Category: Current Affairs

George Lucas Appointed Archbishop!

Lucas IT'S TRUE!!!

George Lucas has been appointed the fifth archbishop of the Archdiocese of Omaha, Nebraska.

He succeeds Archbishop Elden Curtiss, who had shepherded the archdiocese since 1993 but who passed the age of 75, when bishops must submit their resignations to the pope, in 2007.

A biography of Archbishop Curtiss can be found HERE (WARNING: Evil file format [pdf]).

As incoming archbishop, George Lucas plans to use computer generated imagery, dynamic visuals, and a lifetime's experience in filmmaking to develop a new media relations effort for the archdiocese and . . . 

and . . .

Oh, wait. It's not that George Lucas.

It's this one . . .

Archbishop_lucas 

Bishop George Lucas, formerly of the diocese of Springfield, Illinois.

Sorry.

Couldn't resist.

GET THE STORY.

I'll blog more seriously next time. Promise.

The Obama Spending Spree

Most of the talk in the Catholic blogosphere right now regarding President Obama concerns his shameful appearance at Notre Dame. This is conversation that needs to be had, and I hope that it leads to a tougher statement from the U.S. bishops on the honoring of pro-babykilling figures and to a thorough housecleaning at Notre Dame.

Anyone who favors babykilling on demand should not be honored by a Catholic institution. Period.

Any Catholic university official who honors such an individual deserves to be removed from his position. Period.

While this issue is developing, though, I also want to talk a bit about how horrendously frightening Obama's spending spree is.

Bush's spending spree was bad. Very bad. But Obama's is unprecedented and threatens to do horrific things to our economy and, thus, to our nation.

As a downpayment (pun intended) on that discussion, here are two intersting ways to visualize just how much debt and just how little savings we're talking about.

CHT: Volokh.




 




I Prefer Chocolate… I Think

Tim Jones, here.

"We live in a land where you
can choose same-sex marriage or opposite. And you know what, I think in
my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should
be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but
that's how I was raised." (FOX News)

This is the tepid and tentative endorsement of traditional marriage that, on the one hand, cost Carrie Prejean (Miss California USA and Miss USA finalist) the Miss USA
crown, and that on the other hand has caused her to be lionized in the
conservative press… neither of which makes any sense, based on what
she actually said. Presidential candidate Barack Obama said essentially
the same thing months ago.

This throws some light on the whole gay agenda and on politics in general here in the U.S..

Carrie
Prejean will be known henceforth in the public mind as "the girl who
would have been Miss USA", but for the presence of a flaming gay
activist judge, and the girl who actually won the competition (does
anyone know her name?) will be forever known as "the girl who beat
Carrie Prejean".

The gay judge, Perez Hilton, got his thong in a
twist because he wanted to hear Miss Prejean say, "Golly, I think
chocolate and vanilla are both just swell…" and she had the audacity
to say "I think… I prefer chocolate. No offense to vanilla people.".

As
Mark Shea has observed time and again, where the gay agenda is
concerned "Tolerance Is Not Enough! You Must Approve!". The message
(and this episode is only its latest incarnation) is very clear: "You
want to make it in the entertainment business? Then…" – I was going
to say, "learn to keep your mouth shut", but the real lesson is –
"learn to parrot the opinions we give you – with enthusiasm – or else".

That's
nothing new, it's just acquired the brashness that is the hallmak of a
bully who has grown accustomed to success. Their fear campaign has
worked, in large measure. "Agree with us, publicly, if you want to
work. Disagree and you will be passed over". It used to be that
aspiring entertainers were passed over in private meetings… now they
are passed over publicly, clapped in irons and pelted with fruit.
Pelted by fruits, you might say. What's troubling is that the same
thing is happening in corporate offices and boardrooms. Learn to say
the right thing, if you value your job.

But then, in the
hinterlands of the right, you have Fox News throwing Miss Prejean a
virtual ticker tape parade, treating her as if she had said, "Mr. Perez
Hilton, tear down this wall!!!", ignoring the fact that her answer was
in fact very meekly pro-marriage, and lacked any moral conviction, that
she took pains to emphasize that this was just her opinion… that she
is, in regard to gay marriage, "personally opposed, but…"

I
know she's young, and that she's no philosopher, and that she was on
the spot and under a great deal of pressure, and I suppose I should be
happy she was able to stammer her way through any kind of half-hearted
endorsement of real marriage at all… but it's not as if she didn't
know the question might come up. The contestants do see them in advance
(though they don't know which one they may be asked).

I'm appalled that she was set up,
basically, by a gossip Queen who (wrapping himself in the PFLAG) was
determined to deny the Miss USA title to anyone not solidly toeing the
line of the gay agenda, but I'm also appalled at the reaction to her
speech at both ends of the political spectrum.

(visit Tim Jones' blog Old World Swine)

Energy Secretary Chu: “Run in Circles! Scream and Shout!”

Now, aren't you glad that the Obama administration is taking
politics out of science? That's what enables energy secretary
Steven Chu (nicknamed "Big League" by Obama) to make sober and coldly rational assessments like this;

"Lots of area in Florida will go under. New Orleans at three-meter
height is in great peril. If you look at, you know, the Bay Area, where
I came from, all three airports would be under water. So this is —
this is serious stuff. The impacts could be enormous,"

So,
everyone, run out and buy an electric car right now! Form a drumming
circle, ceremonially break all your conventional light bulbs and
replace them with fluorescents! Drink your own bathwater! Most
importantly, though, be sure not to do anything reckless and
irresponsible like having children, because they will suck up resources
that could be better spent on spotted owls and snail darters and such.

Now,
it's true that none of these actions will impact global warming at all,
but they will make you feel better – will give you a vague sense of
having contributed to something – and anyway, that's the way the herd
is going. Polls show that people are concerned about recent polling on
attitudes toward global warming. The voters have spoken!… and as we know, democracy is never wrong… just look at Palestine, and the Weimar Republic… and lemmings (an example from nature, which is also never wrong).

Unfortunately, while President Obama and his sycophantic minions
cabinet valiantly attempt to keep reason science and politics in completely
separate, hermetically sealed envelopes, there are still divisive and
radical voices trying to ruin everything;

"Secretary
Chu still seems to believe that computer model predictions decades or 100 years from now are some sort of 'evidence' of a
looming climate catastrophe, said Marc Morano, executive editor of ClimateDepot.com and former top aide to global warming
critic Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla. 

"Secretary Chu's assertions on sea level rise and hurricanes are quite simply
being proven wrong by the latest climate data. As the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute reported in December 12,
2008: There is 'no evidence for accelerated sea-level rise.'"

Morano
said hurricane activity levels in both hemispheres of the globe are at
30 years lows and hurricane experts like MIT's Kerry Emanuel and Tom
Knutson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration  "are
now backing off their previous dire predictions."

He said Chu is out of date on
the science and is promoting unverified and alarming predictions that have already been proven contrary.

Dude, That’s A Bow

So the latest word is that the White House is denying that President Obama bowed to King Abdullah of Saudia Arabia.

QUOTE:

"It wasn't a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands, and he's taller than King Abdullah," said an Obama aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity [SOURCE].

Nice try, but no. Let's take a look at a still of the action in question:

Obama_bow

The president is so low that he could kiss King Abdullah's hand if he wanted to.

The key thing, though, is to look at the levels of their respective heads. If you're just leaning over to take the hand (two-handedly or one-handedly; doesn't matter) of someone who is shorter than you, you don't need your head to go below theirs.

Take it from me. I'm a square dancer. I have to adjust to the height of lady dancers who are a fraction of my height all the time. I may have to bend a bit to swing them or promenade with them or whatnot, but at no time does my head go below theirs, no matter how short they are. (Some are well below five feet tall.)

Saying the above represents a bend to get at the king's hand so it can be grasped is just laughable.

A Hopeful Trendline

Well, here's some good news . . .

Gun_control_poll

As you can tell, the above is the trendline of a Gallup poll concerning whether handguns should be banned, and the current reading on the trendline shows a historic low in the period covered above. 

That's very good news as handguns are far more portable and easier to have around in case of emergency than longarms (that's why they make handguns), and the diffusion of handguns among the law abiding population has a protective effect on society as a whole–including those who choose not to learn how to use and own handguns.

When Is the Last Time You Thought About The ERA?

(Cross posted at Tim Jones' blog, OId World Swine )

Arkansas State Senator Sue Madison hasn't forgotten about it.

She's pushing "Senate Joint Resolution 12"  that would "have Arkansas ratify the Equal Rights Amendment".

Just in case you don't remember, the amendment would read;

Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by
the United States or by any state on account of sex. The Congress shall
have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions
of this article. This amendment shall take effect two years after the
date of ratification.

The article notes that "Madison needs one more vote to get the committee's recommendation
and free the resolution to be sent on to the Senate for action".

One senator, Bill Pritchard of Elkins, Arkansas, "worries that it could somehow reverse state Amendment 83, which
defines marriage as being only between one man and one woman.".

Jerry
Cox, president of the Family Council, has sent e-mails saying that the
Equal Rights Amendment would "make all state and federal laws gender
neutral," placing Arkansas' amendment defining marriage in "serious
jeopardy."

Arkansas
would be the 36th state (out of 38 needed) to ratify the amendment, and
though the legal deadline for ratification expired in 19-frakkin'-82, Madison doesn't seem to be too concerned about that;

Smith has said no deadline applies to the amendment, pointing to the
27th Amendment, which deals with congressional pay, that was ratified
in 1986, more than 200 years after it was proposed.

Yeah, well, there are a lot of legal experts who disagree with that assessment.

But
it's certainly a new twist on the Obama presidency. His magic is so
powerful that liberal social experiments long dead and buried are
rising from their moldy graves and walking around like zombies. Rotten,
stinky zombies. And the ERA as a legal end-run around gay-marriage
bans? Too rich! I'll bet the gals at NOW are all a twitter.

Arkansans, call or e-mail your senator. In the words of Jerry Clower, "Shoot that thang!".

Kill it. Kill it dead.

You can find your Arkansas state senator's contact information HERE.