Last "Acceptable" Bigotry in America Indeed

Published in the Philadelphia Inquirer after the Supreme Court's ruling to uphold the Federal ban on partial birth infanticide. (via)

College Life and Sports

The two seem to be so intertwined in our culture that when something like the Virginia Tech massacre occurs, you see reports of them in the sports section of the newspaper and ESPN.

Oh, Good Lord!

The MSM not so subtly tries its very darn best to connect the Virginia Tech murderer to the Bush Administration. (via)

Federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Upheld by SCOTUS

By a narrow 5-4 vote with Justice Kennedy playing his usual role as the key swing vote.

Although today's ruling doesn't do anything to stop the senseless killing of children while they are still fully in-utero, it is something that pro-life advocates can be happy about. Small steps.

As a side note, the very short but to the pointconcurring opinion by Justice Thomas is just the latest example of why I think he, and not Scalia, is the smartest Justice on the Court.

Update (4/19): Jonathan Adler takes note of the inherent contradiction in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's comments about the Court's ruling. Also note the post below Adler's regarding a possible Commerce Clause challenge to the federal PBA ban.

WMD Found in Iraq

This would probably be more widely reported in the MSM if not for the horrific events at Virginia Tech today...maybe. (h/t)

Update (4/17): Yay! The Catholic blogosphere's own version of Pat Robertson/Jerry Falwell basically blames America for the VA Tech massacre.

Missed Opportunity

As I note below in a previous blog post, it just seems incredible that nobody has apparently ever publicly asked Rudy Giuliani why he is personally opposed to abortion.

Conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt had the chance to do this recently when he interviewed Giuliani and posed the question of abortion rights to him. After Giuliani did his usual song and tap dance about being personally opposed to abortion but believing pregnant women should have the right to choose it, Hewitt pretty much dropped the ball there and moved on to a whole different subject. Most disappointing to say the least.

One other thing about the aforementioned interview. When Giuliani disclosed that he had seriously considered the priesthood as a young man, but decided not to pursue it because of the vow of celibacy he would have been required to take, Hewitt responded by saying "Ah, good argument." What the hell is that supposed to mean?!

New Term for Victims of Unmeritorious/False Criminal Prosecutions

"Nifonged"

Surely, Someone Must Have Asked

I keep reading these comments from Rudy Guiliani saying that he personally opposes abortion, but thinks it should be legal for a pregnant woman to decide for herself whether to have one.

Has nobody publicly asked Rudy why he personally opposes abortion? If Giuliani opposes it because he believes the unborn child is a human being, then he will have to explain why it should be legal to allow said human being to be killed for absolutely no legitimate purpose.

A Wide Open GOP Convention in '08

As speculated by Doug Patton in Human Events, a conservative publication we've been told by a certain snotty Catholic apologist, is all on board with Giuliani simply because it ran a pro-Giuliani column by a libertarian leaning commentator named Deroy Murdock. By itself it's an idiotic assertion, made more so by the fact that just last week Human Events published another Doug Patton column which argued that selecting Giuliani as the GOP presidential nominee would kill the pro-life movement (in the Republican Party*).

*text subsequently added

Google Power

Interesting. In tracking all the visits I get to this blog, I've noticed that most of them come from Google searches rather than the much appreciated link listings I get from fellow Catholic bloggers.

Kind of a meandering thought for this Easter, but I'm still preoccupied over how I managed to lose a five dollar bill in my pocket this past Friday. Lesson learned: Don't keep a bunch of loose dollars in your pocket.

It's Not About Bunnies and Color Dyed Eggs Either

From MSNBC (via):

Ahmadinejad said he had pardoned the sailors as a gift to the British people and to mark the birthday of Islam’s Prophet Muhammed and Easter.

“On the occasion of the birthday of the great prophet (Muhammad)...and for the occasion of the passing of Christ, I say the Islamic Republic government and the Iranian people — with all powers and legal right to put the soldiers on trial — forgave those 15,” he said, referring to the Muslim prophet’s birthday last Saturday and Easter, next Sunday.

OK, one might "forgive" the president of Iran's apparent ignorant belief that Easter is about the death of Christ rather than His resurrection. Ahmadinejad, after all, is a Holocaust denying lunatic. But for the MSM not to pick up on the mistake is just one more example of how maddeningly lazy and careless it is.

Mark Shea Ignorant Rant #9090929302

Mr. Snotty Catholic and Enjoying It! is aghast that conservatives who would defend waterboarding captured terrorists for information are invoking the Geneva Convention with respect to the treatment of the captured British sailors in Iran.

What Mr. SCAEI fails to understand, of course, is that the Geneva accords apply to uniformed military personnel who are directly connected with a particular country or nation state, not members of free floating terrorist networks like al Qaeda.

The Road Toward Outlawing Refried Beans

The high court of the land basically determines, by a 5-4 vote, that your flatulence and exhales are pollutants that can be regulated by the federal government.

This is Your Brain on Scientology, Part 843983958349

Despite being an unrepentant jet plane owner and pilot, John Travolta is concerned about global warming and thinks everyone needs to do "their bit" to help heal the planet. Travolta's concern about the poor health of the environment is such that he muses whether we ought to start thinking about colonizing other planets and creating domed cities. Oookaay.

A sure sign that Travolta should immediately stop talking about alleged global warming is that environmental groups like CarbonFoot.com are actually distancing themselves from him.

Update: (4/1/07): While comments, even dissenting ones, are always welcomed here, I will delete all name calling posts that are personally directed at me.

Catholic Fatwa?!

That's what the director of an art gallery in New York (natch!) called Catholic League president Bill Donahue's public criticism of "My Sweet Lord," a life sized milk chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ.

Freakin' clueless liberals.

Between All the Thinly Veiled Self-Righteousness and Triangulation

Did you actually read D'Souza's book before commenting on it, Mark? I bet you didn't.

Lawyers from Non-ABA Schools Need Not Apply for Job at Non-ABA School

California is one of the few states in this country that accreditates law schools, and under certain conditions, allows students who earn a JD from a non-ABA and non-state accredited law school to sit for its bar exam. Because of this liberal policy, there are quite a number of non-accredited law schools in California that literally operate out of small office buildings. (I've even heard of one school that operated out of a home garage).

I myself earned a law degree from a school that is accredited by California, but not by the ABA. From the beginning, I knew that graduating from Trinity Law School would be a severe liability for me as far as landing a job with a respected or established law firm was concerned. But because I liked the school's underlying Christian-based mission and wanted to make a contribution to its' growth and reputation (e.g., having graduates who pass the bar exam on their first try) I stayed around and didn't transfer to an ABA school when I had the chance to do so.

It certainly cannot be understated that being a graduate of a non-ABA law school has been a career liability for me. I can't tell you how many "we don't have a position to match your qualifications" letters I've gotten from law firms I submitted my resume to. Again, though, such rejection, which I'm pretty sure is mostly based on where I got my law degree from, is not unexpected. What is unexpected, and thoroughly dismaying, is that my own law school apparently doesn't think much of the juris doctorate degree it conferred on me and other Trinity Law School graduates. How else to explain the craigslist job ad it posted a couple of weeks ago where one of the minimum qualifications an applicant for an adjunct faculty position must have is a law degree from an ABA accredited school?* I tell you what, this ticked me off so much that I ripped off a scathing letter to the law school dean and the president of the university that owns the school. I basically told them that I found the job ad to be insulting, and that they can forget about me ever recommending Trinity to any potential law students. I also said that I intended to actively discourage any potential law students from even considering Trinity. It's bad enough that most law firms think a Trinity law degree is crap, but for Trinity itself to basically suggest such a thing is just an over the edge ball-buster. Unless things change, I am done with Trinity Law School and will have nothing more to do with it outside of telling anyone who will listen that it is not a school any aspiring lawyer should consider applying to or attending.
______________________

*Full disclosure: I applied for an adjunct faculty position at Trinity Law School about three weeks before the above referenced ad was posted on craigslist. At the time, I was a bit worried I wouldn't get any consideration given the fact I'm Catholic and could only affirm the school's protestant/evangelical-based statement of faith with "severe reservations" (the school does not require students to affirm this statement). However, my worries were somewhat tempered because I knew there was at least one adjunct faculty member, a Superior Court Judge, who is Catholic.

Update (3/30/07): The academic dean of the school, Don McConnell, called me today about the letter I sent. He basically told me that the craigslist job ad was not meant to slight or exclude Trinity graduates, and that my application for an adjunct position would be considered. I took his word at it, although privately I don't believe my application will be given the same weight as an applicant who holds a degree from an ABA accredited school. The bell cannot be totally unrung here, and my disappointed cynicism remains.

My 3 Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon

Or it might be 4 if you actually count Kevin Bacon. I can never remember how these things are counted. Anyway, I knew and went to junior high and high school with the wife of martial artist/actor Christopher Paul Ford, who was in The Karate Kid Part III with Ralph Macchio, who co-starred in My Cousin Vinny with Marisa Tomei (no relation to Christopher Paul Ford's wife), who co-srarred in Loverboy with Kevin Bacon.

Oh Wow

Someone with a U.S. Supreme Court account visited this here blog. Probably wishful thinking that it was a Justice, but who knows?

Contra-Contra D'Souza

I've not yet read Dinesh D'Souza's new book The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, and not sure that I will anytime soon, but I do know that a lot of conservative pundits and bloggers have been panning it for its underlying "America is at fault for Islamic terrorists" theme.

Well, there's at least one social conservative commentator that I have a great deal of respect for, Stephen Mosher of the Population Research Institute, who thinks D'Souza is pretty much on the money:

The United States, both directly and through international institutions like the World Bank, has been exporting various social pathologies into relatively innocent and untouched corners of the world for going on 40 years now under the guise of "family planning" and "reproductive health." Billions of dollars a year are being poured into programs that promote abortion, fund coercive sterilization and contraceptive campaigns, reach into the schools with pornographic sex education programs, fund anti-family and anti-child radio and television programs, undermine primary health care, and encourage governments to intrude into the private lives of their citizens. Such programs create bitter resentment in Muslim and non-Muslim countries alike, as we at PRI have documented over and over again.

Let me be clear: It is not because women in the West have abortions and premarital sex that bin Laden and his pals attacked us. They were bent on violence in any case.

But the promotion by the U.S. and other "modern democracies" of abortion, divorce, adultery, and premarital sex in Muslim countries cannot help but generate sympathy and new recruits for those who would attack the "Great Satan." One can understand the resentment of even moderate Muslims when Western-funded population controllers come knocking at the door of their houses, bearing their human pesticides and insisting that their wives be rendered sterile. Or their righteous anger when their young child arrives home from school with a pornographic sex ed booklet, funded by a grant from USAID.