give you an example, someone on the aforementioned website had posted a favorable review of Rad Trad leaning Michael Davies' book "Liturgical Timebombs in Vatican II," published by TAN Books and Publishing (whose founder I have since discovered is a member of a schismatic traditionalist group called the Sovereign Military Order of St. John of Jerusalem). I responded to this favorable review by noting that because Davies has been known to consort with and share the views of known Rad Trad groups and publications like The Remnant, anyone who reads this book should exercise extreme caution. Right off the bat, one Rad Trad replies to my post by essentially accusing me of wanting to engage in censorship and book burning. When I asked where did I ever say that no one should read Davies' book, the Rad Trad said I didn't, but that such a conclusion was nevertheless a logical outcome of my insidious warning. After writing a couple of posts where I tried to explain that the conclusion of book burning only makes some inkling of sense if I had actually told people not to read Davies, the Rad Trad comes back and says that, contrary to what he first wrote, he now believes that I did in fact originally try to tell people not to read the book. Cuckooo!

Needless to say, after telling the Rad Trad and some of his sympathizers that I thought they were being illogical, I just let the whole dialogue go as it was evident I wasn't going to change their "minds," and my purpose of simply warning the unsuspecting had been accomplished.

Oh, and another thing that Rad Trads have in common with most Fundies is their heavy reliance on private interpretation. Whereas most Fundies do it with the Bible, Rad Trads will employ private interpretation with Tradition. A weird lot these Lidless Eye folks.

Proposed Curb to Federal Court Jurisdiction

If signed into law, two bills in Congress would prohibit the Federal courts from making rulings on "acknowledgment of God" cases. (One of the bills also prohibits Federal courts from relying on foreign law and rulings when interpreting the Costitution). So, for example, if Michael Newdow wanted to make another kind of Pledge of Allegiance type challenge, he wouldn't, as the saying goes, be able to take his case to the Supreme Court, and would have to try and seek a remedy in the courts of each individual state. Viva la Tenth Amendment (and Article III Section 2)!