A Shrill Lawyer's Conception of Enlightenment

In 2006, a G@y Area post-operative male transexual tried to get a boob job from Seton Medical Center, a Catholic hospital in Daly City, California. Seton initially denied the request, citing religious objections to such elective cosmetic procedures. The tranny then filed a lawsuit, and Seton obviously not wanting to incur a bunch of litigation costs, and possibly getting some bad legal advice, basically backed down. The following are comments from the tranny's attorney in response to the decision by Seton to kowtow to his client's demand:

“I’m glad that they’ve recognized that they’ve made a mistake,” said Hastings in an interview with CBS 5 News. But her attorney, Chris Dolan, was more belligerent. Referring to the hospital’s statement, he told CBS 5, “I don’t know where the confusion is, other than perhaps they were confused that that was illegal.” Despite the hospital’s reversal, Dolan said the lawsuit for monetary damages would go forward. “Like any good religious experience, first you need enlightenment and then you need atonement,” said Dolan. “And what we have here perhaps is a glimpse of enlightenment. Has it changed their heart? I don’t think so. Will it change their practice? It better.”

Chris Dolan, a graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center is a shrill ass-hat. If I were representing Seton, I'd advise it to assert its First Amendment religious liberty rights and remove this lawsuit out of State court, which is pretty left-liberal in the G@y Area, and into Federal court (not as left-liberal).

Happy Leap Day!

I don't know about you, but I'm just ontologically blown away by the fact that I'm living on a day that only exists once every 4 years. Good thing I wasn't born on this date, or I'd really be philosophically wrecked.

Devil With A Blue Dress?

I'm too lazy to use the LOL Builder so: Hillary sez, "I can has Whitehouse? K, Thx Satan! LOLZ!"

RIP William F. Buckley

Update: One of his last articles: Goldwater, the John Birch Society and Me.

Update 2 (2/28/08): Via The Corner, a 1997 interview WFB did in connection with the publication of his spiritual autobiography Nearer, My God. This book has some special significance for me because it was released at about the same time I decided to convert to the Catholic Church. Although I got through about half of Nearer, My God, for some unexplainable reason I never bothered to finish it. Might be time to do so.

Something Redeeming About John McCain

I've made a little hay here and in other places on the Internet about John McCain's lack of trustworthiness when it comes to selecting judges and justices for the Federal bench. All of this, of course, was within the context of a competitive primary election.

Although I still don't totally trust him, turns out that in 1998, John McCain was one of 29 Republican Senators who voted against confirming the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Given that Sotomayor, whom Jeffrey Rosen at Slate recommends as a Supreme Court nominee should the Dem nominee for President win the general election, is both female and Hispanic, McCain took a fairly significant political risk in voting against this otherwise presumptively leftist judicial activist. (h/t Ed Whelan)

Say It 'Aint So!

You might have read or heard about it already, but it seems the Washington Times has caved in to the PC forces, insofar as certain words and terms like "illegal immigrants" will now be used in the paper instead of "illegal aliens", while "gay marriage" will no longer be written with quotation marks around it.

Although the Washington Times has long been known to be politically conservative as far as its editorial page is concerned, perhaps the paper's hat tip to political correctness shouldn't be all that surprising. I can't remember where, but I think I once heard from some talking head on television that the news reporting in the Washington Times is, for the most part, not much different than the reporting in most other daily newspapers. That is to say, the news bureau of the Washington Times is tilted to the left of the political spectrum. Whether this is really true, I dunno. I'm just sayin'.

St. Ivo of Kermartin

Less well known than St. Thomas More, St. Ivo is also a patron saint of attorneys.

I only recently found out about St. Ivo from a colleague who references the "less famous" saint on the back of his business cards.

Extreme Lack of Quality Movies

I'd be curious to know if any of the movies that have been nominated for Best Picture at tonight's Academy Awards™ show were in the theaters for more than a month. Even better, if anyone has seen, or is willing to see, any of these movies more than once (if at all).

How Long Iz 24 Lolcat Hours in Hooman Tiem?

CA GOP On the Verge of Being Democrat-Lite

Can't say I'm really surprised. Once you lend legitimacy to the "It doesn't matter if he's not really conservative as long he has an 'R' after his name" attitude in elections, stuff like this goes from minor noisy rumblings that get defeated to something that is almost certain to happen. (h/t Michelle Malkin)

The California Republican Party once again faces an identity crisis heading into its annual spring convention, and this time a major donor is calling on the party to become more inclusive.

Businessman Lawrence K. Dodge delayed writing a check to help the party pay off $3 million in debt and wrote a scathing analysis of the party in a private letter, raising concerns similar to those cited by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger when he said Republicans were "dying at the box office" last year.

(...)

Delegates will decide this weekend on a new platform for the state party. Moderates and conservatives have been lobbying Republicans in recent weeks to support their respective versions.

The moderate platform follows through on Schwarzenegger's call last year for a version that concentrates on fiscal responsibility and low taxes with centrist positions on social and environmental issues.

"I think people are ready for a cohesive, unifying platform, and that's what ours is," said Virginia Chang Kiraly, 44, a Menlo Park Republican who is spearheading that effort. "It's not offensive, it's not strident, it's not divisive, and I think that's why we've had such broad support."

It's a Sin for Dudes to Go #1 While Sitting!

God in the KJV Bible (the Only True Bible™ ) sez so! (h/t Dan)

LOLOBAMA

For the uninitiated, the "language" in the above picture is this.

Welcome 4 Marks/CM People!

I'm pretty sure I know how you got here. ;)

Please feel free to look around and leave a comment or two.

Columbia Prof and "Hate Crime Victim" Sanctioned

So Madonna Constantine (interesting name, eh?), a professor of psychology and education at Columbia University, has been sanctioned for plagiarism. (h/t Michelle Malkin)

[Teachers College] confirmed in a statement later Tuesday evening that after an internal investigation TC had "found numerous instances in which she [Constantine] used others’ work without attribution in papers she published in academic journals over the past five years."

That's a pretty long time to be committing academic fraud. This story should make a nice topic of conversation the next time I see my cousin and his wife, who are both at Columbia U. as a graduate fellow and faculty member.

Another, and related, topic of conversation is the curious side note mentioned in the linked to article: In October last year, Ms. Constantine, who is black, made some headlines as an apparent "victim" of a "hate crime" when a noose was found on the door to her office. Exactly who put the noose there is still unknown, but given recent events with Ms. Constantine, you gotta wonder...

Your Anti-Religionism is Showing

John Derbyshire of National Review has got this running blog post thread attacking Ben Stein for having the temerity to star in and make a documentary movie about the administrative silencing of scientists in academia who dare to challenge the doctrines of Darwinism with Intelligent Design theory. Seems 'ol Derb doesn't buy the fact that ID is not the same as Creationism. As such, ID really isn't science to Derb (does he think Darwinism is?!) thus Ben Stein is either an idiot or a disingenuous propagandist for making Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. I personally am looking forward to seeing this movie, and I thank John Derbyshire for giving me notice about it through his seeming obsessive need to be an obnoxious ass-hat toward ID advocates.

And They All Talk With Straight Faces

My old law school has produced a 10 minute promotional video that essentially consists of the dean and some current and former students giving scripted testimony about how great and wonderful Trinity Law School is. What's not said, of course, is that for the past 8 to 10 years, the bar pass rate for Trinity graduates is well below 20 percent. There are several reasons for this outside of the quality of education at Trinity, e.g., the high number of part-time students who have families and full time jobs, but the inescapable fact of the matter is that the low bar pass rate pretty much makes a Trinity law degree worthless on the open market.

Trinity also does almost nothing in the way of career development, like helping students obtain summer associate positions. The closest thing that Trinity has to a career program is a big cork bulletin board hanging in a hallway with a "Jobs" sign stuck to it. With something like 90 percent of the law instructors at Trinity being active practicing lawyers, you'd think the school could do a little bit something more.

Anyhow, although I like the fact that Trinity tries very hard to maintain an orthodox Christian environment, as perfectly illustrated by the herein referred to promotional video, it's not a law school I could really recommend to anyone who is planning on practicing law, but not as a sole practitioner. Trinity's academic creds just aren't there, and the school simply doesn't do enough in career development to compensate for it.

Real Christians™ are Liberal, Pro-G@y and Pro-Abortion

So adjudges Chuckles Barkley, who also thinks conservative so-called "Christians" are unbiblically judgmental. h/t Creative Minority Report

fake christians
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There's Constitutional Law

Then there's the Constitution established by our country's Founding Fathers.

Yes, there is a distinction, and starting this spring, the George Mason University School of Law will be requiring its students to take a new course that focuses "on a large number of important original legal sources familiar to the founding generation, ranging from Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights to the Federalist (and Anti-Federalist) Papers, along with constitutional debates at the Philadelphia Convention and in the First Congress." h/t Bench Memos

America's No. 1 Enemy: San Francisco

Nancy Pelosi should forever be held responsible for any American lives that are lost as a result of her refusal to allow the House of Representatives to vote on and renew the soon to be expired Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

It Was Fake...Right?