At Least Gibson Was Drunk #2

The last acceptable form of bigotry in America indeed. Don't hold your breath for any Gibson-like apology. (link via Open Book)

So That's Why Johnny Can't Read

I'm supportive of this school district's policy to "ban" cleavage, but things would be a whole lot easier if they just required school uniforms. And don't even get me started as to why this story is even considered news.

Catholic and Republican

I often hear and read how many Catholics in this country refuse to identify with either of the two major political parties because, it is claimed, there are aspects in each party's national platform which run counter to the Catholic faith. It's pretty easy to see how this is true with the Democrat Party, what with its express support for abortion and homosexual rights (pg.38), as well as embryonic stem cell research (pg.31). I don't, however, see anything in the GOP platform which goes against unchangeable Catholic tenets. Am I missing something, or are people just talking out of their rear ends?

Prank Call the Hezbos!

Real phone numbers listed here. (link via Michelle Malkin)

Say it Loud! Say it Proud!

Ms. Magazine wants women and girls who have had an abortion to stand up and proudly proclaim that they have killed their unborn babies.

[sarcasm]Outstanding.[/sarcasm]

At Least Gibson was Drunk

Yeah, Jimmah didn't expressly lash out at Jews here, but we all know what's driving his long held and public contempt for Israel. C'mon now.

Mel's Lapse Into Extreme Stupidity

Yeah, yeah, everything's alleged at this point, but I'd say there's a 99% chance Gibson did what he was cited for by police.

Update: Wow. How incredibly sad, if this is true.

Update 2: Gibson apologizes.

Have You Forgotten?

A reminder, in case you have.

Ann Coulter: Snark Attack

The Unhinged Left usually deserve it, but Charlotte Allen is neither Unhinged nor a political leftist, so the 'tude AC gave to Charlotte in this interview was disappointing. (link via RelapsedCatholic)

How Many Like This Are in the CIA?

John Hinderaker at Powerline highlights recent public threats that former CIA employee and current DemonRat Party darling, Larry Johnson, made to conservative bloggers.

Of worthwhile note about Mr. Johnson is that immediately before 9/11 happened, he actually wrote in the New York Times that the threat of terrorism against Americans was declining! And yet, Johnson is apparently still viewed and hailed by the Dems as an "expert" on terrorism. Unbelievable.

Sheehan Rolls

Exhibit A of how to "fast" and still gain/not lose weight.

Disproportionate Propaganda

The MSM keeps on drinking up the terrorist Kool-Aid.

Muy Caliente!

It's around 9:00pm and according to The Weather Channel website, it's about 81 degrees with 61% humidity in the central OC area. Blech!

3rd Circuit Says L@p Dancing Not Protected Speech

At least not when there's booze around. More details here. No indication that there were any visual demonstrations.

John Yoo and Jim Chen

Two Americans of Asian descent who clerked for the great Justice Clarence Thomas and are now prominent university law professors (Yoo at Berkeley and Chen at the Univ. of Minnesota).

Obviously, these guys are really smart, but I gotta tell ya, John Yoo's writing is as dry as cardboard (see, e.g., The Powers of War and Peace, which I just started reading) and a lot of Jim Chen's stuff is a bit beyond the scope of my comprehension (science and math were never strong suits of mine).

The Strangest of Bedfellows

The ACLU is representing Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church (of "God Hates F@gs" fame) in a lawsuit against the State of Missouri over a law which restricts protesting at funerals. (link via Drudge)

The church and the Rev. Fred Phelps say God is allowing troops, coal miners and others to be killed because the United States tolerates gay men and lesbians.

Missouri lawmakers were spurred to action after members of the church protested in St. Joseph, Mo., last August at the funeral of Army Spec. Edward L. Myers.

The law bans picketing and protests "in front of or about" any location where a funeral is held, from an hour before it begins until an hour after it ends. Offenders can face fines and jail time.

Given the track record that the ACLU has with promoting g@y rights, I wonder if anyone is asking Phelps how he is allowing himself and his "church" to be represented by folks whom he obviously thinks are going to Hell. Now that would be something to see and hear.

Big Surprise: LA Times Runs Misleading Story...Again

Paul at Powerline notes how the LA Dog Tranier's July 3, 2006 story about the difficulty Mitt Romney would have if he ran for President in '08 isn't exactly truthful. Although I personally don't think I could support a Romney nomination, it wouldn't be because he's Morman.

That's a Rhetorical Question

I saw a spliced up clip on YouTube of a recent interview that Stephen Colbert did of Bart "Misquoting Jesus" Ehrman, and Colbert posed the following question to the self-admitted agnostic: "Isn't that [an agnostic] just an atheist without balls?" Classic.

Update: Here's the full interview from the Comedy Central website. I had trouble viewing it before with Mozilla, but it works with Explorer.

A Thin Silver Lining to Hezbollah Attacks on Israel

This got called off.

In Between Episodes IV and V

So this is where Vader was before the Death Star was rebuilt!

Arlen Specter is a Tool

In support of his position for the bill that would have expanded embryonic stem cell research, the senior Senator from Pennsylvania resorted to making up history about the Catholic Church. (link via Open Book)

The Absurdity of Lee vs. Weisman Continues

This landmark 1992 case, of course, essentially made religious prayers at public school graduation ceremonies verboten.

Fourteen years later, this asinine ruling has resulted in the prevention of public school students in Washington State from playing an instrumental version of Ave Maria at their graduation ceremony. A lawsuit by one of those students has now been filed.

Are They Really This Dumb?

Looks like the Dems, as a whole, are set to launch an attack on every state marriage protection initiative that is on the ballot this November. Although the source of this report is unnamed, it's not hard to believe the Dems are planning this attack given Screaming Howie's comments earlier this month.

And This is a Surprise, How?

From the "Why Not?" country comes the latest affront to all that is good and decent in Western Civilization: legal recognition of a pedophile political party.

While the Cat's Away...

Looks as though "the Vatican's" condemnatory statements on the Lebanon bombings by Israel were unauthorized by Papa Ratzi, but we'll have to wait and see if any sort of clarification is issued (i.e., Sodano gets the smack down) once he gets back from vacation.

Update: If al-Reutereea's reporting is accurate, the pope is significantly more balanced than what was put out there by Sodano. However, it still doesn't appear as though the pope understands that Israel's actions are justified.

Weeeeeee!!

More signs of the Cultural Apocalypse. (link via The Anchoress)

Vatican Ignorance

I echo the thoughts ofCaptain Ed regarding the critical statements the Vatican made on Israel's recent bombing of Lebanon.

In a nutshell, the Vatican either needs to be better informed or it just has to keep quiet about matters for which it clearly does not know much of anything about.

Funny in a Multi-Layered Contradictory Way

What is one of the last things you would ever think of finding in a book on anti-Catholicism? Jeremy Lott, author of a book titled "In Defense of Hypocrisy," found it.

National Security

Click here to see what Harry Reid thinks about it. (link via Michelle Malkin)

Thanksbutnothanks

Due purely to finances, the little firm I'm currently at has advised me that they are going to have to let me go in the next few months. Because he's a really nice guy, the office manager of my firm has been asking other law firm managers he knows if they might be looking for a new associate. He got a bite this past Monday from the office manager of a mid-sized insurance defense firm, so I accordingly talked to that office manager and e-mailed my resume to her later that evening.

Because the office manager of that firm actually called my office manager to request that I forward my resume, I thought I had a pretty good shot of at least getting an interview. However, when I got home this evening, there was a form letter waiting for me from this firm which basically said they weren't interested in hiring me.

Unless this office manager was mistaken about her firm wanting to hire another associate attorney, I just can't help but think that the law school I graduated from is the reason for why I got rejected so fast. Comparatively speaking, I think I've accumulated more litigation experience in the last two years than most graduates from ABA accredited schools get in their first five years of practice with a big or mid-sized firm. How many first or second year associates at the big or mid-sized firms write and argue law and motion matters? Probably almost none. I tell you, the bias against non-ABA law schools really sux.

Sea Scouts Appeal to SCOTUS

The legal battle between the Sea Scouts and the city of Bezerkley over free access to the latter's marina berths has been going on since 1998. When this case was first appealed to the California Court of Appeal back in 2002 (I think) I wrote an amicus brief for the Pacific Justice Institute in support of the Scouts. Obviously, it didn't do much good.

While I certainly hope the SCOTUS agrees to review the case and renders a ruling in favor of the Scouts, I'm not overly optimistic that it will happen. Fact of the matter is, Berzerkly is only denying the Scouts free access to the city's marina berths, and the city does unfortunately have a right to expressly refuse to subsidize any organization which discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation. What the Sea Scouts do have going for it, though, is that it has never discriminated against g@ys. Bezerkly is bascially excluding the Sea Scouts simply because of its' association with the Boy Scouts of America.

The Steele Man Cometh

Since everyone has used "Man of Steele," that's the best I can do.

Anyway, I like to think Michael Steele's run for the U.S. Senate is the real reason The Mighty Barrister is no longer blogging (i.e., he's too busy working on Steele's campaign).

Purpose Driven Ego?

Get Religion reports that uber-Evangelical Protestant preacher Rick Warren has accepted an invitation from North Korea to speak to some 15,000 North Korean Christians. That's right, NORTH KOREA.

Upon raising the strong possibility that the whole event is probably being staged by the Communist government for purposes of identifying and arresting "illegal" Christians, Warren replied to reporters that "I know they’re going to use me...So I’m going to use them."

Uh, OK. I wonder if Warren is this ambiguous in his jumbotron broadcast sermons.

Post-Independence Day Trivia

Charles Carroll was the only Catholic to have signed the Declaration of Independence. He was also the last surviving member among the signers, having died at the age of 96 in 1832. (link via Totus Pius)

Ted Kennedy: Big Fat Joke

Are the voters of Massachusetts that clueless?

Just six months after quitting the all-male social club to which he belonged for 50 years, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy is questioning one of President Bush's nominees to the federal bench about his membership in an all-male dining club.

"What is your reason for failing to resign from the club any earlier than February 2, 2006?" Mr. Kennedy demanded in writing of Oklahoma lawyer Jerome A. Holmes, nominated to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Documents provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee and obtained by The Washington Times show that Mr. Holmes belonged to the Men's Dinner Club of Oklahoma City but quit after expressing interest in becoming a federal judge.

Mr. Holmes told the committee in writing that he never perceived the dining club to harbor any bias toward women but he resigned to clear up any appearances of impropriety.

"Its membership consisted of widely respected business, community and government leaders, including at least two judges of Oklahoma's courts of last resort," he explained to Mr. Kennedy. "I recognized in February 2006 that some might perceive the Men's Dinner Club as being an improper organization of the kind discussed above. That was unacceptable to me."

In January, Mr. Kennedy quit the Owl Club after The Washington Times revealed his continued membership in the fraternitylike organization for Harvard University's select male students and alumni.

Mr. Kennedy's ties to the Owl Club came to light after he interrogated Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. over his association with Concerned Alumni of Princeton, a group founded to combat campus liberalism at Princeton University.

If the GOP Loses Control of Congress in November

It will have no one to blame but itself, because 'Rat Chairman Howard Dean just can't help dragging his party down the toilet.

Lack of SCOTUS Restraint May Cost Lives

Such is perfectly illustrated by the recent Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ruling where the military tribunals that were set up to try the captured terrorists at Guantanamo Bay were struck down. Professor John Yoo, who worked in the Bush Administration from 2001-2003, further explains:

The court's decision in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld ignores the basic workings of our separation of powers and will hamper the ability of future presidents to respond to emergencies with the forcefulness and vision of a Lincoln or an FDR.

Long-standing U.S. practice recognizes that the president, as commander in chief, plays the leading role in wartime. Presidents have started wars without congressional authorization, and they have exercised complete control over military strategy and tactics. They can act with a speed, unity and secrecy that the other branches of government cannot match. By contrast, legislatures are large, diffuse and slow. Their collective design may make them better for deliberating over policy, but at the cost of delay and lack of resolve.

Bwahahahahaha!!

Fire in a rabbit cage, 9/11? Yeah, I see the similarities. (link via Relapsed Catholic).

Just So You'll Stop Staring at His Hairplugs

Joe Biden in all his foot-in-mouth glory. (link via Drudge)

Violent Peace Activist

Reason #959039403943409 as to why I never take these hypocritical yayhoos seriously.

On anything.

A New Zealand peace activist is facing serious assault charges after he allegedly punched a rock singer in London, leaving the man in a coma.

Christiaan Briggs, 30, who spent three weeks in Iraq with the Truth Justice Peace Human Shield Action Group in 2003, appeared at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court on Tuesday to face a charge of grievous bodily harm.

Police say the incident occurred on June 22 when Briggs allegedly punched 19-year-old Billy Leeson, causing the rising rock star to hit his head on the ground.

Leeson, the lead singer with rock band Les Incompetents - who have supported Pete Doherty's group Babyshambles - was "still very ill", said Scotland Yard spokesman James Nadin.

His condition was described as "critical but stable".

This Will Surely be a Classic

From the campaign of Vernon Robinson, a Republican running for Congress in North Carolina. I love it.

(link via Jimmy Akin)

Happy Independence Day



To quote the great Catholic Brit, GK Chesterton:

"The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man." - Chapter 19, What I Saw In America, 1922

Can "Sola Scriptura" Protestants Authenticate the Bible?

I'm working on a case right now that looks like it may go to trial, and there is a potential issue regarding the admissibility of a document that I might try to offer as evidence. This issue involves authentication and it got me to thinking a little bit about the "Bible-only" approach to Christianity that many Protestants follow.

Within the lexicon of civil law, to "authenticate" a document during a trial generally means to establish its' claimed source of origin. For instance, any police report allegedly written by Officer Smith is inherently questionable and unreliable unless Officer Smith provides sworn testimony that he in fact wrote the report. Without this sworn testimony, no one can be certain as to whether Officer Smith really wrote the report or if it was just made up by someone out of thin air.

With this in mind, I'm geuninely curious as to how any non-Catholic Christian who subscribes to sola scriptura (i.e., there is no other authority for Christianity except the Bible) is able to authenticate the Bible. (The principle of self-authentication would not appear to be an option, since even that requires recognition of an external authority).

From Our Bulging "Al Gore is Full of It" Files

Al's not a scientist, and he doesn't even play a very good one on TV. The latest reality hit on Gore's globaloney crusade:

Mr. Gore assures us that "the debate in the scientific community is over."

That statement, which Mr. Gore made in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC, ought to have been followed by an asterisk. What exactly is this debate that Mr. Gore is referring to? Is there really a scientific community that is debating all these issues and then somehow agreeing in unison? Far from such a thing being over, it has never been clear to me what this "debate" actually is in the first place.

The media rarely help, of course. When Newsweek featured global warming in a 1988 issue, it was claimed that all scientists agreed. Periodically thereafter it was revealed that although there had been lingering doubts beforehand, now all scientists did indeed agree. Even Mr. Gore qualified his statement on ABC only a few minutes after he made it, clarifying things in an important way. When Mr. Stephanopoulos confronted Mr. Gore with the fact that the best estimates of rising sea levels are far less dire than he suggests in his movie, Mr. Gore defended his claims by noting that scientists "don't have any models that give them a high level of confidence" one way or the other and went on to claim--in his defense--that scientists "don't know. . . . They just don't know."

So, presumably, those scientists do not belong to the "consensus." Yet their research is forced, whether the evidence supports it or not, into Mr. Gore's preferred global-warming template--namely, shrill alarmism. To believe it requires that one ignore the truly inconvenient facts. To take the issue of rising sea levels, these include: that the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940; that icebergs have been known since time immemorial; that the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average. A likely result of all this is increased pressure pushing ice off the coastal perimeter of that country, which is depicted so ominously in Mr. Gore's movie. In the absence of factual context, these images are perhaps dire or alarming.

They are less so otherwise. Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don't know why.

Starting Off on the Wrong Foot

According to this story in the Washington ComPost, the number of weddings within the Church in the United States has been steadily declining since 1970. One of the apparent major reasons for this is that marrying Catholics want the ceremony performed "on their own terms." If they can't do this, then they'll have the ceremony at a non-Catholic faith community, or just get hitched at city hall.

With this kind of selfish attitude, is it any surprise that the divorce rate in this country, even among Catholics, is around 50%?

The Always Amusing Bobby Jones U.

Ever wonder which 37 places in America are in most dire need of Fundy Churches? Now you don't have to, thanks to good 'ol BJU.

And, of course, it's just a coincidence that most of these places are "dominated" by Jews and Catholics.

Catholic University Library Unsubscribes from Blabbermouth NY Times

Great move by the University of the Incarnate Word in my opinion. I just wish the dunderheads who don't agree would at least realize that nobody's being banned from or going to jail for bringing or reading their own copy of the Times on campus grounds, and that students can readily access the catbox liner online.

Holy Begeezus!

Praise be to God for the Internet! I'm looking for another job, and my brother tells me he works with someone whose wife is an attorney at a nearby firm that wants to hire a new associate. Even though this firm mostly does family law, which I don't like too much, I figure I'd give my brother's friend's wife a call anyway to see if her boss or bosses might be interested in talking to me. Turns out they did, and I guess the interview went well enough that I was offered a job the next day. (Note: Because he had actually heard of my law school and asked what seemed at the time to me to be sincere questions about how the school integrates, if at all, Christianity and the teaching of law, I had thought the partner who interviewed me might be a Christian with somwhat conservative political leanings. When viewed against the backdrop of the stuff to follow, now I'm not so sure.)

However, since I'm not all that fond of family law, I told this firm that I'd like to think about it a little and that I would get back to them the next week. "Not a problem" they basically responded to me.

Given the salary that was offered, and the fact that this firm is just down the street from the very small firm I'm at right now, I was actually leaning toward accepting the position. That is, until I Googled this firm's name and discovered they just recently represented an openly g@y male couple who made a direct legal challenge to California's Defense of Marriage Act!

Needless to say, I don't think I'm going to be working for these people.

Justice Thomas is the Man

If there is ever one great thing on the domestic front that the first President Bush ever did, it was to nominate Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court. Exhibit No. 930423842 comes from his dissent in today's SCOTUS ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. (Justice Thomas' dissent starts on pg. 127 of the PDF document).

An excerpt via Webloggin:

Moreover, the President’s determination that the present conflict dates at least to 1996 is supported by overwhelming evidence. According to the State Department, al Qaeda declared war on the United States as early as August 1996. See Dept. of State Fact Sheet: Usama bin Ladin (Aug. 21, 1998); Dept. of State Fact Sheet: The Charges against International Terrorist Usama Bin Laden (Dec. 20, 2000); cf. Prize Cases, 2 Black, at 668 (recognizing that a state of war exists even if “the declaration of it be unilateral” (emphasis in original)).

In February 1998, al Qaeda leadership issued another statement ordering the indiscriminate—and, even under the laws of war as applied to legitimate nation-states, plainly illegal—killing of American civilians and military personnel alike. See Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders: World Islamic Front Statement 2 (Feb. 23, 1998), in Y. Alexander & M. Swetnam, Usama bin Laden’s al-Qaida: Profile of a Terrorist Network, App. 1B (2001) (“The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it”). This was not mere rhetoric; even before September 11, 2001, al Qaeda was involved in the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City in 1993, the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, the bombing of the U. S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the attack on the U. S. S. Cole in Yemen in 2000. See id., at 1. In response to these incidents, the United States “attack[ed] facilities belonging to Usama bin Ladin’s network” as early as 1998. Dept. of State Fact Sheet: Usama bin Ladin (Aug. 21, 1998).

Based on the foregoing, the President’s judgment—that the present conflict substantially predates the AUMF, extending at least as far back as al Qaeda’s 1996 declaration of war on our Nation, and that the theater of war extends at least as far as the localities of al Qaeda’s principal bases of operations—is beyond judicial reproach. And the plurality’s unsupportable contrary determination merely confirms that “‘the Judiciary has neither aptitude, facilities nor responsibility’” for making military or foreign affairs judgments. Hamdi, 542 U. S., at 585 (THOMAS, J., dissenting) (quoting Chicago & Southern Air Lines, 333 U. S., at 111).

IRS Vice?

Some, like CNN, are calling it a tax on p!mps and h*okers, but this bill by Senator Grassly, as he himself points out, is more akin to how we finally got Al Capone thrown in prison. I like it.

The Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday morning approved a bill sponsored by committee chairman Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, authorizing at least $2 million toward the establishment of an office in the IRS criminal investigation unit to prosecute unlawful sex workers for violations of tax laws.

The bill's approval gives the IRS harsh new criminal penalties for use against those in the underground criminal economy. According to Grassley's office, the majority of the victims of sex trafficking -- those who are often smuggled in from other counties and virtually imprisoned in a house set up for prostitution -- are girls ages 13 to 17.

More Slimy Lawyers

Those slimy lawyers that I talked about here were at it again today. They filed a "Reply" to my opposition to their ex parte motion, and within it they blame me, or my client, for not complying with certain local court "meet and confer" rules. What these slimeballs have basically asserted is that I, as plaintiff's attorney, had the responsibility to contact them about meeting to discuss xyz, even though the local rules say no such thing (they basically just say the parties shall do xyz; hence suggesting that if it's not done, all parties are to blame). What a bunch of liars! I'm telling you, it's freakin' scumbags like these which give attorneys a bad name.

Waaaaay Too Much Info Joe

I'm sure his kids, who must be fully grown by now, can't be too happy to have this vision in their heads:

Because he was the first Democrat to step up and say publicly last year that he’s exploring running for president, we can assume that Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) is plenty interested in the office.

But like most other men, apparently there are things that interest him more.

Speaking to a group of 130 twenty- and thirty-something supporters of his leadership PAC last Thursday, Biden indicated that while he thinks he could be an effective chief executive, as far as the job itself goes, he could take it or leave it.

“I’d rather be at home making love to my wife while my children are asleep,” he said.

What are the odds Biden picked this line up from somewhere and failed to attribute the source?

Slimy Lawyers

I'm currently going against some from a big law firm here in the OC. The jerks had the nerve late last Thursday to serve me, or my client, with an ex parte motion to dismiss. A "motion" is basically a request that is made to the court. There are usually a set of procedures for making a motion, and they cannot normally be bypassed without special permission. When you ask for special permission to bypass these procedures, you're making an ex parte application.

The basic problem with ex parte motions, which the courts generally recognize, is that they can be made at the drop of dime, and the opposing party has almost no time to make a well thought out or reasoned response. Add to this the fact that the opposing party has to literally drop everything he is doing to address the application, and you can understand why the courts require a party to have a pretty darn good reason for making an ex parte motion.

Well, as far as I'm concerned, the attorneys I am going up against don't have a good reason to make an ex parte motion, and I think they know it but are just trying to throw whatever they can against the wall to see if it will stick. Hopefully, what I've filed in opposition to this ex parte motion will be seriously considered by the judge and he will deny the other side's application to bypass the normal motion procedures. Then again, you never know what a judge is going to do. Blech!

Discussion Forums

Just created one here. Check it out and post something. I'm still tweaking the look of it, and at some point, I'll put a permanent link to the forums on the side panel.

Don't Get Married Until After Age 45

Your chances of divorcing seem to decrease then. That's at least my take on the Census Bureau stats referenced in this advice article on prenuptial agreements.

According to the Census Bureau, 50% of first marriages for men under the age of 45 may end in divorce; and between 44% and 52% of first marriages for women in the same age group may end in divorce. As a result of more and more marriages ending in divorce, the number of people who marry for a second and third time is also rising.

Well That's Weird

I don't know why, but for some reason the font size and style for the com-box links aren't entirely consistent. Ah well. If it doesn't baddah you, it doesn't baddah me.

Update: OK, it seems to depend on the browser I'm using. It's all consistent with Explorer but not Firefox.

The Devil Won't Let Me Do It!

That's the excuse put forth by one congressional hopeful in Utah. I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict that this guy isn't going to win.

Kelo Be Damned!

President Bush issues an Executive Order to prevent the Federal Government from taking private property through eminent domain and giving it to a private developer under the pretext that doing so will increase tax revenues.

Coming to You in 2007

No, not Brokeback Mountain II. Wyoming Catholic College.

How to Get Banned from Catholic Match

Yes, I have been a member of this singles site for a while, which is why I haven't really been posting anything on here on a consistent basis. And actually, the title to this post is a little inaccurate in that it should be "How to Get Banned from the Discussion Forums on Catholic Match." But since that title is a little too long, I went with the above.

Anyhow, there's a discussion forum on Catholic Match devoted to politics, and I naturally posted comments on there quite frequently. Once in a while when I would see a really idiotic or inflammatory post that someone wrote, I'd respond accordingly. Well, that didn't always sit well with the Gestapo administrators at Catholic Match, so I would occasionally get these warnings about being "mean" to people and to cut it out.

I suppose I got enough of these warnings to where I was in someone's sh!t house at Catholic Match, because I was recently banned for life from its discussion forums for using the following two sentences in response to two separate posted comments by the same person:

1. Well, that certainly explains a lot.

2. Spare me your faux indignation and self-righteousness.

That's it. Talk about your hyper-punitive 3-strikes law that results in someone getting 25 years to life for stealing a pizza!!

In any event, my paid membership with Catholic Match is just about up, and this hanging judge decision by the administrators to forever prevent me from having full access to the site has pretty much convinced me not to renew.

Update(6/26): Well, after making an appeal, it seems as though my permanent ban has been lifted. Thanks Dan, and pay no attention to that Gestapo remark above.

Don't Call It a Comeback!

Well, I sort of guess it is. Anyway, expect more consistent updates. Or so I say...

So Where the Heck Have You Been?

Well, nowhere really. I just haven't been much motivated to blog anything for the past month or so. I blame it all on work.

Troubles at St. Mary's by the Sea

This is a church in Huntington Beach, CA, which happens to be my former parish and where I was baptized and confirmed. Before its longtime pastor, Fr. Daniel Johnson, retired a couple of years ago, St. Mary's was probably the most traditional and "conservative" parish in the entire diocese of Orange. But now with Fr. Johnson gone, the Bishop of Orange, Tod Brown (a Cardinal Mahoney clone if there ever was one) has eliminated the indult Tridentine Latin Mass at St. Mary's and has forced the parish to institute changes to the way it normally conducted the Novus Ordo Mass (e.g., no more kneeling during, and apparently after, the Agnus Dei).

Well, as one would expect, there were a lot of unhappy people at St. Mary's, and they weren't afraid to express this unhappiness to Bishop Brown. What do these people get in return? An "invitation" to leave both St. Mary's and the Diocese of Orange.

My reaction in 3 words: What the Hell?!

Google Hypocrisy

The web search giant, which owns Blogger, resists a DOJ subpoena for data on right to privacy grounds. Meanwhile, the agreement Google made with China to censor certain searches on its site moves forward.

If You're a Lawyer

You should find this caption, which really appeared on a pleading by an in pro per litigant my office is doing some scrivener work for, to be dang funny:

FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT TO REPLACE THE FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT FILED ON...

The OC is On Fire!!

Literally. Lots of smoke and ashes in my neck of the suburban woods behind the Orange Curtain.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

'Tis the Year of the Dawg.

Mel Gibson: Something Other Than Catholic

The world famous actor buys his, uh, eccentric father, Hutton, his very own Rad Trad church.

Anna Benson: Duh

The former stripper and wife of Major League Baseball pitcher Kris Benson reveals how being liberal does not equate with being very, well, informed.


Brazen baseball wife Anna Benson blasted the Mets last night for tossing her pitcher hubby a curve via a trade to Baltimore.

The buxom Benson feels she was "misled" by management — which insists she's not why Kris was shipped south.

"If he was traded because of any potential talks with . . . Playboy or anything like this, that's a dirty, nasty, rotten trick — and I think that's really freedom-of-speech infringement," she charged.

Is it a Mortal Sin to Torture Captured Terrorists?

Maybe there's some other provision I missed, but this is the closest thing I could find on the subject from the Catechism:

Paragraph 2297: Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity.

I don't know about you, and I'm certainly no theologian, but it just isn't clear to me from this language that the Church regards torture as being intrinsically evil. Indeed, it could even be argued that the Church perceives the commission of torture as being the equivalent of intentionally hurting someone's feelings. It' not nice, but it's hardly a mortal sin. Muddling the picture even more is the fact that this Catechism provision is written within the context of kidnapping, hostage taking, and terrorism, which are all expressly said to be either immoral and gravely unjust. So even if one were to assume that torture is gravely immoral, it appears to only be so in limited circumstances.

Any thoughts?

Update: From Paragraph 80 of Veritatis Splendor:

The Second Vatican Council itself, in discussing the respect due to the human person, gives a number of examples of such [intrinsically evil] acts: "Whatever is hostile to life itself, such as any kind of homicide, genocide, abortion, euthanasia and voluntary suicide; whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical and mental torture and attempts to coerce the spirit; whatever is offensive to human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution and trafficking in women and children; degrading conditions of work which treat labourers as mere instruments of profit, and not as free responsible persons: all these and the like are a disgrace, and so long as they infect human civilization they contaminate those who inflict them more than those who suffer injustice, and they are a negation of the honour due to the Creator".

Now, it should be noted that the Second Vatican Council never actually called torture intrinsically evil. I also wonder whether John Paul II correctly used the above quote from Guadiam et Spes given that deportation is among the items listed. Surely, there are circumstances when deporting someone is justified.

Jimmy Carter: American Embrassment

The Great Terrorist Enabler strikes again.

Speaking of the devil, I just started reading Steven Hayward's fairly recent political biographyof America's worst ex-President.

Triumph of Catholicism, but not the Catholic Church, in America

An insightful analysis by Joseph Bottum at The Weekly Standard on the significance of Sam Alito's ascendency to the SCOTUS. (link via Amy Welborn)

This may be the best time in American history to be a Catholic, and it may also be the worst: a moment of triumph after 200 years of outsiderness, and an occasion of mockery and shame. It is an era in which a surprisingly large portion of the nation's serious moral analysis seems to derive from Catholic sources. But it is also a day in which Monsignor Eugene Clark--an influential activist and Fulton J. Sheen's successor as rector of New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral--can be named an adulterer in a divorce petition and photographed checking into a hotel with his hot-panted secretary, to the weeks-long titillation of New York's tabloids: "Beauty and the Priest," ran the headline in the Daily News. Catholicism is the most visible public philosophy in America, and the Catholic Church is a national joke.

That's not necessarily a contradiction. Indeed, there might even be a connection between the rising rhetorical influence of Catholicism and the declining political influence of the Church. Since its founding, the United States has always had a source of moral vocabulary and feeling that stands at least a little apart from the marketplace and the polling booth--from both the economics of capitalism and the politics of democracy that otherwise dominate the nation. For much of American history, that source was the moral sense shared by the various Protestant denominations, and it influenced everything from the Revolution to the civil-rights movement.

Somewhere in the last 50 years, however, the mainline Protestant churches went into catastrophic decline. The reasons are complex, but the result is clear. By the 1970s, a hole had opened at the center of American public life, and into that vacuum were pulled two groups that had always before stood on the outside, looking in: Catholics and evangelicals.

Their meeting produced one of the least likely alliances in the nation's history, and it can be parsed in dozens of different ways. "Evangelicals supply the political energy, Catholics the intellectual heft," the New Republic claimed this month as it attempted to explain the Catholic ascendancy on the Supreme Court. That explanation is, as Christianity Today replied, mostly just a condescending update of the Washington Post's old insistence that evangelicals are "poor, uneducated, and easy to command." But the New Republic was at least right that the rhetorical resources of Catholicism--its ability to take a moral impulse born from religion and channel it into a more general public vocabulary and philosophical analysis--have come to dominate conservative discussions of everything from natural-law accounts of abortion to just-war theory.

Waaaaa....!

Kathy Shaidle remembers and reviews the all-time kung-fu classic Enter the Dragon. (I still don't get why there were bunch of Chinese drunks locked up in a cell in the basement).

Weren't Stalin and Mao Atheists?

Atheist Mullah Richard Dawkins issues a fatwa against religion, Christianity in particular.


In "The God Delusion," the first film in the series, Dawkins targets Catholicism at the pilgrimage site in Lourdes. "If you want to experience the medieval rituals of faith, the candle light, the incense, music, important-sounding dead languages, nobody does it better than the Catholics," he says.

Dawkins, using his visit to Colorado Springs' New Life Church, criticizes conservative U.S. evangelicals and warns his audience of the influence of "Christian fascism" and "an American Taliban."

(..)

In part two, "The Virus of Faith," Dawkins attacks the teaching of religion to children, calling it child abuse.

"Innocent children are being saddled with demonstrable falsehoods," he says. "It's time to question the abuse of childhood innocence with superstitious ideas of hellfire and damnation. Isn't it weird the way we automatically label a tiny child with its parents' religion?"

"Sectarian religious schools," Dawkins asserts, have been "deeply damaging" to generations of children.

Dawkins, who makes no effort to disguise his atheism and contempt for religion, focuses on the Bible, too.

"The God of the Old Testament has got to be the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous, and proud of it, petty, vindictive, unjust, unforgiving, racist," he says. Dawkins then criticizes Abraham, compares Moses to Hitler and Saddam Hussein, and calls the New Testament "St Paul's nasty, sado-masochistic doctrine of atonement for original sin."

Not on University Time You're Not

Cohabiting professors at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota are shocked over being told they work for an institution that believes there is such a thing as sin and therefore must get separate rooms when traveling with university students.

Ellen Kennedy and Leigh Lawton never thought their sleeping arrangement was an issue, but the university insists it goes against Catholic values.

Kennedy has been living with fellow professor, Leigh Lawton for twelve years. They are not married and both teach at the University of Saint Thomas which is a Catholic school.

"I'm not Catholic," says Kennedy, "Leigh is not Catholic and there has never been anything that's been forthcoming, that says these are the tenets of the Catholic Church."

Because Kennedy and Lawton aren't married, school officials say, they must book separate hotel rooms when on the road. But Kennedy says the real issue stems from a newspaper article in the November 11 edition of the campus newspaper about a former choir director at the school, who is gay. She canceled plans to travel with students to France after being told that having her partner travel with the choir presented a moral dilemma for students.

I Need to be an Anti-American Jew Hater

So that I can get a nice and cushy teaching job at a public university and/or college.


A U.S.-based Saudi professor and former U.N. fellow says he agrees with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Holocaust is a "myth" and says America eventually will collapse like the Soviet Union.

Abdullah Mohammad Sindi, who has taught at four American schools, told Iran's Mehr News Agency Dec. 26, "I agree wholeheartedly with President Ahmadinejad."

"There was no such a thing as the 'Holocaust,'" Sindi said, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute. "The so-called 'Holocaust' is nothing but Jewish-Zionist propaganda. There is no proof whatsoever that any living Jew was ever gassed or burned in Nazi Germany or in any of the territories that Nazi Germany occupied during World War II."

Sindi, who maintains a website, has taught at the University of California at Irvine, California State University at Pomona, Cerritos College and Fullerton College – all in the Los Angeles area. He also taught political science at King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia.

Eh, Well. Maybe Next Year

USC lost. *sigh* On a totally unrelated note, I'm almost done reading Michelle Malkin's In Defense of Internment. Pretty insightful and informative, and it has really changed my mind on the justification for interning and evacuating people of Japanese descent from the U.S. West Coast during WWII. Like most people who have been fed half-truths on this matter, I used to think it was unjustified, but not anymore.

Even the Mighty Fail

This is a few weeks old, but I just ran across this item about the former dean of Stanford Law School, Kathleen Sullivan, not passing the California Bar Exam. Also noted in this report is the fact that it took former California Governor Pete Wilson four times to pass the Bar, and current mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaragosa, never did pass.

Happy New Year!

And go 'SC! Beat the Cows!

Hey There

Been kind of ill the past couple of weeks, and well, I just haven't been much inspired to blog about anything. Hopefully, things will change after the new year.

Remember, Remember, the 5th of November

While surfing around The Matrix website, I discovered that the Wachowski brothers are coming out with a new movie next year called V for Vendetta.

At first, when I saw some information about who Guy Fawkes was, I thought this movie was about the Gunpowder Plot. Turns out, it's a fictional story about a masked freedom fighter, played by Hugo Weaver (aka Agent Smith in The Matrix movies) who resists the forces of totalitarianism in futuristic Britain. The mask this freedom fighter wears is apparently the face of Guy Fawkes.

V for Vendetta looks like an entertaining movie, but I'd personally be more intrigued if it was about the failed plan to free persecuted Catholics in Protestant Britain.

From the Heart of Mormonism to the Heart of Hedonism

The new Archbishop of San Francisco is George Niederauer. I hope I'm wrong, but I have a feeling he's a Cardinal Mahoney clone.

Father Niederauer’s first priestly assignment was as assistant pastor at Our Lady of the Assumption Parish, Claremont. In 1966, he completed a Doctor of Philosophy degree in English Literature from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

From 1972-1994, he served as spiritual director at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo. During those years he was also an instructor in Spiritual Theology. From 1987-1992, he served as rector of the seminary. From 1992-1994, he co-directed the Cardinal Manning House of Prayer for priests in Los Angeles.

Not Just for "Old" Guys

After a few years of "thinking about it," I finally got around to joining the Knights of Columbus. Since it seems as though I'm the only attorney in my local Council, I'm sort of curious to know whether there are very many lawyers who are Knights.

Initial Impression: Not Good

Ahnuld taps Carol Corrigan, an apparent RINO and CINO, to replace Janice Rogers Brown on the California Supreme Court.

Corrigan has long been active in the Roman Catholic Church and in Catholic charities. In response to questions, she said the church's views on such issues as abortion and homosexuality may not necessarily reflect her beliefs, nor would she ever permit her religion to influence her legal decisions.

"I was raised to believe that everybody has an obligation to inform their own conscience, and that is my understanding of the Catholic tradition as well," she said.

"Judges," she added, "should not impose their privately held views on the body politic."

If Only They Were Allowed to Marry

Another school teacher is criminally charged for sexually molesting students.

Totus Tuus

Today is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. Did you remember to go to Mass?

How About Narnia?

You know the part of the Mass where intercessory prayers are requested of the congregation and the response "Lord, hear our prayer" is said? Over the past couple of weeks at the parish I have been attending since permanently moving to the OC, prayers have been requested for the peoples of war ravaged countries around the world. Specifically pointed out were Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and...Palestine.

Palestine?!

Either someone at this parish is in dire need of a geography lesson, or worse, he or she is politicizing the Mass.

Back in the Blogging Saddle

I just finished my first real trial and we won. The case involved the dissolution of a business partnership in a small restaurant that never made any money, and I was part of counsel for defendants.

Although I didn't try the case alone, I think I probably could have and still won given that plaintiff's counsel did just about everything you shouldn't do in a case that has gone to trial. First and foremost, call the court if you think you're going to be late. In an age where cell phones are as common as traffic jams in Southern California, there really is no excuse for not informing the court that you aren't going to make the designated trial time.

Second, don't list a witness and call that person to the stand if you've never talked to him or her before, and have no idea what he or she is going to say. On two separate occasions, with the same witness, plaintiff's counsel was chewed out by the presiding judge for conducting an examination that was really a deposition. (Depositions are conducted during the discovery phase of litigation, not trial).

Last, if you're arguing that your client is entitled to money, give a specific dollar amount. If you don't, and you have a winning argument (which wasn't the case here), the judge or jury just may give you what you're asking for: nothing.

Heading to Trial

Unless the party who is suing my client has a miraculous change of heart and drops her case, it looks like I'm going to have my first court trial in about 2 weeks. So blogging will be lighter than normal (heh).

I read somewhere (probably from PS Bradley) that there basically two reasons why a civil lawsuit makes it to trial: one side either doesn't know the facts of the case or they have miscalculated. The latter seems to be the situation in the matter I'm involved in to the extent that opposing counsel just doesn't seem to know what the applicable law is.

Pass the Kool-Aid

In the course of chronicling the brewing controversy over the possible moving of Ave Maria Law School from Michigan to Florida, Naomi Schaefer Riley proceeds to not so subtly insult "conservative" Catholics. She, as well as her headline writer at the Wall Street Journal, does this by describing, via an unnamed Ave Maria faculty member, Tom Monaghan's planned Ave Maria Town as a "Catholic Jonestown." So much for substantive debate, I guess.

Initiative Voting

Here's how I'm voting in tomorrow's special election here in California:

Props. 73 to 77 - Yes
Props. 78 to 80 - No

"Happy" 400

If you're a Protestant Brit, today is Guy Fawkes Day a.k.a. lame excuse to express hatred toward Catholicism.

My New Hobby

Tracking down where every member of the North Torrance High School Class of 1987 is today (or as of the end of 2007). It'll be tough, if not impossible, but I'm gonna try to do this without spending any money.

Birth Choice

More information about them here. A worthwhile organization that I personally hope to be more involved with.

It Was 25 Years Ago Yesterday

That Ronald Reagan was first elected President of the United States. Even though I was only 11 at the time, I can recall rooting real hard for him to beat the peanut farmer who had fat brother who always seemed to be drunk.

Time After Time

I really hate it when I arrive someplace at the wrong time because I didn't realize we were supposed to change our clocks the night before. Today, I had intended to go to the 9:30 a.m. Mass, but when I got to the church, I found myself in the middle of the homily of the 8:00 a.m. Mass. D'oh!

Mr. Sulu Comes Out

And get this, he likens the desire to have intercourse with a member of the same sex with race. What a shocker!

In other earth shattering news today, scientists have determined that water is wet.

What the..?!

I had a motion hearing today where the judge basically advised opposing counsel to request sanctions. The amount of money imposed on me (or my firm) doesn't justify taking the judge up on appeal, but geez!!

Hittin' Below the Mendoza Line

I don't know what it is, but I've been on a bit of losing streak lately on motions before the court. The frustrating part is that on at least two occasions, the opposing side seemed pretty resigned to not winning. I thought my boss was exagerating at the time, but his consistent complaint about judges being unpredictable, capricious and arbitrary is starting to ring truer with me every day.

It's Not a "Witch Hunt" if There are "Witches"

Michael Rose on the Lavender Mafia, the upcoming seminary visits by the Vatican, and the yet to be released document that supposedly bars men with homosexual tendencies from the priesthood.

Several years ago, Father Donald Cozzens, then rector of a Cleveland seminary, wrote that many seminary faculties included a disproportionate number of homosexuals. In his book, The Changing Face of the Priesthood, he commented that "straight men in a predominantly or significantly gay environment commonly experience self doubt."

In my own study of seminary life over the past three decades, I have found that many heterosexual men give up their seminary studies precisely for this reason, leaving behind a student body gradually swollen with homosexuals. I'm not talking about the presence of a few gay-oriented men who want to live chastely, but rather the institutionalization of a gay subculture that has earned some seminaries nicknames such as the Pink Palace, Notre Flame, and Theological Closet.

One aspect of this gay subculture of both priests and seminarians is that too many men who want to be chaste, whether gay or straight, are propositioned, harassed or even molested – occurrences that are more common than one might think. This doesn't aid the moral and spiritual development of the church's future clergy. Rather, it fosters a pathological pattern of living.

This is not simply about homosexuality or homosexual acts. It's about an agenda and subculture that systematically undermine celibacy, a state to which the Roman Catholic priest is called. This gay subculture is also in direct conflict with the teachings of the church. Those involved are promoting this conflict and escalating the problem.