“The Mass murder in Afghanistan was predictable.”
So says Michael Yon. And he’s one who should know. From his post,

The mass murder in Afghanistan was predictable. Twice in the past three weeks, I published that it was coming. Why was I able to write this with sad confidence? I’ve spent more time with combat troops in these wars than any other writer: about four years in total in country, and three with combat troops.

About 200 coalition members have been killed or wounded from insider attacks. Afghan President Hamid Karzai is tantamount to being Taliban and has not bothered to apologize. Instead, Karzai whips up anti-U.S. fervor at every opportunity. Twice, Karzai has threatened to leave politics and join the Taliban.

Even our most disciplined troops — not the few problem troops — have lost all idealism. They have not lost heart for the fight. Mostly, they just don’t care. They fight because they are ordered to fight, but they have eyes wide open. The halfhearted surge and sudden drawdown leave little room for success.

…

Afghans will seek revenge and they will have it. This will lead to yet greater possibilities of another mass murder from our side. We are considering holding the trial in Afghanistan. Pashtuns don’t care about our justice system. They don’t even care about the Afghan government; they want blood for blood. We are being drawn into a feud.

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CNN covers Fast & Furious
ICE Agents Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata. By all rights you should have heard their stories at least a small percentage as much as that of Trayvon Martin’s.

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When Cultures Diverge?
Joe Carter links to a story about the massive rate of suicide in Japan, tied to the aftermath of the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami. From the post,

According to Bloomberg, suicides rose in April, May, June and August—the months following the natural disasters that devastated towns in northeastern Japan and triggered a nuclear crisis. For a 14th straight year, suicides in Japan have exceeded 30,000.

After the disaster the West marveled at how orderly the Japanese responded – especially the fact that there was little to no looting and unrest. It was hinted that such was evidence that their culture was superior to that found in most of the West.

Yet, despite the orderliness that their culture rests on, we still see the fruits of what can only be termed a “here and now” philosophy. Whether in East or West, the human condition is woefully insufficient to provide the Hope that all humanity needs.

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Citizen registers his dog to demonstrate lax voter registration procedures
So authorities launch an investigation of… the citizen.

A Republican voter in New Mexico is under criminal investigation for signing up his dog as a Democrat in a bid to highlight what he considers deficiencies in the state’s registration process.

No mention is made as to whether or not an investigation on voter registration procedures is forthcoming.

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The Elephant in the church

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Know your rights as a victim of ID Theft
From Consumer Reports,

The FCRA and FACT protect your rights if you are a victim if ID theft by enabling you to put fraud alerts on your credit report with the consumer reporting agencies, get a free credit report from the three national consumer reporting agencies when placing a fraud alert, block fraudulent information from appearing in your credit report, and receive a notice of these and other rights from the consumer reporting agencies.

If celibacy is to blame for the sexual abuse in the Catholic church, how does that explain the continuing abuses in the public schools? (Hint: it doesn’t.)

Here are 4 hard truths of health care reform. (Hint: if they promised something, it’s generally not going to happen.)

"[I]f you come down hard on Limbaugh because he has crossed a line, you must come down hard on Schultz and Maher because they have crossed the same line…." (Hint: Schultz and Maher supporters haven’t.)

New York City Mayor Bloomberg, not content with nannying the well-off on what they can and can’t eat at restaurants, now is denying food to the homeless because it might be too salty. (Hint: That’s not compassion.)

If they had been Republicans, this would have been racist. (Hint: They’re Democrats.)

Is Zionism humanitarianism? (Hint: Yes.)

Good morning.

1. Interesting graphic, eh?
2. Another, this one of the info-sort.
3. An interesting what-if scenario.
4. Taking fasting seriously … and not so seriously.
5. Simple and evil.
6. Tactics tactics tactics.
7. A pro-homeless prank.
8. The UK has gone batty.
9. A variant of the Cretan paradox and solution.
10. US elections as viewed from, well, the Andes.
11. Narratives and peoples.

Even with Warren Buffett’s new tax policy idea, wherein he’d pay a higher tax rate, the continuing deficit dwarfs it.

Once again, the issue is not that we’re taking in too little in taxes. We can’t take in enough to cover the deficits. We must start cutting spending in a serious way.

Good morning.

1. Standard liberal media treatment of the current (and likely next) violent attack.
2. Baptism.
3. Look at anything closely, you get confused (that is you realize how little you really know about how the universe works). Latest example, Mercury.
4. Obamacare mandate and Lochner.
5. Troll of the court meets his, err, or rather, a fate.
6. In recent discussion on contraception and Ms Fluke … I suggested the left might go after the prescription monopoly instead. It was suggested this was a chimerical notion, nobody was talking about that. Untrue.
7. Deferred payments not deferred so much.
8. Our nanny state, shutting down private charity.
9. Savings.
10. Progressives for federalism.

From HotAir, apparently President Obama thinks the price of oil is hovering around $1.25 a barrel. Per his speech to Sempra Energy,

We have subsidized oil companies for a century. We want to encourage production of oil and gas, and make sure that wherever we’ve got American resources, we are tapping into them. But they don’t need an additional incentive when gas is $3.75 a gallon, when oil is $1.20 a barrel, $1.25 a barrel. They don’t need additional incentives. They are doing fine.

Yet this snip from oil-price.net shows the price to be hovering about 100 times that amount.

Honest mistake or intentional gaffe that leaves the impression that oil companies are gouging and, consequently, do not need government subsidies?

In ruling on same-sex marriage, the European Court of Human Rights warns that churches could lose some of their religious freedom.

First, the ruling.

Same-sex marriages are not a human right, European judges have ruled.

Their decision shreds the claim by ministers that gay marriage is a universal human right and that same-sex couples have a right to marry because their mutual commitment is just as strong as that of husbands and wives.

But it goes on.

The ruling also says that if gay couples are allowed to marry, any church that offers weddings will be guilty of discrimination if it declines to marry same-sex couples.

It means that if MPs legislate for same-sex marriage, the Coalition’s promise that churches will not be compelled to conduct the weddings will be worthless.

It always has been worthless, possibly naïve, if not disingenuous. If, today (actually 4 years ago), a photographer can be sued for turning down business from a same-sex wedding and lose, it’s no small step for government to compel churches to do what goes against the church’s beliefs. And the EU court has let us all know this in advance.

Keep that in mind when you hear promises to the contrary.

I’ve heard these statistics elsewhere, but not all in one place. So here’s an article doing just that. It tackles the myths about health care in the United States that ObamaCare was so necessary to fix.

• The U.S. spends too much compared to other countries.
• Other countries are doing better at controlling health spending growth.
• The U.S. has abysmal infant mortality rates.
• The U.S. has abysmal average life expectancy.
• The U.S. has worse health outcomes.

The stats have been manipulated to make the US sound far worse than it really it. In most cases its standing is better rather than worse, and in the rest it on par, if slightly lower, than other countries when comparing apples to apples. And in one case — life expectancy — the numbers used include issues that don’t relate to health care at all.

Read the whole thing. (It’s short.)

Good morning.

1. I think printing money in the basement is their business model.
2. First urban sprawl.
3. Urban sprawl many many many years later.
4. One of these things … not like the others.
5. A prize and for what explained.
6. While its unseasonably warm in Chicago, other areas not so much.
7. Panama.
8. Lawyers talk mandates … more here.
9. Looking at the soak the rich strategy and its effects. Perhaps now the tax the rich don’t cut spending knuckleheads will change their tune.
10. Coming to your computer … in a few years?
11. Math and blogging.

Good morning.

1. In the zone, with others in the same place.
2. One categorization of “two kinds of people” … I like the adage “there are two kinds of people, those who think there are two kinds of people and those who don’t.”
3. Them wimpy gymnasts. Or not.
4. So … off the radar or just hidden motivations. We have a President who is keen on not revealing his actual reasons.
5. On good faith in discussion and actions.
6. See. The compromise that wasn’t wasn’t even.
7. Pointing at self in Lent (by self I mean myself not the author).
8. Oh, heck, on the use of expletives which generally just demonstrate the lack of intelligence and education on the part of the speaker.
9. Oh, honey … he won’t call you … you’re a conservative so you’re not really a woman.
10. Why does this question even get asked? Isn’t the answer completely obvious.
11. Touching in part on the question (recently discussed) on the relationship between Christianity and Greek Philosophy, to whit “unless contemplated through philosophy …”
12. Statistics.
13. Whence liberty and Mr Santorum?
14. How close to that are we here?

Good morning.

1. Apparently the Wash Post is reviewing last summer’s debt negotiations.
2. Chesterton apparently didn’t anticipate Mr Hofstadter’s Godel, Escher, Bach and his the dialogs. I defy anyone to come up with a “truth” stranger than “subjunctive TV” set to “how would that (football play) have gone if … thirteen wasn’t prime?”
3. A challenge for the left wing spin monkeys.
4. Free market healthcare.
5. No silly, he won’t help pay for it because she doesn’t want him to, the primary criterion for her selection of law school was lack of coverage for contraception. A point which completely escapes people like this.
6. And, here’s a summary of the kerfuffle.
7. Oddly enough my wife didn’t find this as funny as my daughters and I.
8. Back in the day, our President speaking in Cairo talked about how much he enjoys and seeks to read history. Apparently very little of what he reads remains with him. I mean, geesh … is there anything historically correct that he asserts?
9. Speaking of getting history wrong, here’s some of that atheist religion-hates-science getting it wrong (repeatedly) in a continuing won’t die-meme, i.e., Hypatia.
10. This kid is very good.
11. Global warming skeptics and the typical straw men arguments hoisted in their vicinity.

Good morning.

1. Inequality and crises.
2. Shot “something” … likely piece of paper or clay pigeon. The horror! (gun tech vid here)
3. Iranian nukes, for big or little “satan”.
4. Of Uganda and Columbia.
5. Failure of imagination … gosh is there any difference in the family past between GOP candidates and Mr Obama? Hmm, one has a foreign parent, no reason to imagine that might make a difference, eh?
6. A primer for the arguments in the upcoming Obamacare SCOTUS discussion.
7. Feminists against porn.
8. Two for Lent, St. Basil on sin and
9. for this Sunday … the cross.
10. Marking inconsistencies … or consequences of ownership?
11. In short, no.
12. Ooooh, Obamacare not as insolvent as suspected, with a windfall of unanticipated fines and taxes. And that’s a good thing?
13. A local hero and her bike(s).
14. Student given life sentence for burning “To Kill a Mockingbird”  … oh, wait.
15. Tea party and Hunger Games.

That’s the title of a post by Michael Stokes Paulsen at the Public Discourse website. He starts out with a statement of the facts.

Vanderbilt University has decided that Christian student groups that hold traditional Christian religious views are not welcome on campus. They will no longer be recognized as valid student organizations. Vanderbilt’s reason is that such groups require that their leaders be Christian—that is, that their leaders embrace certain core principles of Christianity and try to live according to these principles. In Vanderbilt’s view, religious beliefs and standards “discriminate” against those students who do not subscribe to them. Therefore, student religious groups with religious beliefs and standards are banned.

This from an institute that (allegedly) encourages debate and the free exchange of ideas. All ideas are welcome, except those that aren’t. Behavioral standards will not be tolerated in student organizations. You cannot hold to a belief system and, at the same time, expect that belief system to be held to by the members.

I wonder if a women’s rights organization could be run by a woman, or a man, who thinks women are second-class citizens. She or he doesn’t agree with the group’s beliefs, but if they don’t allow for someone like that to lead the group, should they, too, be banned? But see that’s a belief system that Vandy doesn’t have a problem with. No matter how they paint it, it’s a case of discrimination based on beliefs.

And thus, in a huge bit of irony, Vandy wishes to exercise a right that they themselves deny to the student groups!

As Paulsen notes, Vandy is well within its rights to do this.

As weird as it may sound—and as ridiculous as Vanderbilt’s actions may be—this is entirely within Vanderbilt’s constitutional rights: Vanderbilt has the right to be as hostile to orthodox Christianity and to suppress its faithful exercise on its campus as it wishes. Vanderbilt’s status as a private university gives it the First Amendment right to take whatever position it wants on the exercise of religion within its university community. Vanderbilt University has the right to despise Christianity (and other faiths, too) if it so chooses.

Of course, having a right to do something does not make it the right thing to do. And Vanderbilt’s policy is, undeniably, an embarrassing example of political correctness run horribly amok, of intellectually incompetent administrators, and of institutional hypocrisy. But in Vanderbilt’s bad example lies a parable rich in irony about constitutional freedom under the First Amendment.

Worth reading the whole thing. This isn’t about rights; it’s about hypocrisy, and how it and religious intolerance is being taught to the next generation.

Good morning.

1. A real long historical correlation=causation stretch.
2. Philosophical patterns … and I think I have to look up the word lacunae.
3. The DC Regulatory menace, killing fun and profit everywhere it stomps.
4. Google’s next search move.
5. Aside from the academic knee-jerk gratuitous insult, the left finally moves against Soros and company.
6. More on the slut/Fluke kerfuffle.
7. Liberal blind spots and health care reform.
8. 2%? Hmm. Of oil, ignoring oil shales, oil sands and other fossil fuels. Lie, damned lie or statistics?
9. Grist for the stupid party.

A la carte Catholics need a la carte priests
Or, Doctrinal statements are there for a reason.

Remember the recent incident where a lesbian was denied Holy Communion at her mother’s funeral? From the OC Register comes an example of personal preference attempting to force its way into Christian belief. In Do Catholics love and accept others? Not this priest, we read (emphasis added),

I’m what you’d call an a la carte Catholic.

Too convenient? Maybe.

Especially in times like these, when a priest like Rev. Marcel Guarnizo uses his position in the church to deny someone like Barbara Johnson, who happens to love another woman instead of a man, communion during her own mother’s funeral.

Now, there are many reasons I’m an a la carte Catholic, one of which is that I see nothing wrong with homosexuality; nor do I believe in a God who would turn his back on his own children just because of their sexual orientation. Dare I say that a large portion of the heterosexual marriages among us don’t put the whole man-woman union thing in the best light. Besides, who are we to deny anyone the experience of looking at their husband or wife 10 years in and wondering, “Was I high as a kite the day I committed my life to you?”

And captioning a photo of the Holy Sacraments (emphasis added),

To me, Holy Communion is symbolic of God’s love for us; a priest has no right to deny that to anyone who comes searching for it

Now, the writer of this piece is certainly entitled to her own beliefs. And she’s certainly entitled to attempt to push her beliefs on others. But she’s sorely lacking doctrinal knowledge and clear thinking by proposing that Catholics – or even this particular Catholic priest – do not love others simply because they follow the tenets of their faith. That she disagrees with the tenets of the Catholic faith is irrelevant.

You see, the issue of faith – religious faith – in our culture has become not one of objective reality but of subjective experience. When someone makes claims or statements such as “I see nothing wrong with…” or “nor do I believe in a God who…” or “who are we to deny…” or “To me…” we are seeing the expression of personal preference as the determining factor in one’s belief system. As I stated above, there is nothing inherently wrong with such a worldview and, as the tolerant individual I am, I believe people are certainly free to think that way.

But if they consider themselves to be tolerant, then they need to stop pushing their views into realms that are inconsistent with their own. The Catholic church, via the Word of God, has declarative statements on the meaning of Holy Communion. What you or I happen to want it to mean is irrelevant. Taken a step further, God, through His Word, has made declarative statements regarding His character, who he is, what he is owed, etc. Whether or not you or I agree with him, or would want to believe in a God like him again, is irrelevant.

UPDATE:

Lo and behold, the priest in question has come forward with his account of what transpired. From Crisis Magazine (HT: Joe Carter),

A few minutes before the Mass began, Ms. Johnson came into the sacristy with another woman whom she announced as her “lover”. Her revelation was completely unsolicited. As I attempted to follow Ms.Johnson, her lover stood in our narrow sacristy physically blocking my pathway to the door. I politely asked her to move and she refused.

…

If a Quaker, a Lutheran or a Buddhist, desiring communion had introduced himself as such, before Mass, a priest would be obligated to withhold communion. If someone had shown up in my sacristy drunk, or high on drugs, no communion would have been possible either. If a Catholic, divorced and remarried (without an annulment) would make that known in my sacristy, they too according to Catholic doctrine, would be impeded from receiving communion. This has nothing to do with canon 915. Ms. Johnson’s circumstances are precisely one of those relations which impede her access to communion according to Catholic teaching. Ms. Johnson was a guest in our parish, not the arbitrer of how sacraments are dispensed in the Catholic Church.

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And, the rest of the Lesbian vs. Catholic Church story
Not an Only in California story, but related. It seems that the lesbian-denied-holy-communion is a practicing Buddhist as well as a gay rights activist. Hmmm.