This was unexpected: The national security conservatives at the popular military group blog Blackfive have released a joint statement on the expected repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, and it may surprise you. Just to the left of an ad for a t-shirt that blares “Sometimes Violence is the ONLY Answer,” they write: … Read more
Scientists are stunned by the recent sighting of a grey whale off the shores of Israel. Grey whales haven’t been seen outside the Pacific ocean for several hundred years. This one has traveled thousands of miles from the north Pacific. “What has amazed the entire marine mammal research community is there haven’t been any grey … Read more
Logic divorced from compassion will lead you to some ugly conclusions. Like advocating openly for euthanizing some people to use their organs for other people. Would it prove or violate Godwin’s Law for me to raise the spectre of the Nazi eugenicists in this post? That will prevent the comboxes from having to bring it … Read more
Pope Benedict, on his flight to Portugal yesterday, regarding the sex-abuse scandal (emphasis added): [A]ttacks against the pope or the church don’t come just from outside the church. The suffering of the church also comes from within the church, because sin exists in the church. This too has always been known, but today we see … Read more
Figures. No sooner do I switch out my snow tires in anticipation of our impending trip to Sunny SoCal than a May storm descends on the area. That’s the view from my office window this morning, and the weather man is predicting snow accumulation of somewhere between 10″ – 20″. I love it! (Though I must … Read more
The high-fructose corn syrup scare is so passe, Zoe — the new terror lurking in our foods is salt. One New York assemblyman has already taken steps to fight this insidious additive by proposing a ban on the substance in New York restaurants, with a corresponding fine of $1,000 per salty infraction. My favorite curmudgeonly … Read more
One of the great black boxes in medicine is the placebo effect — we know that it works, but we don’t know why. The fact is, if you give a large enough set of people a phony medical treatment for some disease they share, a percentage will experience some degree of genuine recovery. And that … Read more
Margaret, over on on NRO’s Corner Maggie Gallagher says that Kagan will be the lynchpin for same-sex marriage in all 50 states: A vote for Elena Kagan is a vote for “marriage equality,” which features in two key cases that will shortly be before the Supreme Court: Perry v. Schwarzenegger, which arises out of California’s … Read more
Lots of buzz today about President Obama’s pick to replace Justice Stevens on the Supreme Court — Elena Kagan. Conservatives are understandably nervous about her record on abortion; Steve Ertelt at Life News quotes Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony list, saying: “In the past Kagan has been a strong supporter of the … Read more
Award-winning actress and sex symbol Raquel Welch has a message for young women today, and it’s not what you might expect. In a piece on CNN Opinion called, “It’s sex o’clock in America,” Welch comments on the effects the Pill has had: These days, nobody seems able to “keep it in their pants” or honor … Read more
Award-winning actress and sex symbol Raquel Welch has a message for young women today, and it’s not what you might expect. In a piece on CNN Opinion called, “It’s sex o’clock in America,” Welch comments on the effects the Pill has had: These days, nobody seems able to “keep it in their pants” or honor … Read more
Halfway through the latest serial! Here’s the next episode in Frank Borth’s 1962 “Uncle Harry’s Monkey’s Uncle.” As always, these pages come courtesy of Catholic University’s online archive of Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact. Ooh, this should be good…
Looks like the folks at NCR’s “Washington Briefing” had their collective Kum-Ba-Ya moment when Sr. Carol Keehan rose to speak at the podium. Michael Sean Winters describes the moment: Then there are those moments when a group of people want to express their profound admiration and love for someone and, given the context, the only … Read more
Looks like the folks at NCR’s “Washington Briefing” had their collective Kum-Ba-Ya moment when Sr. Carol Keehan rose to speak at the podium. Michael Sean Winters describes the moment: Then there are those moments when a group of people want to express their profound admiration and love for someone and, given the context, the only … Read more
Looks like the folks at NCR’s “Washington Briefing” had their collective Kum-Ba-Ya moment when Sr. Carol Keehan rose to speak at the podium. Michael Sean Winters describes the moment: Then there are those moments when a group of people want to express their profound admiration and love for someone and, given the context, the only … Read more
Jeffrey Overstreet, of the Looking Closer blog, is one of the film critics I look to with great regularity, particularly when it comes to identifying and analyzing the more “spiritual” components of cinema. (His book “Through a Screen Darkly” examines the ways in which “artists – whether they know it or not – have captured … Read more
A nationwide survey by the Pew Research Center studied the changing demographics of motherhood in the United States, examining data from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and the U.S. Census Bureau from 1990 to 2008. Mothers of newborns are now older, better educated, less likely to be white, and more likely to be … Read more
Friday is finally here, along with this morning’s link round-up: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke at a conference yesterday where she said she wants Catholics to “play a very major role” in immigration reform. Bill Maher on Christianity: “The problem with faith … is it kind of screws up your priorities. Your priorities shouldn’t be … Read more
Many readers of this blog also read First Things… or at least, would like to read it. Now you’ve got no excuse. The Anchoress is plugging a great deal today: a subscription to First Things for only $20. That’s half the regular price. The sale ends tomorrow, so be sure to check it out. That’s … Read more
Spring means baseball, and spring plus kids means Little League. And since I’m the kind of guy who presses down with his feet to counteract airplane turbulence, for me spring plus kids means coaching Little League. It’s now my fourth child going through the system, and the sixth or so bunch of kids I have … Read more