"They slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God." -- President Ronald Reagan on the tragic deaths of the Space Shuttle Challenger crew in 1986.

May God grant the Space Shuttle Columbia crew eternal rest through Christ.

Woo hoo! Only two more months 'till Opening Day in baseball, and the Dodgers have signed...Ron Coomer? Bet the Giants are shakin' in their shoes now, by golly.

On both the old and new calendars, today is the feast day of St. John Bosco.

Well this is incredibly perverse. A Canadian court (big surprise) awards a divorced couple damages for the "wrongful birth" of their Down's Syndrome child.

A [British Columbia] Supreme Court justice ruled this week that Dr. Ken Kan must pay the child's mother, Liu-Ling "Lydia" Zhang of Vancouver, $10,000 in damages.

The justice also awarded American Simon Fung, the father, $20,000 in damages and $295,000 for the cost of his daughter Sherry's future care.

Dr. Kan was negligent in failing to send Zhang for an expedited amniocentesis test, which likely would have detected her baby's chromosome defect, Justice Michael Catliff ruled.

Zhang would have aborted her pregnancy had she known her daughter would be born with Down's, the mother has said.

Gung Hay Fat Choy! Time to celebrate by going out and getting a sheep style 'do.

Broadest U.S. Christian alliance, that includes the Catholic Church, is proposed.

The loosely knit alliance would represent five segments of U.S. Christianity, listed in the plan as "Evangelical/Pentecostal, Historic Protestant, Orthodox, Racial/Ethnic and Roman Catholic."

The Catholic church and most evangelicals and Pentecostals do not belong to the National Council of Churches, which is currently the nation's largest ecumenical group. If the new alliance does emerge, it could supplant the National Council or radically alter its role in American Christianity.

Not enough time to examine their qualifications?! Give me a freakin' break! Before the Republicans took back control over the Senate, you idiot Democrats had more than a year to question these judicial nominees! Admit it. You guys are just mad because Sen. Hatch isn't giving you enough time to run your asinine smear campaigns!

Prof. to students: "No recommendation unless you accept my belief that we are descendents of monkeys and the origin of life is just one big happy accident."

After reading Mark Shea's blog on "Evangelicalese", I'm in need of some clarification. When Protestants mention the "sanctuary" of their chapels, are they generally including the pews where everybody sits (or stands and claps their hands to cheery music)? My understanding of the sanctuary in a Catholic context is that it only includes the immediate area around or in front of the altar (sometimes cordoned off by Communion rails).

Old calendar feast day: St. Francis de Sales

New calendar feast day: St. Gildas the Wise

Could this possibly be the case where the SCOTUS gets to revisit the question of whether an unborn child is a "person"? Hmmm...

Oh yeah, this makes sense.

For all my fellow Tridentine loyalists who go by the old calendar, today is the feast day of St. Peter Nolasco. If you're going by the new calendar, it is the feast day of my patron saint, St. Thomas Aquinas.

Ewwwww!

On a more serious matter, SCOTUS declines to hear juvenile death penalty case.

The Supreme Court has allowed the death penalty to be imposed on killers who were 16 or 17 at the time of their crimes. Lawyers for Oklahoma inmate Scott Allen Hain said the minimum age should be raised to 18.

"While they appear to be fully-grown physically and may seem to be functioning as adults, their judgment and impulse-control are simply not that of adults," attorney Steven Presson told justices in filings.

Hain was 17 when he and an older friend abducted and killed a young couple in 1987. They locked the victims in their car trunk and set it afire.

SCOTUS declines to hear Mattel appeal over song that calls Barbie a "blonde bimbo."

The song, by a Danish group called Aqua, includes the lyrics, "I'm a blonde bimbo in a fantasy world/Dress me up, make it tight, I'm your dolly."

Mattel Inc. (MAT), which gets $1.5 billion or more annually in Barbie sales, complained that an advertisement for the song ran during Saturday morning cartoons and that MCA Records Inc. even wanted to sell the recording at toy stores.