NY State Senate Now Republican

Have Gays Overreached?

The Magic 8 Ball might read “The signs say yes.”

Michelle Malkin and the NYT report that two state senators, Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens, have joined New York State Republicans to give them majority control of the Senate.

From the NYT City Room:

Republicans seized control of the New York State Senate on Monday, in a stunning and sudden reversal of fortunes for the Democratic Party, which controlled the chamber for barely five months.

Interestingly,

After the results of the vote were read aloud, the in-house television station that carries Senate proceedings live in the Capitol went dark. All that appeared on the screen was a still photo of the Senate chamber and the words “Please stand by.”

Okay, it’s time for me to make a silly, meaningless comment.  NY politics is in extreme disarray, and has been since Sept. 11, 2001 (before then, it was merely in disarray).  SSM is not the issue upon which mid-term elections will turn in 2010, but the issue most emphatically does not help the Democratic party with any but the smallest part of its constituent base.  SSM supporters have overreached in NY, as they have in California.

They may be overreaching in Maryland, too.

The Ordinary and The Extraordinary

And The Sounds of Silence, Too

Forgive me the dearth of posts these last two weeks.  It’s not that I’ve had nothing to write about, or nothing on my mind.  Indeed, there’s been too much of both.

There are big things happening in the world, not the least of which is N. Korea’s new found missile capability, taxes and tea parties, rights and wrongs. The small things have caught my attention – a single line; “Take off your watch.” in a television show, an unexpected triumph of substance over style.

It’s not because of her magnificent voice, although that gift from God is happily now in our awareness.

It’s because it should not have taken that exposition for people to think well of her.

Susan Boyle embarrassed the judges, although they seemed barely aware of that.  Truth be told, we should all be embarrassed, for we make the Susan Boyles of the world invisible.  It’s a mistake.

I did something a little different for Lent this year; a little thing. I made a point of making eye contact with people I passed in the hall at work (there are about 800 people in the building).  I greeted everyone I could with “Hi” or “Hey!” or “Good-morning”, or anything to acknowledge their existence (and not just the babes, for you sceptics).  That’s something that I stopped doing too many years ago in this cold town.  For that, I am embarrassed.

I didn’t expect the results.  People do respond in kind, of course. But they go out of their way to be kind, sometimes.  They even learn your name, somehow.  It changes you.  You stop being invisible when you see others.

That’s not a little thing, you know.

Be Not Afraid – Still

What He Said.

Pope John Paul the Great made it his watchwords, and Archbishop Chaput says it again. Sometimes you have to speak out.

Archbishop of Denver Charles J. Chaput delivered a speech on Saturday reflecting on the significance of the November 2008 election. Warning that media “narratives” should not obscure truth, he blamed the indifference and complacency of many U.S. Catholics for the country’s failures on abortion, poverty and immigration issues.

He also advised Catholics to “master the language of popular culture” and to refuse to be afraid, saying “fear is the disease of our age.”

He did not stop there, and what Chaput said next is withering.

Noting that there was no question about President Barack Obama’s views on abortion “rights,” embryonic stem cell research and other “problematic issues,” he commented:

“Some Catholics in both political parties are deeply troubled by these issues. But too many Catholics just don’t really care. That’s the truth of it. If they cared, our political environment would be different. If 65 million Catholics really cared about their faith and cared about what it teaches, neither political party could ignore what we believe about justice for the poor, or the homeless, or immigrants, or the unborn child. If 65 million American Catholics really understood their faith, we wouldn’t need to waste each other’s time arguing about whether the legalized killing of an unborn child is somehow ‘balanced out’ or excused by three other good social policies.”

Exactly.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air points in a slightly different direction when considering the reasons that the Church speaks with such little moral authority today.

The leadership of the Catholic Church has abdicated its role in instruction and faith formation, which one can see in church life on a daily basis. In part, they willingly surrendered both in exchange for broader appeal, and in significant part undermined it with the shameful role church leaders played in covering up for pedophiles within their ranks. In order to have enough moral authority to instruct, the priests and bishops have to live their lives in a moral fashion.

He very well may be right, but Chaput is making a broader point (one I’m sure that the Capt’n understands implicitly).  If the Church is not educating properly (and if the parents aren’t making sure that their children are being educated properly), then the vacuum will be filled by the popular culture.  That’s not what I call a good thing.

Quantum Mechanics and Free Will

Speaking in Many Tongues

It’s rather stunning, sometimes, when the language used by physicists to describe what they know becomes, well, metaphysical.  What does it mean when you say that quantum particles have free will?

On the basis of three physical axioms, we prove that if the choice of a particular type of spin 1 experiment is not a function of the information accessible to the experimenters, then its outcome is equally not a function of the information accessible to the particles. We show that this result is robust, and deduce that neither hidden variable theories nor mechanisms of the GRW type for wave function collapse can be made relativistic. We also establish the consistency of our axioms and discuss the philosophical implications.

Near gobblelygook.  Except it isn’t.  That abstract will give you this link to the full article (in PDF format), which says, in essence, that if you have free will, then so does every particle in nature.  If you have the ability to make a decision that is not constrained by your past history (and all of past history), but freely chosen and spontaneous, then so do electrons (and every thing else).  Gotta be, or the universe isn’t self-consistent and can’t exist.

But wait.  What kind of decisions can an electron make, anyway?

Lemme explain.  Imagine two identical twins; we’ll call them Sally and Katherine.   Let’s move Katherine to Alpha Centauri, and proceed to ask them both a set of questions. To do this, we need two questioners, and a list of questions to be asked.  As soon as the question is asked, then the answers are reported back to the lab, examined, and then (and only then) is the next question asked.  Oh, you also have to know that the questioners can ask any question on the list in any order, and have no idea what question is being asked by the other in this round.

When the questions have to do with their common, identical past (i.e. how tall were you at age 20; what hair color at age 25, etc. – remember, their identical!), we expect agreement.  When the questions are asked in random order, then we expect a certain set of statistics that reflect this.  If they were not identical twins, then we’d expect a different set of statistics.

Some of you may recognize this as the beginning of the famous Einstein, Rosen, Podolsky thought experiment.  I’m going to take the opportunity to name-drop here, and tell you that I was a student of the late Prof. Okalowski (one of my favorite professors, ever!), who was a student of Rosen.

So far, this may all seem very mundane.

The experiment becomes interesting, though, when you begin to ask Sally and Katherine questions when only one could know the answer.  Ask Sally in Dec. of 2012 who the next president of the U.S. is, and she might very well say “Sarah Palin”, while Katherine might be expected to say “Barack Obama”.

But what if they both consistently answer the same, statistically speaking, to these kinds of questions?  Only one of them should know the answer.  We put Katherine an Alpha Centauri to make sure of that, after all, and it would be weird (indeed, physically impossible) for her to know who won before the televised results of the 2012 election even got to Alpha Centauri.

But the universe is weird.  If you use electrons that are created together (so that the quantum-mechanical spin polarization for both is related), separated far enough so that you know a signal can’t travel between them fast enough and ask the right question (Are you polarized in this direction right now?), and check the results statistically, it turns out that the electrons answer just as if they’ve talked to each other.  That experiment was done in the ’80s, so we know.  They can’t have communicated, but they must have, faster than light.  It’s very weird, and physics now considers the quantum mechanical states of these two particles to be “entangled”.

So what has this to do with free will?  If the quantum-mechanical wave function of one of those particles collapses to a definite state when the experiment is done (that is the decision about a particles spin is determined only when someone looks at it, and not a moment sooner), then we have to ask if the state of the other, quantum-mechanically entangled particle is determined by the choice made by the first particle.  That second particle may have no choice in the matter.  And in the aggregate, you have no choice in anything, either.  Everyone of your actions has been pre-determined by something else, and by history.

In their heart of hearts, nobody finds that easy to believe.  John Conway, Simon Kochen demonstrate rigorously that you’ll free will depends upon the ability of quantum mechanical particles to choose their state independent of their history.

I find it sort of neat that physics is capable of saying anything at all, wrong or right, about the topic of free will. You wouldn’t think that it could.

Grace

It’s Not Pixie-Dust

I’ve had a – um, shocking? – revelation about the nature of Grace (capital G – God’s grace). Well, it’s shocking only because it’s taken me so long to understand, to get it.

Ballet dancer are graceful (insert big “Duh!” here). The word “graceful” brings to mind all sorts of artistic endeavors, especially female artistry.   We see basketball players and football players as graceful too, especially when you see them make the play at the professional level.  But graceful motion appears every day.  The AstroWife is very graceful when she makes me dinner every night, moving efficiently and effortlessly, wasting nothing and looking gorgeous at the same time.

Where does this come from?  Practice?  Maybe, but let me tell you a story…

I was standing in an office kitchenette, conversing with an acquaintance about some forgotten work-related matter, when he accidently knocked over a glass.   It was good size, heading directly for the sink and was most definitely not going to survive the fall.

But I happened to be standing so that it was within reach, and with Bruce Lee type reflexes, I caught the glass (thereby saving its life) and deftly placed it back from whence it came.

“You take the martial arts, don’t you?” my friend asked.

“Yes – a few years now.”

“I have a theory…” he said.  “I think the martial arts have a tendency to prepare you for that kind of thing.  It’s not that anyone’s reflexes are improved very much, but that ‘the arts’ put you in a frame of mind so that swift, accurate motions become easier.  You learn to have less resistance to them.”

That was a long time ago, but over the years I’ve been unable to add up to all the moments in my life that gave me a chance (trained me?  prepared me?) to save that glass, to have that moment of grace, not even counting what it took to have me standing in just the right spot at just the right moment.

There was a Jerry Lewis movie, set in Northern Africa, iirc (Lewis played a character in the French Foreign Legion).  At the age of, I think, eight, I came away mesmerized by the small bits of judo I saw in that movie.  Tried to imitate it, too, unsuccessfully, of course, but not too unintelligently for a kid.  I put my early fascination with the martial arts on hold while I tried to find graceful motion playing baseball (maybe once or twice, I found it!), or tennis, or the good ol’ gym class obstacle course.  High school varsity wrestling was about as close as I got, and that wasn’t much.  I’m no athlete, but I kept trying.  Always motion.

I finally did take the martial arts, as an adult, and I did catch that glass.  It wasn’t so much because of that training, but because of – everything, and nothing.  To this day, no one can point out exactly where it came from, but I had a graceful moment.

Like you, dear reader, I’m sure I’ve had more than one.  Probably.  But most of them went unrecognized (oh, sheesh – I tend to remember the awkward moments forever!  Shouldn’t do that).  Have you ever had a friend ask you an important, sensitive question, and experience finding just the right words to express a truth, seemingly out of nowhere?  At the time, maybe it felt merely like the awkward moment was avoided – something negative didn’t happen.   But you’re not sure where the words came from.  And sometimes, say, in the face of tragedy, no words are adequate.   Yet, something, some small thing that comes from inside is just the right thing to do.  Where does that come from?

How about, from the Grace of God?  That’s what I think now.   Graceful goes beyond motion, and even beyond what we say.  Ultimately, Grace is in how we conduct ourselves in the face of everyday occurrences and in how we conduct our lives.  That is, perhaps, what has taken me so long to see, even as I recognize it, poorly, in others.

Obama’s Embryo Destruction

Who’s Afraid of Post-Modernism?

We were hearing last week about the freeing up of science from the yoke of politics.  No more would government prevent scientific research that would otherwise find cures for a host of diseases that plague us by using dubious ethics as a bludgeon to hold academics at bay.  Yuval Levin, who’s associated with the Ethics and Public Policy Center, cuts through the verbiage written about the new Human Embryonic Stem Cell research policies put in place by the Obama administration.  It is, as he says, important to know what the new policy does and does not do.

The federal government has in fact never before-even under President Clinton-used taxpayer dollars to encourage the destruction of human embryos, as it will now begin to do. Obama’s decision is an unprecedented break with the longstanding federal policy of neutrality toward embryo research. Before 2001, not one dollar had ever been spent to support embryonic stem cell research, and when George W. Bush provided funds for the first time, he did so in a way that made sure tax dollars did not create an incentive for the ongoing destruction of human embryos. President Obama’s new policy will do precisely that: it will tell researchers that if they destroy a human embryo, they will become eligible for federal dollars to use in studying its cells; establishing an obvious and unprecedented incentive.

Well, that’s change, I guess.  No more politics over science, right?

Over at Hot Air, Ed Morressey puts his finger on what really happened.

The advocates of this policy cheer the supposed triumph of science over politics, but in truth, it’s the reverse. Over a year ago, researchers found a way to unlock adult stem cells to have the same flexibility as hEsc lines, ie, the ability to transform into any kind of tissue. Bush’s policy in effect pushed the government-funded research in that direction, which prompted the breakthrough. With that process available, we have no need to grind up our offspring to cure diseases, especially since grinding up our offspring has yet to result in even one therapeutic result, despite billions of dollars of research into hEsc. A scientific approach would dictate that we follow success instead of failure.

In fact, the market has done just that.

But the Bush administration was anti-science, wasn’t it?  I mean, everyone was saying so.  It was the meme.

Melissa Clouthier at Pajamas Media questions that idea.

The press, the left and even some on the right have purposefully misrepresented President Bush’s position about stem cells, making it seem like the President hated stem cell research in particular and science generally. This was a simplistic view meant to reinforce the image of Bush as a bible-beating anti-science zealot rather than a man sensitive to the ethical concerns of using the citizenry’s money to fund research which many voters view as morally ambiguous.

President Obama reinforced this inaccurate view by taking jabs at President Bush saying, “Promoting science isn’t just about providing resources, it is also about protecting free and open inquiry. It is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient especially when it’s inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.”

President Obama made it sound as if scientists themselves are devoid of ideology and politics. One only has to examine the overwhelming amount of breast cancer research compared to every other kind of cancer research, to know that this is simply not true:

As for breast cancer, the second most lethal malignancy in females, investigation in that field has long received more funding from the National Cancer Institute than any other tumor research, though lung cancer heads the list of fatal tumors for both sexes.

When government funds are used, politics necessarily plays a part in what does and does not get funded. Scientists know this, politicians know this and citizens should know this. [Latest example: nuclear power. Want politics to drive scientific inquiry? Look at anything related to global warming.]

I see often from even conservative writers that the humanities are PC bastions of post-modernism at the heart of universities, and along with it, the notion that the sciences are (at least relatively) unaffected by such things. They are “rational”, “devoid of ideology and politics”.  I don’t think so, and I come to believe it’s a naive idea.

Conn. Follow-Up

Whoa Mule!

Drew M. at Ace of Spades follows up on yesterday’s news from the Connecticut legislature.  He suspects it was the legislative equivalent of rationally discussing the day’s travel arrangements with a mule.  It’s done traditionally with a two-by.

This is the danger of politicians and activists living in a cocoon. What seems reasonable while talking to other true believers turns out to be bat shit crazy when normal people hear it.

And what is this about, you may ask?  Allow me to refresh your memory.  From Capital Watch, wherein he links:

Following the biggest political firestorm of the 2009 legislative session, a public hearing scheduled for Wednesday on the financial and administrative management of the Catholic Church has been canceled by the judiciary committee. The bill is dead for the rest of the legislative session.

As soon as word spread about the bill, the Legislative Office Building was flooded with telephone calls and e-mails on Monday. The bill, virtually overnight, became the hottest issue at the state Capitol.

Indeed.

Conn. Needs Lesson On Bill Of Rights

What Part of ‘Separation of Church and State’ Don’t They Understand?

Perhaps they’re confused about the part where it says “… shall make no law”.

Ace of Spades points us to The Stamford Advocate for this little bit of legal chicanery.

After a priest stole $1.4 million from a church in Darien, state legislators have proposed a law that would regulate how parishes are controlled and operated.
…
The law essentially would strip the dioceses of all financial control of parishes and leave bishops and priests to oversee “matters pertaining exclusively to religious tenets and practices.” A board of elected laypersons would handle parish finances.

Well, that’s a little – um – non-traditional.   It’s also a lot unconstitutional.  Ed Morrissey at Hot Air also says that this is no small thing.

Lest you think this is a joke, American Papist has Lawlor’s response to criticism. He admits that the state legislature wants to dictate the structure of this volunteer organization, but says he’s got his reasons:

… the current state statutes governing Roman Catholic corporations … were enacted in 1955. SB 1098 is a proposal to make changes in that law, which was suggested by parishioners who were the victims of theft of their funds in several parishes, and these parishioners feel that the state’s existing Roman Catholic Corporate laws prevented them from dealing with the misuse and theft of funds.

I agree with you that the whole notion of having a statute governing the church seems like an intrusion on the separation of church and state, but the current law does that already. Perhaps we should repeal the whole thing, but if we are going to have a corporate law of this type, it probably should make sure there cannot be deception of parishioners.

It more than seems like an intrusion on separation of church and state, Mr. Lawlor. It’s the real deal.

Yeah.  According to Ace, Lawlor and McDonald have already started backtracking on this, and it has no actual chance of passing.

But you have to wonder what they were thinking.  Dan Collins at Protein Wisdom notes and quotes the heart of Ed Morrissey’s post, but stops short of saying one thing that I find too obvious. This is religious bigotry at its finest. The one group I’m aware of that would enthusiastically back this plan is the KKK.

St. Louis Could Lose All Its Catholic Hospitals

It’s a Promise

In December I noted:

President-elect Obama has stated publicly that he’ll sign the “Freedom of Choice Act” (FOCA) the minute it lands on his desk. I’d say that’s a pretty strong statement of support. Catholic Bishops have, just last week, stated that FOCA forces Catholic hospitals (and hence Catholic health-care providers) to perform abortions, which is profoundly against their religious tenets. They’ll shut down Catholic hospitals before they let this happen. Every single one of them.

And today, there is a follow-up in the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

The Freedom of Choice Act failed to get out of subcommittee in 2004, but its sponsor is poised to refile it now that former Senate co-sponsor Barack Obama occupies the Oval Office.

A spokesman for Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said the legislation “is among the congressman’s priorities. We expect to reintroduce it sooner rather than later.”

FOCA, as the bill is known, would make federal law out of the abortion protections established in 1973 by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade ruling.

The legislation has some Roman Catholic bishops threatening to shutter the country’s 624 Catholic hospitals — including 11 in the Archdiocese of St. Louis — rather than comply.

That’s quite a game of “chicken”.  But what it’s not, is a threat to the health of the community.

How can you say that, you dolt! Well, watch my lips!

According to the Guttmacher Institute, there are 42 million abortions worldwide every year, 1.4 million in the U.S. alone. The FOCA threatens to add to this death total, by requiring hospitals to perform abortions on request, by permitting more partial birth abortions and by removing all requirements for parental notifications.  Even Snopes agrees with this (or at least does not refute these statements), even if it quibbles that the size of the increase in the number of abortions is unknowable.

In the meantime, the degradation in the quality of health care caused by the closing of up to a third of all hospitals is also unknowable.  But by means of comparison it’s also liable to be less than the degradation done as we move toward socialized health care.

The health-care industry is the largest employer in the U.S. It produces almost 17 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Yet the bill treats health care the way European governments do: as a cost problem instead of a growth industry. Imagine limiting growth and innovation in the electronics or auto industry during this downturn. This stimulus is dangerous to your health and the economy.

We already have some examples of how well this works.

Hospitals strong-armed by law to perform abortions is a great evil.  Closing hospitals to not let that happen is a burden for other hospitals and the medical professions.  Drifting (however quickly) towards any form of medicine that is dominated by the state and by political concerns is far worse than this burden.

So tell me.  Why are politicians so eager to pick the worst two of those three things?

The Pope And Pelosi

Religion, Meet Politics

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has a great update on what we know of the meeting between Speaker Pelosi, who is Catholic, and Pope Benedict XVI.

The Vatican has released a statement after meeting with Nancy Pelosi, apparently mindful of the controversy created by giving an audience to a pro-choice American politician. Before Pelosi has a chance to characterize the discussion, Benedict apparently wants everyone to know that he saw this as a teaching moment (via The Corner):

Already, it is interesting that Pelosi’s office has issued only the most cursory, perfunctory and gereric notes of the meeting.  From the Vatican’s statement:

His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development.

(… emphasis in the original). Reading as much as you can on this meeting is almost mandatory, because what you will see if you glance at headlines is spin.

Once of the best places to get a non-spin perspective is from The Anchoress.

The Vatican – clearly as aware as Pelosi of the power of an image – made a point of releasing no photo, as “the encounter was private” and the pope “briefly greeted” Pelosi and did not mention any other subject they may have discussed.

She too notes that Pelosi’s office was non-specific.

Pelosi’s camp later released a statement of its own, with no mention of the pope’s remarks:In an e-mail issued by her office, Pelosi did not mention the allusion to abortion. She said it was with “great joy” that she and her husband, Paul, met with Benedict.

“In our conversation, I had the opportunity to praise the Church’s leadership in fighting poverty, hunger and global warming, as well as the Holy Father’s dedication to religious freedom and his upcoming trip and message to Israel,” she said.

Why the quiet tone from the Congressman?  I think that (as usual) The Anchoress has it right.

If anyone was expecting any sort of insta-conversion on Pelosi’s part, that was a foolish wish. Tough and proud, there was no way the Speaker was ever going to walk out and proclaim her views “changed” on anything. But to me, it is telling that Pelosi did not even acknowledge the pope’s remarks on the sanctity of life – it suggests that his words hit their mark, and that the loving wound of instruction is too tender for her to touch.
The things that singe our consciences are the things we try to dance around, or ignore outright.

Indeed.  I don’t think that the Speaker will do anything to act on her newly given instruction.  But perhaps she will act less in contradiction to it.

Outrage

Pray. Pray For Us All

From my home town newspaper (Please see the update below):

Eighteen and pregnant, Sycloria Williams went to an abortion clinic outside Miami and paid $1,200 for Dr. Pierre Jean-Jacque Renelique to terminate her 23-week pregnancy.
…
What Williams and the Health Department say happened next has shocked people on both sides of the abortion debate: One of the clinic’s owners, who has no medical license, cut the infant’s umbilical cord. Williams says the woman placed the baby in a plastic biohazard bag and threw it out.

Police recovered the decomposing remains in a cardboard box a week later after getting anonymous tips.

Patterico calls a spade a spade.

The baby was 23 weeks old, an age where most babies don’t survive, but some do. An autopsy showed that the baby’s lungs had filled with air, indicating she had been born alive.

Prosecutors are considering murder charges.

You may remember that our President has said that this does not happen in this country, and supported legislation based on that idea.

But if you listen to our president, you’d think that this sort of behavior has never been an issue anywhere in the United States. The Born-Alive Infant Protection Act was unnecessary, because no one would ever do what is described here.

Except that they do.

He supports and has supported unrestricted abortion rights.

“The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act,” Obama said in his July speech to abortion advocates worried about the increase of pro-life legislation at the state level.

The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) is legislation Obama has co-sponsored along with 18 other senators that would annihilate every single state law limiting or regulating abortion, including the federal ban on partial birth abortion.

In English, this is known as extremism.

Update: Ed Morrissey reports that the original article in the Buffalo News has been “cleansed”.

Also, the original Buffalo News report appears to have been cleansed. The Kid from Brooklyn send the link from the Boston Herald, which remains in its original form.

Why was it sanitized?

Some Things Are Too Sad For Words

Amy Welborn is a fantastic Catholic writer and blogger.   Yesterday her husband passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, apparently while working out at the gym.

Michael collapsed this morning at the gym and was not able to be revived despite the efforts of EMTs and hospital personnel.

If there is any time when prayers are appropriate (and even necessary), it’s at moments like these. – And not just for Amy, but for me too, and for yourself.  We will all be in this position at some point in our lives.

Obama To Reverse Abortion Policy

Evil, If True

File this under rumor – not yet fact.  Reports at CNN (by Suzanne Malveaux) say that Pres.-elect Obama is considering issuing an executive order on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade to rescind the “Mexico-City Policy”, which since 1984 has prohibited any organization receiving family planning funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development form offering abortions or abortion counseling.

President-elect Barack Obama is considering issuing an executive order to reverse a controversial Bush administration abortion policy in his first week in office, three Democratic sources said Monday.

Obama’s second full day as president falls on the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the United States.

The sources said Obama may use the occasion to reverse the “Mexico City policy” reinstated in 2001 by Bush that prohibits U.S. money from funding international family planning groups that promote abortion or provide information, counseling or referrals about abortion services.

Pres. Clinton hard issues an identical executive order in 1993.  The “Mexico-City Policy” was re-instated by Pres. Bush in 2001, in his first executive order.

Slippery Slopes

So Stupid That It Takes The Government To Think Of It

My gut registered disgust as I read this article – enough that I hesitate to blog about it during the Christmas season. We’ll categorize it and highlight it by noting that one of the worst things a person can do, one of the biggest sins, is to point to a just and good man and say “sucker!” That’s what California has just done.

Being a good Samaritan in California just got a little riskier.

The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a young woman who pulled a co-worker from a crashed vehicle isn’t immune from civil liability because the care she rendered wasn’t medical.

The divided high court appeared to signal that rescue efforts are the responsibility of trained professionals. It was also thought to be the first ruling by the court that someone who intervened in an accident in good faith could be sued.

In brief, two co-workers left a party (in 2004) in separate cars. Lisa Troti, in the second, saw Alexandra Van Horn hit a light pole at 45 mpg, and after seeing liquid pouring from the car, pulled Van Horn from the wreckage in a panic. She feared an explosion.

Van Horn suffered a broken vertebra that damaged her spinal cord. She’s suing Troti for causing her paralysis.

“Sucker!” According to the California supreme court a rescue attempt like that makes you liable. Don’t bother with CPR, either. Better you sit on your hands. And don’t even think about saving a drowning person, George Bailey. Potter will sue you – successfully. Ho-Ho-Ho!

And just how did all this get started? It started, apparently, with “shield laws”, which were put in place with the intent of limiting the liability of professionals, like EMS personnel, from just these kinds of law suits. They were not intended to expose Good Samaritans. That’s just how it worked.

We could have told you. It’s called a slippery slope.  For our next trick we’ll demonstrate how cigarette warning labels lead to higher unemployment, by way of McDonald’s being sued for serving junk food.  [That’s ridiculous! – ed.  Just wait 10 minutes. – j]

Okay – I’ll stop hyperventilating and get more rational by the evening.

Thanks and a hat tip to Ed Morrissey at Hot Air for the link.

A Catholic In Secret

How Is That Necessary?

I’ve been reading Bishop Charles Chaput, of late – excellent book. I really recommend it – and just got through his description of life for Catholics in colonial Maryland circa the end of the 17th century.  It wasn’t exactly the land of the free for everyone back then, and it certainly wasn’t full of religious tolerance.

Surprised?  Weren’t the colonies populated by people looking for religious freedom?  Sure.  They were looking for the freedom to practice their religion, not for someone else’s freedom to practice his.  And Papists were a distinctly unfavored minority amongst the settlers. “Popery” was against the law in Maryland, in fact.

The British tabloid The Mail reports that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was secretly a Catholic while he held office.

Full details of how Tony Blair ordered Downing Street officials to lie about his passionate commitment to Roman Catholicism throughout his ten years in No 10 emerged yesterday.

Spin-doctor Lance Price said Mr Blair told him to kill off an accurate Press report in 1998 – months after he took power – that he had spoken candidly of his Catholic faith to an Italian cleric on a holiday in Tuscany.

Careful now. The British tabloid is acting just like an American Tabloid. Here, they quote one Lance Price, who is described as a ‘spin-doctor’, who quotes Blair, in turn.

‘He asked me to squash a story that he had told the Archbishop of Siena, “In my heart, I feel more of a Catholic,”’ said Mr Price, an ex-Downing Street deputy Press secretary.

Feeling more of a Catholic doesn’t actually make you one, of course.

So why keep his religious leanings a secret?  Well, there’s British law…

Mr Price said there were huge gaps in Mr Blair’s knowledge of Catholicism. ‘We said, “You do realise the heir to the throne can’t marry a Roman Catholic and still go on to be King?”

He was astonished. I thought it was something everyone learned at school.’

Rather like Maryland law in 1683, where a Catholic could not hold office.  Or vote for anyone to hold that office, either.  Except that Blair wasn’t likely to become king.  Prime Minister is something else entirely.

Although there has never been a Catholic Premier, there is no constitutional bar. Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith and Liberal Democrat Charles Kennedy are Catholics.

In BBC1’s Christmas Voices today, Mr Blair says he did not convert in office because it would have been ‘a palaver’ and he feared talking about his religious beliefs would lead to people dismissing him as a ‘nutter’.

Ah! So it wasn’t the law after all, that prevented Blair from converting while in office.

Call it – tradition.