Fun Experiment

Of course fossil fuels are a good thing; it's just idiocy to claim otherwise, and I don't think anyone really believes it. Well other than brainwash college graduates. I wonder if Reverend Jim Antal heats his 375 Massachusetts churches in the winter with solar and wind power. Excerpt:

For example, Rev. Jim Antal, responsible for the 375 United Church of Christ congregations in Massachusetts, is quoted on the Green America website: “The reason [fossil fuel companies] are profitable is because they’re destroying the earth. That’s what the church needs to be shouting … It’s real simple. They’re making a profit because we are letting them destroy God’s creation.” Antal goes on to celebrate divestment from fossil fuels as an inherent moral good: “When people call on their pension funds or schools to divest, they are not only pressuring the institution to change, they are forcing the leaders of the institution and the members of the board to grapple with a moral question.”

Where, in Rev. Antal’s reasoning, do we see concern for the real needs of developing countries struggling to lift their people out of dire poverty and furnish them with living standards that, compared to what we enjoy in the West, are barely adequate? No one questions that we all are called – Divinely and otherwise – to conduct ourselves as good stewards of our Earth. It is that same charitable imperative that also calls us to endeavor in the best interests of the least among us.

Insanity. The reason fossil fuel companies are profitable is that they are supplying goods to fill people's demand. People who think the modern-day environmentalist movement has anything to do with Christian teaching are either fooled or playacting.

This would be a good experiment. Start a 501c3 non-profit which specifically targets Muslims to try to get their investment funds to divest funds from fossil fuel companies and invest in alternative energy start-ups. That should go over really well.

(Note: I realize there are green Muslims; I'm talking about the middle-class mainstream. Go to the most Muslim heavy suburbs on Cleveland's west-side; they're all driving SUVs.)

Liberals dislike of good news is telling

Bill Donohue shows how liberal Catholics dislike good news about their own church.

Peter Steinfels, who wrote the obituary on Father Andrew M. Greeley in today’s New York Times, notes that “there was resistance among liberal Catholics to his [Greeley’s] positive findings about Catholic schools.”

This is striking. Steinfels, himself a liberal, is writing about Greeley, another liberal (on most subjects), about the way liberal Catholics react to good news about Catholic schools. Which raises the question: Why do liberal Catholics treat good news about Catholic schools as bad news? Would they prefer they fail?

Steinfels went on to say that Greeley’s “research debunked the received view at the time that Catholics had low college attendance rates. He found instead that white Catholics earned bachelor’s degrees and pursued advanced degrees at higher rates than other whites, and he attributed their success to the quality of education in parochial schools, a controversial assertion in a time of public-school ascendancy.”

Conservative Catholics cheer such news. Apolitical Catholics cheer such news. So what’s wrong with liberal Catholics that they resist such news? Is their craven need for acceptance by secular elites so debased that it drives them to resist good news about Catholic education?

Of course many of them also dislike good news about the abuse scandal in the church. The proposition that there are a finite number of child abusers in the church or that the problem is at least under control disturbs them for some reason.

Donohue on the Markey Bill: "Let me end the suspense...."

Love this. Excerpt:

Right now it looks like this badly conceived legislation is dead in the water. But were it to pass eventually, I renew my pledge today to spend whatever it takes to alert the residents of New York State of their right to sue the public schools if they were ever sexually abused by one of its employees (provided they meet the conditions outlined in the bill).

Some have questioned my motive. Let me end the suspense: I am fed up with unscrupulous lawyers and their well-greased professional victims’ groups seeking to plunder the Catholic Church. Now that public institutions are finally included in the Markey bill, it is only just that potential claimants be informed of their rights. And guess what? A reality check has already taken place. Opposing the Markey bill are the New York State School Boards Association, the New York State Council of School Superintendents, and other civic groups.

Here’s more. An AP story today says 700 public school teachers in New York City are being paid full salaries to sit around doing such things as yoga and playing Scrabble while their cases are being investigated. The accusations include sexual abuse.

Some people–mostly whiny, ultra-sensitive members of the SCCB–criticize Bill Donohue for his methods. I don't know why; for instance, this latest promise of his seems to be an application of "let he who is without sin among you cast the first stone" to the legal system as well as a fulfillment of the Lord's injunction to be as "wise as serpents". The guy isn't prefect–who is?–but he's just great at being tough and saying what needs to be said. He is a great witness to the truth and power of the Catholic Church. My Protestant parents think he's great when they see him on television.

If nothing else, Mr. Donohue is demonstrating that most people in the Abuse-case Industrial Complex really care nothing about the victims. For them it's all about looting the Catholic Church. If you are a Catholic who really does care about the innocence of children and are horrified about the actions of homosexual priests, you should be almost as sickened by these bottom feeders who get rich from abuse lawsuits against the church and yet won't go after institutions like the New York public schools. By the panicked response of these school-related organizations, they've virtually admitted that their schools' closets are brimming with numerous skeletons.

Intro

I just squeezed a huge idea out of my brilliant and fertile mind and thanks to modern technology, it has already begun to grow at a cancerous pace. This blog will represent my boldest move in the blogosphere to date in that I will, for the first time, formally become my own worst enemy. I will leverage other people’s infinite malice to generate hits to all my vast internet real estate holdings. And all that happy horse product.

(I think at this point I'm supposed to throw back my head and exclaim, "Mwooa, ha, ha!")

So here's your chance to say all the horrible things you wanted to say directly to me, but have heretofore been unable, lacking a suitable medium. Personal attacks welcome. Sign up for your 30-day trial today. Visa and Master Card accepted.