Way of the Cross With a Chinese Flavor

Given that the upcoming Summer Olympics are in Beijing, it's probably not coincidental that Cardinal Zen of Hong Kong was selected to compose the Way of the Cross meditations for this year's Good Friday service at the Colosseum.

Also make sure to check out the awesome artwork accompanying Cardinal Zen's meditations. (h/t Amy Welborn)

Clueless in Berkeley

A classic illustration of how to divert attention away from an otherwise dumb message with a totally avoidable mistake.

False Equivalency Alert!

From the Harvard Law educated Obamamessiah (h/t Powerline):

I can no more disown [Jeremiah Wright] than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

Borrowing from the Obamamessiah's campaign slogan - Spanish version: Sí usted puede.

Update: Is it Obamessiah or Obamamessiah? Think I'll start going with the former since it seems to have a better flow.

I'm a Wave

Great news for me. I've been provisionally accepted into the MBA program for fully employed folk at Pepperdine University. It's not quite a top 10 program like the one at USC and UCLA, but it seems to be fairly respectable.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to borrow money for this endeavor, but I think it'll be worth it in the long run. And as much as I'd love to be able to go to Malibu for classes, I won't be. Pepperdine has a convenient satellite campus for its MBA program down in the OC. As a matter of fact, it's right across the street from USC's MBA satellite campus.

"Happy" 30th

Nice to see local college, and my sister's alma mater, Cal State Fullerton make the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament for the first time in 30 years.

Interesting that when the Titans were last at the Big Dance in 1978, they made it all the way to the Elite 8, and had beaten teams from the University of New Mexico, which featured future L.A. Lakers great Michael Cooper, and the University of San Francisco, which featured Bill Cartright, a future longtime NBA player and champion himself.

Why No Focus On John McCain's Pastor?

That was the question asked by liberal political pundit Kirsten Powers on Fox News' The Strategy Room today when the topic of Obamamessiah and the well publicized anti-American and racist ravings of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, came up. I suppose that would be a pretty good question if it wasn't for the fact that McCain, unlike Obamamessiah, hasn't made his pastor a part of his presidential campaign. Nice attempted diversion, though, Kirsten.

Speaking of the Rev. Wright being a part of his campaign, it seems Obamamessiah is now actively trying to erase it from everyone's memory.

Bobby Jindal For President 2008!

I'm writing him in, unless McCain taps Jindal or someone like Chris Cox to be his VP running mate.

But It's Perfectly Fine In Black-Liberation-Theology-Land

So if you say what Rev. Wright said is racist, YOU'RE THE ONE WHO'S RACIST! Got it?! (h/t five feet of fury)

When Moses finally escaped the Egyptians, he turned to God and asked, "There could surely be no one as bad at those people?" God said to Moses, "Yes there are. Beware the honkeys. Beware the crackers. Especially beware the Jews. I hate all those people. Frankly, if you blow up their buildings, that's okay with me."

That wisdom speaks even more to us today as we are beset by honkeys. America is a country founded by crackers and run by Jews that exists for no other reason than to kill black people. They invented AIDS to kill us. They made crack to drug us. They use hidden ninjas to stage black on black violence. Hillary does not understand this. In fact, she's busy in her hollowed out volcano working on AIDS version two. That's why they are scared of a black man being president, because he will cut the millions of dollars that go to black genocide and instead invest that money where God says it should be: In killing honkey!

BTW, in his "repudiation" of Wright, notice how Obamamessiah never actually specifies, or quotes, any of what Wright said, but simply uses common lawyerese referential phrases like "the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue." (h/t John Hinderaker at Powerline)

Update (0316/07): Add character assassin to racist.

Reason #98493484394 To Never Trust The MSM

Just so we're clear: the Catholic Church DOES NOT have a new list of mortal or deadly sins.

Although the misreporting of the MSM on almost anything Catholic is to be expected, for normally reasonable and widely read political bloggers like Ed Morrissey to pick up and basically believe the crap being reported about the Church is really disappointing.

Update (3/13/08): Geez, now one of the bloggers at the American Spectator is perpetuating the lie. What is with you people and instantly believing stuff the MSM "reports" about the Catholic Church?!

(Demo)Cat Fight!

If John McCain loses in November, his will be a prime case study on how NOT to run a presidential campaign. (h/t Red State)

I'd Almost Say The News Was Divine Intervention

Michelle Malkin takes note of what Eliot Spitzer was going to do today before news of his illegal indiscretions broke.

This morning, NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer had been scheduled to speak to the Family Planning Advocates’ 31st Annual Conference. The abortion racketeers are seeking more money. And he was preparing to push legislators to do their bidding–before he was forced to cancel his appearance.

As payback to his abortion industry supporters, Spitzer had supported “the Reproductive Health & Privacy Protection Act (RHAPP)” under the guise of “codifying Roe v. Wade.”

McCain/Cox Sounds Great

Among the names that conservative pundits are bandying about as possible VP choices for John McCain is Chris Cox, the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and former longtime member of the House of Representatives from my congressional district here in California. (h/t Southern Appeal)

If Cox is tapped by McCain, I'll overlook for the time being the demands I made here and actively support McCain in the general election. I have that much respect and admiration for Chris Cox.

Good

Dubya has done the right thing here, and contrary to the shrill and disingenuous ravings of some in the Catholic blogosphere, waterboarding is not torture when we do it, and even if it was, it would only be legally applied under justifiable circumstances. Yes, "torture", like war, theft and killing, can be morally justified.

Ron Paul Sux (cont.)

I am trying real hard not to impute anti-Semitic motives on Ron Paul for his most recent inane moral equating of Israel with Palestinian terrorists, but there comes a time when you just have to call a spade a spade.

Man, I'm glad this crackpot has finally decided to end his embarrassing run for the GOP presidential nomination. h/t AmSpec Blog

Obama Cult

Set to the music of Cake. h/t Dan

Liberal Fascism

I haven't yet read the above titled best seller by Jonah Goldberg, but he's definitely going to have to add this episode to subsequent printings of his book:

Parents who lack teaching credentials cannot educate their children at home, according to a state appellate court ruling that is sending waves of fear through California’s home schooling families.

Advocates for the families vowed to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court. Enforcement until then appears unlikely, but if the ruling stands, home-schooling supporters say California will have the most regressive law in the nation.

(...)

“Parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children,” wrote Justice H. Walter Croskey in a Feb. 28 opinion signed by the two other members of the district court. “Parents who fail to [comply with school enrollment laws] may be subject to a criminal complaint against them, found guilty of an infraction, and subject to imposition of fines or an order to complete a parent education and counseling program.”

Update (03/07/08): It might not be as bad as it has been made out to be.

I Was More Excited Over Bob Dole

Ho hum, John McCain basically clinches the Republican Party nomination for President tonight. While I would certainly rather see McCain be President than Hillary or Obamamessiah, you'll excuse me if I don't show a whole lot of enthusiasm for a guy who has an American Conservative Union lifetime rating that is lower than the ACU rating held by Chuck Hagel, the RINO U.S. Senator from Nebraska.

Hagel, of course, has recently been rumored to be someone whom Obamamessiah, if he's annointed elected President, might tap to serve in his Cabinet.

Hoop Dreams

This is one area where the Jesuits are objectively and extraordinarily good.

Actress + French + Oscar Winner = Idiot

Contrary to what the article says, Marion Cotillard did not cause a "political row" by revealing her status as a 9/11 Troofer. That would imply there's some legitimacy to what came out of her pie hole.

Women are Kinda Dumb

So observes Charlotte Allen in a few different contexts, including at Barry O. rallies and Hillary's campaign. (h/t The Corner)

"Women 'Falling for Obama,' " the story's headline read. Elsewhere around the country, women were falling for the presidential candidate literally. Connecticut radio talk show host Jim Vicevich has counted five separate instances in which women fainted at Obama rallies since last September. And I thought such fainting was supposed to be a relic of the sexist past, when patriarchs forced their wives and daughters to lace themselves into corsets that cut off their oxygen.

I can't help it, but reading about such episodes of screaming, gushing and swooning makes me wonder whether women -- I should say, "we women," of course -- aren't the weaker sex after all. Or even the stupid sex, our brains permanently occluded by random emotions, psychosomatic flailings and distraction by the superficial. Women "are only children of a larger growth," wrote the 18th-century Earl of Chesterfield. Could he have been right?

I'm not the only woman who's dumbfounded (as it were) by our sex, or rather, as we prefer to put it, by other members of our sex besides us. It's a frequent topic of lunch, phone and water-cooler conversations; even some feminists can't believe that there's this thing called "The Oprah Winfrey Show" or that Celine Dion actually sells CDs. A female friend of mine plans to write a horror novel titled "Office of Women," in which nothing ever gets done and everyone spends the day talking about Botox.

We exaggerate, of course. And obviously men do dumb things, too, although my husband has perfectly good explanations for why he eats standing up at the stove (when I'm not around) or pulls down all the blinds so the house looks like a cave (also when I'm not around): It has to do with the aggressive male nature and an instinctive fear of danger from other aggressive men. When men do dumb things, though, they tend to be catastrophically dumb, such as blowing the paycheck on booze or much, much worse (think "postal"). Women's foolishness is usually harmless. But it can be so . . . embarrassing.

Take Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign. By all measures, she has run one of the worst -- and, yes, stupidest -- presidential races in recent history, marred by every stereotypical flaw of the female sex. As far as I'm concerned, she has proved that she can't debate -- viz. her televised one-on-one against Obama last Tuesday, which consisted largely of complaining that she had to answer questions first and putting the audience to sleep with minutiae about her health-coverage mandate. She has whined (via her aides) like the teacher's pet in grade school that the boys are ganging up on her when she's bested by male rivals. She has wept on the campaign trail, even though everyone knows that tears are the last refuge of losers. And she is tellingly dependent on her husband.