Bill Donohue: "Stop funding the leisure of rich white people"

It is to LOL. William Donohue once again opens up a can of pure pwnage on the effete elites of the museum industrial complex. Here's the money paragraph:

In a large survey of museum-going households released in April, it was found that they are significantly better educated and affluent than the U.S. population; they are also overwhelmingly white. The time has come, then, to stop funding the leisure of rich white people: all public monies for the arts should cease. Quite frankly, to make the working class pay for the leisure of the rich amounts to class discrimination. In the spirit of social justice, a better case could be made to fund professional wrestling—it's what the working class enjoy.

"[A]ll public monies for the arts should cease." Yes, sir, I second that emotion, if for no other reason than this art sucks shit.

Global Warming Lunacists Face "Uphill Battle"

The global warming talks start off with an appeal to Ixchel, a Mayan moon goddess. Excerpt:

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, invoked the ancient jaguar goddess Ixchel in her opening statement to delegates gathered in Cancun, Mexico, noting that Ixchel was not only goddess of the moon, but also "the goddess of reason, creativity and weaving. May she inspire you -- because today, you are gathered in Cancun to weave together the elements of a solid response to climate change, using both reason and creativity as your tools."

She called for "a balanced outcome" which would marry financial and emissions commitments from industrialized countries aimed at combating climate change with "the understanding of fairness that will guide long-term mitigation efforts."

"Excellencies, the goddess Ixchel would probably tell you that a tapestry is the result of the skillful interlacing of many threads," said Figueres, who hails from Costa Rica and started her greetings in Spanish before switching to English. "I am convinced that 20 years from now, we will admire the policy tapestry that you have woven together and think back fondly to Cancun and the inspiration of Ixchel."

Ixchel is also the goddess of spreadsheet software and displaying one's buttocks. Strikes me as the Saint Jude of the pagan world. Seriously, maybe she can use her divine feminine charms to get the mean old sun god to cool down a tad. But I'm not going to suggest that to her. I've heard they have a complicated history, and my guess is they had a "falling out" a few million years ago.

Meanwhile, I've collected a number of spare nails I've found around my garage and will be donating them to be used on the coffin for the UN's credibility on all things related to climate change.

Offenbach on a dulcimer

I don't know why, but this is one of the tunes that constantly plays in my head. I'll be sitting at my desk, then suddenly I'm banging things around and can-canning.

George Weigel on the "Media Condomania"

I thought the Pope Benedict's remarks about condoms were completely understandable and non-controversial, But they've been sensationalized and misunderstood, so George Weigel has clarified the original remarks and provided the proper context for understanding them. Excerpt:

The first false assumption beneath the latest round of media condomania is that the Church’s settled teaching on sexual morality is a policy or a position that can change, as tax rates can be changed or one’s position on whether India should be a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council can change. To be sure, the theological articulation of the Catholic ethic of sexual love has been refined over centuries; it has come to an interesting point of explication in recent years in John Paul II’s “theology of the body.” But it has not changed and it will not change because it cannot be changed. And it cannot change or be changed because the Catholic ethic of sexual love is an expression of fundamental moral truths that can be known by reason and are illuminated by revelation.

The second false assumption beneath the condom story is that all papal statements of whatever sort are equal, such that an interview is an exercise of the papal teaching magisterium. That wasn’t true of John Paul II’s international bestseller, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, in which the late pope replied to questions posed by Italian journalist Vittorio Messori. It wasn’t true of the first volume of Benedict XVI’s Jesus of Nazareth, in which the pope made clear at the outset that he was speaking personally as a theologian and biblical scholar, not as the authoritative teacher of the Church. And it isn’t true of Light of the World. Reporters who insist on parsing every papal utterance as if each were equally authoritative — and who often do so in pursuit of a gotcha moment — do no good service to their readers.

He goes on to list a third ludicrosity pertaining to the very concept of a pope announcing a major clarification in church teaching within the medium of an interview with a journalist.

I remember some idiots I knew in my teenage years discussing AIDS and how if they ever found out they were infected that they would try to pass it along to as many people with it as they could before they succumbed to the illness. This vampiric approach to sexual ethics would appear to be addressed be the Pope's remarks, and so it was the first thing which came to my mind. Obviously full repentance and turning away from an impure lifestyle is the goal, but moving toward responsibility and away from a video game approach to sexual relationships and subsequently to life itself can be seen as progress.

Also—whoever is surprised to discover that the Catholic Church believes that different sins have different degrees of evil has not been paying attention very well. We don't need to bring up Hitler to demonstrate this. Janet Smith's analogy referenced within the article is one of hundreds which may be easily produced by any person in the category of those who believe in the existence of objective morality. This group surely includes some journalists, one hopes.

WHAT IS OUR GOVERNMENT DOING IN AREA 51???!??!?

I've been watching Area 51 vids on Youtube. They're all funny, some inadvertently. The guys in this clip seem to get what Area 51 is really all about.



Oh, yeah, happy belated Thanksgiving. I'm planning to "quit cold turkey" since it's Friday, but I'll be chowing down on it tomorrow, you can bet your cranberries.

Where's Rod anyway?

Oh, here he is. Never mind.

Clouds in my coffee

I have often balked at focusing on the personal faults and failings of President Obama. After all, nobody's perfect, and it can take time away from concentrating on the horrible damage that the man's policies are causing.

Having said that, I think that Jonathan Last's "American Narcissus" article is a must-read. It illustrates the real consequences of Barack Obama's arrogance and vanity, like his absolute lack of bi-partisanship and his "in-house retirement" service in the Senate during which the American taxpayers paid him to write his second book. Furthermore, the article shows the amazing extent to which the man relates everything to his own persona and achievements, like when he gave the Queen of England an iPod pre-loaded with his famous speeches and pictures of him. Here's an excerpt his pathetic response to the fall of the Berlin Wall anniversary:

On November 9, 2009, Europe celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was kind of a big deal. They may not mention the Cold War in schools much these days, but it pitted the Western liberal order against a totalitarian ideology in a global struggle. In this the United States was the guarantor of liberty and peace for the West; had we faltered, no corner of the world would have been safe from Soviet domination.

President Obama has a somewhat different reading. He explains: “The Cold War reached a conclusion because of the actions of many nations over many years, and because the people of Russia and Eastern Europe stood up and decided that its end would be peaceful.” Pretty magnanimous of the Soviets to let the long twilight struggle end peacefully like that, especially after all we did to provoke them.

So Obama doesn’t know much about the Cold War. Which is probably why he didn’t think the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall was all that important. When the leaders of Europe got together to commemorate it, he decided not to go to that, either. But he did find time to record a video message, which he graciously allowed the Europeans to air during the ceremony.

In his video, Obama ruminated for a few minutes on the grand events of the 20th century, the Cold War itself, and the great lesson we all should take from this historic passing: “Few would have foreseen .  .  . that a united Germany would be led by a woman from Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent. But human destiny is what human beings make of it.” The fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Cold War, and the freedom of all humanity—it’s great stuff. Right up there with the election of Barack Obama.

Wow... The "punchline" caught me by surprise. I hadn't heard that speech. I guess "Obamanometer" for pretentiousness wasn't too far off the mark.

This also goes quite a ways toward explaining why people are starting to get annoyed with him internationally, and his magic is fading.

Caterwaulings

Bill Donohue provides an amazing digest of negative remarks about the appointment of Archbishop Timothy Dolan as head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

NPR is worried that Archbishop Dolan is "overtly conservative," and Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times is fretting about his "confrontational approach." Dissident Catholics are upset as well: New Ways Ministry says the vote "sends an ominous message"; Call to Action also sees his election as "ominous"; Sr. Maureen Fiedler says "we now have our very own Catholic version of the 'Tea Party' movement"; DignityUSA concludes that Dolan's election means the hierarchy is "out of step" with Catholics. Similarly, the Human Rights Campaign, a gay secular group, says the vote means the hierarchy is "out of step." Not to be outdone, the website of the Tucson Citizen accused Dolan of evincing an "arrogant" attitude in winning (it is true that he was caught smiling).

SNAP, the professional victims' group, opines that Dolan's "winning personality obscures his terrible track record on abuse." Marian Ronan of Religion Dispatches says his election is "not a good sign," and her colleague, Sarah Posner, concludes—and this really is ominous—that "the bishops are targeting families with loved ones who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender." The Internet site Lez Get Real calls Dolan "the Vatican's spin-doctor," and the website of Time has a headline which reads, "More Bad News for Obama 2012: Catholics Elect Dolan." Edgeboston.com picked up the AP piece, but chose to give it a new headline: "Catholic Bishops' Vote to Mean Harder Church Stance Against Gay Families." And atheist Susan Jacoby is sweating over the fact that Dolan will be treated by the media "as if he is the voice of all American Catholics." She needs to get used to it.

I received an email from the pro-gay group "Catholics for Equality" which stated that the "Election of Archbishops Dolan and Kurtz Signals Increased Vatican Influence in US Politics". I don't know why I get their emails; maybe they bought my email address from the Daily Kos?

My first thought was something like "Yeah, because these people liked Cardinal George so much on their pet issues." I don't know if these gripes are worth a second thought.

But here's one anyway: a little bird told me the Episcopalians are having a membership drive.