Yeah, that's breaking and entering, dummy

Just plain weird.



I suppose she'll send them another bill with late charges once she gets out of jail.

Competence, not "fairness"

The Economist gets it precisely. Excerpt:

In that case, the election will revolve not around fairness, but competence. Mr Romney is fond of saying that Mr Obama has no idea how the economy works and how jobs are created. The way the Obama campaign talks about Bain Capital suggests that his criticism is correct. Mr Obama, as noted above, likes to insinuate that there is a conflict between pursuing profits and creating jobs. In the long run, however, in a competitive economy, that is nonsense. Only profitable firms can sustain any jobs, and the more profitable they are, the more money they have to invest in new ventures with new workers. Mr Obama is guilty not of rhetorical excess but of economic muddle. That is far more worrying.

Reap the Wuerlwind

Here's an update on what Cardinal Wuerl is doing and saying. I have to say I'm totally impressed at the way he is coming out swinging against the HHS Mandate and the Obama machine. Excerpt:

“This lawsuit isn't about contraception,” said Cardinal Wuerl. “It is about religious freedom. Embedded in the mandate is a radically new definition of what institutes a religious community, what constitutes religious ministry--brand new and never fortified in the federal level. That's what we are arguing about.”

“The lawsuit said we have every right to serve in this community as we have served for decades and decades,” he continued. “The new definition says you are not really religious if you serve people other than your own and if you hire people other than your own. That wipes out all of the things that we have been doing, all the things that we contribute to the common good--our schools, our health care services, our Catholic charity and even parish soup kitchens and pantries.”

Criticizing the Obama administration’s “accommodation,” Cardinal Wuerl said that “so many of our institutions, certainly the archdiocese, is self insured. We are the insurer. So, when you say, don't worry, we changed this and only the insurer has to pay. And we are the insurer, there is no accommodation.”

The other part of the interview which I saw somewhere else is about how the mainstream media does NOT want to report anything about this lawsuit. They are scared. They should be scared. Catholics are pissed.

Brighter than the sun is to me

At least that's what I think she's saying....



Angelic. No matter what she's talking about.

Catholic Rap

My 8-year-old, Joe, has a new ambition: to become a rap artist. He did say that he'd do Catholic rap, and mentioned that I thought I had seen that someone had rapped the Nicene Creed once. Immediately my three oldest began to rap different prayers, the Glory Be and the Our Father. This was at dinner time to I had to make a new rule: No rapping at the dinner table.

Next I began checking out some Catholic rap, so I can be, you know, "with it, yo". I thought this one was pretty good:



This one was a little less to my liking due to the cheaper production, but still seemed like a good rap.



So now I'm covered and next week Joe will probably be back to wanting to be a video game designer.

US Textbooks: Muslims Discovered America

Stealth jihad is happening, especially at universities. Georgetown is mentioned; big surprise.

View From Your Parish

I got an idea from an anonymous commenter last week who suggested—in jest I believe—the creation of some kind of site called View From Your Parish which would feature pictures of potato salads from church dinners and whatnot. I thought, well, that's a good idea, but maybe we should feature something a little more uplifting than potato salad. Unless, of course, the potato salad has been blessed on Holy Saturday and has some sort of halo. Otherwise what's the point of looking at potato salad if you can't have a taste.

So along comes Pinterest and I get sucked in with loads of other folks. Here's my page for View From Your Parish and I started with one picture I snapped today in St. Patrick on Bridge Street in Cleveland.

Source: Uploaded by user via Paul on Pinterest

At this point you have to receive and invite to post (pin) things on Pinterest. Anyone here who wants to contribute to my View From Your Parish page, just let me know and I'll invite you via email.

If you don't want to join Pinterest you can always pray for us sore pinners. (Get it?)

I guess I'm not just a pinner. I'm a punner.

They could have just called one of us...

...and we would have told them. But instead, a study was conducted that found that "Organic Foods Reduce Prosocial Behavior and Harshen Moral Judgments" or as it is put in the connecting link on MSNBC (hat tip goes to reader Diane for emailing this to me) "organic food may just make people act a bit like jerks."

"I stopped at a market to get a fruit platter for a movie night with friends but I couldn't find one so I asked the produce guy," says the 40-year-old arts administrator from Seattle. "And he was like, 'If you want fruit platters, go to Safeway. We're organic.' I finally bought a small cake and some strawberries and then at the check stand, the guy was like 'You didn't bring your own bag? I need to charge you if you didn't bring your own bag.' It was like a 'Portlandia skit.' They were so snotty and arrogant."

As it turns out, new research has determined that a judgmental attitude may just go hand in hand with exposure to organic foods. In fact, a new study published this week in the journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science, has found that organic food may just make people act a bit like jerks.

I guess this makes it official. But to me it goes in the "no duh" category with established phenomena like divorce rates being higher among Hollywood stars and kids being more likely to drop out of high schools in the inner city.

"We found that the organic people judged much harder compared to the control or comfort food groups," says Eskine. "On a scale of 1 to 7, the organic people were like 5.5 while the controls were about a 5 and the comfort food people were like a 4.89."

When it came to helping out a needy stranger, the organic people also proved to be more selfish, volunteering only 13 minutes as compared to 19 minutes (for controls) and 24 minutes (for comfort food folks).

"There's something about being exposed to organic food that made them feel better about themselves," says Eskine. "And that made them kind of jerks a little bit, I guess."

A little bit? You guess?? Come on. These people will bring their own snacks to your party and put them front and center, and then they go around telling everyone to eat their stuff because its organic. No lie.

Oh, I loved the concluding quip:

"At my local grocery, I sometimes catch organic eyes gazing into my grocery cart and scowling," says Sue Frause, a 61-year-old freelance writer/photographer from Whidbey Island. "So I'll often toss in really bad foods just to get them even more riled up."

Woman after my own heart.