All about Amy

 

Amy Coney Barrett belongs to a religious group called The People of Praise: "The highest office a woman can hold in the community is "woman leader" (formerly "handmaid")."

Trump’s Supreme Court pick has a problem with the Constitution

Why Amy Coney Barrett’s Religious Beliefs Aren’t Off Limits

Amy Coney Barrett's Catholic faith, People of Praise ties likely to gain scrutiny in Supreme Court confirmation

Full cartoon here.

Fears for Obamacare if Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to supreme court

Judge Barrett’s writing criticizes the Supreme Court decision upholding Obama-era health law

Update 10/5: More than 1K alumni from Amy Coney Barrett's undergrad college sign letter of concern

Bill Barr is going to bring religion to you, whether you want it or not

Bill Barr’s Invisible Crusade

Trump’s attorney general sees himself as a grand cultural inquisitor.

By Matt Ford

From nice to nasty.

Mr. Rogers.

Temple Grandin.

Your nose may save your legs.

Barefoot college.

Prepping for disaster.

Catholicism and women.

Israelis, the new Nazis:

"Israel was born out of Jewish Terrorism" Tzipi Livnis Father was a Terrorist" Astonishing claims in the House of Parliament. SIR Gerald Kaufman, the veteran Labour MP, yesterday compared the actions of Israeli troops in Gaza to the Nazis who forced his family to flee Poland. During a Commons debate on the fighting in Gaza, he urged the government to impose an arms embargo on Israel. Sir Gerald, who was brought up as an orthodox Jew and Zionist, said: "My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town a German soldier shot her dead in her bed. "My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploits the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians." He said the claim that many of the Palestinian victims were militants "was the reply of the Nazi" and added: "I suppose the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as militants." He accused the Israeli government of seeking "conquest" and added: " They are not simply war criminals, they are fools."

Sunday, Sunday...

Martin Bashir calls out the GOP.

Bryan of Why Now? deals with the Florida voting rumpus.

Ladies do not need to talk about lady problems.  Let men do it for you.

Paul Krugman, European rock star.

Catholic hospital says no meds to HIV man.  Steve Bates predicted this asinine move.

Via Marcellina of the Practice Room, Das Rad (with English subtitles):

History is one damn thing after another....

And if you're not paying attention you ca... arrrghhhh



Antarctic ice shelf has shrunk by 85 % since 1995.  So stop exhaling!  It's all that carbon dioxide!

One kid saved by Obamacare.

So what is your opinion of protecting pedophiles then?

Yum yum... arsenic in chicken!

Vikings being maligned in movies.  Vikings having fun.

Dinosaurs were fluffy.  We've been looking at them nude all these years....

Is it my imagination....

Or is the world becoming more and more crazy by the minute?

 

Musical architecture

One year anniversary of the Japanese quake.

Island nation of Kiribati plans mass relocation due to climate change

Top Rabbi believes Catholic Church is imposing Sharia Law on Americans over contraception

How to read gang tags and disses on LA streets

via Bryan, Iran will have the bomb... yesterday, today, any minute now....

Five hundred new fairytales discovered in Germany

I think I have found the way to stop wars.  Flood the area with kittens.

Study: Hate of Obama fuels 755% growth in extremist groups

Unlike traditional hate groups, “Patriot” groups subscribe to a set of conspiracy theories and see the government as their primary enemy. 

“Basically what ‘Patriot’ groups think is that the federal government is an evil cabal in the hands of bad people,” Potok explained. “The government is about to impose martial law on the country, very probably with the help of foreign troops, perhaps U.N. troops. They intend to confiscate all guns from Americans. Those liberty-loving Americans who resisted will be thrown into concentration camps that have secretly constructed by FEMA. And ultimately the government will force us all into a socialistic kind of one-world government, the so-called New World Order.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same.... Kansas Republicans look to profit off abortion taxes

Gee... I wonder why? Aren't Republicans the party of family values? No love for the GOP among America's women...  Could it be because people feel free to call this 16 year old a slut?

Stuff I read today....

Radiation detected 400 miles off Japanese coast

Radioactive contamination from the Fukushima power plant disaster has been detected as far as almost 400 miles off Japan in the Pacific Ocean, with water showing readings of up to 1,000 times more than prior levels, scientists reported Tuesday.

300 million year old forest

Netherlands Closing 8 Prisons Due To Plummeting Crime Rates

DEAR ENTREPRENEURS, ATHLETES AND LOTTERY WINNERS: Here's How To Keep All That Money You Made

 SwedishMealTime chef

 The great escape: the bath toys that swam the Pacific

When 28,800 bath toys fell off a cargo ship in the Pacific 20 years ago, they began an incredible journey. While some washed up in British Columbia and Hawaii, countless others circumnavigated the globe.

Tiny 'Soccer Ball' Space Molecules Could Equal 10,000 Mount Everests

Opus Dei: Neofascism Within the Catholic Church

Teaching science and evolution to religious rural kids.

Sex and Santorum

Really. What's with this guy?

Things that make my teeth curl

From Representative Virginia Fox: House passes amendment to defund medical schools that teach abortion. As well we know, anything to do with sex, Republicans are ready to deny it, define it, legislate, regulate and tax it. That includes the Catholic church.

Ed Schultz apologizes, Beck never will.

Ignoring these at our peril: Evidence Climate Change is Misunderestimated and bees.

Because science is hard and scary and denies faith and God and stuff: Nobel laureate: freedom of information laws in UK used to harass scientists

Cops shooting because they can: an eighth grader, a woodcarver.

Blog sprinkles

Thank you for your service to our nation.

CAMP VICTORY, Iraq — With heads bowed beneath a palace dome still etched with the initials of Saddam Hussein, dozens of U.S. service members paid tribute Monday to Americans killed in action not only in Iraq, but also in Afghanistan and in wars of the past.

Officers presented a Memorial Day wreath, a bugler played "Taps" and a lieutenant general spoke about how "little compares to the loss of a brother in arms." Soldiers in uniform and contractors in work boots said the nearly 4,400 Americans who've died in Iraq since 2003 weren't faceless statistics: They were commanders, friends, family.

For some of the troops who gathered at Camp Victory in Baghdad, it was difficult to discuss individual losses, even now that combat deaths have tapered off and the war here is eclipsed by the bloodshed in Afghanistan, where the number of troops killed in action just passed the 1,000 mark.

"It's too personal," said Air Force Staff Sgt. Bien Covita, 34, of San Jose, Calif., looking away as he declined to discuss the fallen service member on his mind. He added that he wished that Americans would view Memorial Day as "more than just a day off work. We sacrifice every day for them to sleep comfortably."

Seeing the war dead arrive at Dover:

It was pretty stark in the dim light with an almost full moon; at first there was no one there. Then the bus carrying the families showed up but it was choreographed so they got out on the side away from us so we could not see them. One white van, what they call the "transfer vehicle," was parked on the tarmac and one soldier, a young woman, stood next to it. She is the "Transfer Vehicle Guide," whose ceremonial role it is to close the van's back doors after the bodies are loaded on board.

The procedure began with high-ranking officers and the pall-bearer details appearing, marching in formation. Since there were two dead that night, Cpl. Kenneth Nichols, Jr., of Chrisman, Illinois, US Army, and Lance Cpl. Jonathan Taylor, of Jacksonville, Florida, US Marine Corps, both killed in Afghanistan, there were two separate teams, one from the Army, the other of Marines, dressed in their different uniforms.

The Army went first, boarded the stairs onto the airplane, and emerged out the front. The loading ramp then lowered onto ground level with the coffin and the seven pall-bearers carried the body past the saluting officers, into the waiting van. The Marines then repeated the same. Not a sound could be heard from the hidden family members just a few feet from us on the other side of their bus. Another time, I could hear a woman, probably the wife or the mother, crying a terrible wail that was the only sound on the airfield.

Asking too much of our military and their families:

Brooke Knox, a former Navy wife, counsels military relatives who are struggling with the repeated deployments of husbands and fathers, wives and mothers.
There's often one unifying refrain -- one deployment too many to handle well. She has found that often, that number is three.
"There's a saying among Army wives," said Knox, who leads a free counseling program for military families through the Mental Health Association of Tarrant County.
"The first deployment, they say, 'I think I can do this.'
"The second deployment, they say, 'I know I can do this.'
"The third deployment, they say, 'I can't do this.'"

And the week that was:



28 Of The Worst Money-Saving Ideas Ever The comments are entertaining...

Tylenol being recalled:

The company recalled 40 widely used children's pain and allergy medications, saying some may have a higher concentration of their active ingredients, while others may be contaminated. J&J has had four recalls in the past year of over-the-counter medicines.

In an FDA report issued on Tuesday, inspectors said they found thick dust, grime and contaminated ingredients at the J&J plant that produces Children's Tylenol and dozens of other products recalled last week.

DeLauro, in her letter, said the company's "disregard" for manufacturing standards was "both unnerving and unethical."

"The corporate oversight observed at this facility appears to be symptomatic of reckless behavior that is clearly unacceptable," she wrote.

What the hell was Israel thinking?:

After least nine people have been killed after Israeli commandos stormed a convoy of ships carrying aid to the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army says.

Armed forces boarded the largest vessel overnight, clashing with some of the 500 people on board.

It happened about 40 miles (64 km) out to sea, in international waters.

Israel says its soldiers were shot at and attacked with weapons; the activists say Israeli troops came on board shooting.

The activists were attempting to defy a blockade imposed by Israel after the Islamist movement Hamas took power in Gaza in 2007.

THIS is what I've been saying. All that oil just doesn't disappear.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Streaming video of oil pouring from the seafloor and images of dead, crude-soaked birds serve as visual bookends to the natural calamity unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico.

But independent scientists and government officials say another disaster is playing out in slow motion — and out of public view — in the mysterious depths between the gusher and the coast, a world inhabited by sperm whales, gigantic jellyfish and diminutive plankton.

All about fucking booms... and how BP isn't doing anything right:

It's fucking obvious. Boom is not meant to contain or catch oil. Boom is meant to divert oil. Boom must always be at an angle to the prevailing wind-wave action or surface current. Boom, at this angle, must always be layered in a fucking overlapped sort-of way with another string of boom. Boom must always divert oil to a catch basin or other container, from where it can be REMOVED FROM THE FUCKING AREA. Looks kinda involved, doesn't it? It is. But if fucking proper fucking booming is done properly, you can remove most, by far most of the oil from a shoreline and you can do it day after day, week after week, month after month. You can prevent most, by far most of the shoreline from ever being touched by more than a few transient molecules of oil. Done fucking properly, a week after the oil stops coming ashore, no one, man nor beast, can ever tell there has been oil anywhere near that shoreline.

And the inevitable:

While work continues to try to staunch the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, an avalanche of class action lawsuits is descending upon BP in courthouses from Texas to Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida.

Pakistan, between a rock and a hard place....

This week's visit by the US president's national-security adviser and the head of the Central Intelligence Agency to Pakistan was portrayed as a feel-good trip that highlighted the high level of cooperation between Washington and Islamabad.

But despite what may have been written about CIA chief Leon Panetta's and General James Jones's meetings with civilian and military leadership during their visit, analysts in Pakistan say all is not well between the two sides.

They note that as senior US officials visit Islamabad to make new demands -- mostly about increasing military or law enforcement efforts against myriad extremist groups in Pakistan's western border regions -- Pakistani officials continue to respond by urging patience, asking for more money and weapons, and calling for a true understanding of their military, political, and economic limitations.

Former Pakistani diplomat Tayyab Siddiqui says the US-Pakistani relationship is currently on a "bumpy road" and the visit by the two senior US officials a week ahead of a planned second round of strategic dialogue was significant.

Uhhhh.... right.

The Vatican is planning a new initiative to reach out to atheists and agnostics in an attempt to improve the church's relationship with non-believers. Pope Benedict XVI has ordered officials to create a new foundation where atheists will be encouraged to meet and debate with some of the Catholic Church's top theologians.

The Vatican hopes to stage a series of debates in Paris next year. But militant non-believers hoping for a chance to set senior church figures straight about the existence of God are set to be disappointed: the church has warned that atheists with high public profiles such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens will not be invited.

No Dawkins and Hitchens? Then you aren't serious. And then there's this:

Tombstone, shackles found in priest's home
Poole, accused of shoplifting, nailed posters all over rectory

So how about you fix your own house before you go knocking on other people's doors, Pope?

Blog sprinkles

Instant anti-depressant from NTodd.

JJ at Unrepentant Old Hippie has a fascinating argument going on her post about the nun in an Arizona hospital being automatically excommunicated for helping to save a woman's life... because the woman had a life threatening pregnancy.

Headline to gape at: Texas schools to teach kids that ’separation of church and state’ not in Constitution or how about this one? Deepwater Horizon survivors allege they were kept in seclusion after rig explosion, coerced into signing legal waivers

How to kill Social Security by ignorance explained by Gaius Publius of AmericaBlog.

Being skeptical about skeptics about global warming.

British bees are leaving their hives as well.

Steve Bates' laptop has been attacked by an 'interesting' virus. Can anyone identify it?

Karl Rove projects his own style of governmental 'control' on to the Obama administration.

And the oil meter still rolls on...

Says you.

Brazilian archbishop: all teenagers are 'spontaneously homosexual'

I believe a deep therapy session is in order for you, sir.

Remember when President Kennedy had to reassure the nation

That his Catholicism would not affect his ability to be president? (my bold):

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew— or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson's statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.

Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice; where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind; and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.

That is the kind of America in which I believe.

Thank you, President Kennedy. Now look at who had the attention of Rep. Stupak:

Doerflinger has a lengthy title—he's the associate director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities. But he's better understood simply as the point man on abortion issues for the most powerful institution in the US Catholic Church. Most people have never heard of him. However, Doerflinger helped write the Stupak amendment in the House bill that placed tight restrictions on insurance coverage of abortion. He amplified spurious charges that the Senate bill would use government money to fund abortions. Doerflinger fought to the bitter end for the Stupak amendment to be included in the final legislation—even after Stupak himself had abandoned the fight. By refusing to compromise on what was, in the end, a minor difference between the House and Senate bills, Doerflinger—the man behind the curtain of the abortion imbroglio—very nearly killed health care reform.

Which America do you want to live in?

Why would people be taking sexual advice from these people?

Revelations of the sexual abuse of children by priests at Catholic institutions have swept across Europe and into Benedict's native Germany. The pope himself has come under fire for a case dating to his tenure as archbishop of Munich and another dating to his stint as the head of the Vatican office responsible for disciplining priests.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, a top Vatican official, acknowledged in an interview published Saturday that church authorities had on occasion maintained silence over cases of sex abuse. But he defended the pope, saying Benedict "was the first one who — already as a cardinal _felt the need for new, harsher rules."

Harsher rules? Like hitting them with bigger rulers?

Yet we have people in our own secular government who want to give weight to what a bunch of these old men in funny hats have to say about the reproductive control of women.



(click pic for link) Read the quote bubble in the left hand corner.

You do what you want, Rep. Stupak. Just leave me and my family out of your plans, thanks.

Just wondering...

Why are Catholic bishops involved in my health care? I'm not Catholic.

Are you guys going to tell us waterboarding was just like getting water up your nose, too?

Just why is it that the Vatican is now trying to tell us the Inquisition wasn't all that bad?

Now, after centuries of secrecy on the subject, the Vatican has launched a new phase in its campaign to show that the Inquisition wasn't so bad after all. Church authorities have unveiled a temporary "Rare and Precious" exhibition at Rome's Vittoriano Museum to "expose some myths" about this dark chapter of its past. The exhibit is also intended as a modern-day object lesson for governments and armies—particularly those in the United States and Europe—who torture enemies and suspected terrorists, says curator Marco Pizzo. Not only does the church have an obligation to expose its own mistakes, he says, but the exhibit is also meant to help foster understanding of the complex nature of the church's history.

[snip]

This isn't the first time that the church has tried to show that the judges of the Inquisition were not as brutal as previously believed. In 2004, the Vatican published an 800-page report claiming that of those investigated as heretics by the notorious Spanish Inquisition—which became independent of Rome in the 15th century—only 1.8 percent were actually executed. Nonetheless, Pope John Paul II famously referred to the church's 700-year campaign against heresy as a "tormented phase" and the "greatest error in the church's history". Several years earlier, he had officially cleared Galileo and said that while the Inquisition acted in good faith "they were wrong."

Really? This is the new 'transparency' the Pope is working on? So how about opening it all up to let people decide what really went on during the Inquisition? Let us see all the torture implements and the blood splattered confessions. Ok? (my bold):

The decision to finally display these intriguing elements of the church's darkest period to the general public arose from a joint effort between Vatican City and the city of Rome to reconcile Italy's complicated history and satisfy the desire for more transparency from the Catholic church. However, the artifacts on temporary display—the exhibition is being held for just a few weeks to limit damage to the delicate ancient parchments—represent only a small faction of the church's records of the period. Monsignor Alejandro Cifres of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who co-curated the show, won't say what else is still in the archives. The pieces on display, he says, "are the most representative of the church's motives and actions." For those seeking the ultimate truth about the Inquisition, that answer is unlikely to be enough.

Ah. So much for transparency.

Because they might actually learn to question?

JJ of Unrepentant Old Hippie notes the uproar at a Catholic College ... COLLEGE .. where parents are upset that Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" is required reading:

"Atwood is known in Canada as a major figure in the ultra-feminist, anti-religious and largely state-funded literary establishment. When it was first published by McClelland and Stewart in 1985, the book was heavily criticized, largely outside Canada, as an anti-Christian screed relying for its appeal on the titillation provided by its frequent expletives and graphically depicted sex-acts, and a heavy-handed feminist ideology."

Ka-Boom! The sound of a thousand Catholic crania exploding as parents go apeshit hysterical that their little angels are being exposed to this (multi-award-winning) feminist filth. Their protest site screams about the novel's premise: a dystopian future society taken over by extreme fundies, where abortion and contraception aren't allowed, and "lower-caste" women function as living incubators for the rich. No way do they want their kids exposed to that... Gee. I. Wonder. Why.

I thought you sent your child to college to learn how to deal with the world on his own, you know, to learn to think for himself?

If people insist on using condoms

Make them afraid of them:

The head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique has told the BBC he believes some European-made condoms are infected with HIV deliberately.

Maputo Archbishop Francisco Chimoio claimed some anti-retroviral drugs were also infected "in order to finish quickly the African people".

The Catholic Church formally opposes any use of condoms, advising fidelity within marriage or sexual abstinence.

Aids activists have been angered by the remarks, one calling them "nonsense".

"We've been using condoms for years now, and we still find them safe," prominent Mozambican Aids activist Marcella Mahanjane told the BBC.

The UN says anti-retrovirals (ARVs) have proved very effective for treating people with Aids. The drugs are not a cure, but attack the virus on several fronts at once.

How on earth did someone think this was a good idea in the first place, socially awkward celibates advising sexually active people on sexual activity?

Good for them.

Thank you Amnesty International. Some day someone will explain why a bunch of celibate or pedophile priests would try to deny the use of condoms to prevent AIDS or the right to an abortion for women who have been raped:

Mexico City, Mexico (AHN) - The human rights organization Amnesty International has reiterated its support for a woman's right to abortion. It did during its annual meeting in Mexico City. The decision has triggered an outcry from Christian organizations.

The human rights group operates across the world, including conflict-torn countries where rape is used as war weapon. It had decided to support the right for women to have access to abortion in case of rape and health risk to mother or child in April during its executive committee meeting.

However, the resolution adopted on the concluding day of its annual meeting by the human rights group on Friday drew a quick response from religious organizations.

Accusing the human rights group of betraying its commitment to human rights, religious organizations have threatened to withdraw support. The Vatican has called on Catholics to stop funds to the group.

If you don't start having more babies, the church will die!

JJ of Unrepentant Old Hippie shares a bizarre petition sent to Catholics:

"As you know, the contraceptive mentality pervades the Catholic Church in Canada. Most Catholic couples of child-bearing age are preventing children through sterilization or contraception. The birthrate is suicidal. The death of the Church is certain where contraception prevails. It has been truly said that “Our greatest moral responsibility is to convert the contraceptive mentality.

Contraception is the root of which many spiritual evils are the fruit: abortion, infidelity, divorce, pre-marital sex, acceptance of homosexual activity, the clamor for same-sex “marriage” and the corruption of politics and the media. These inevitably follow when, on a large scale, sexual activity is deliberately diverted from its life-giving purpose to sterile lustful indulgence."

Wow. Just .... wow.