Tuesday, June 30, 2009

“It’s beyond belief"

TimesOnline:

GIVE Richard Dawkins a child for a week’s summer camp and he will try to give you an atheist for life.

The author of The God Delusion is helping to launch Britain’s first summer retreat for non-believers, where children will have lessons in evolution and sing along to John Lennon’s Imagine.

The five-day camp in Somerset (motto: “It’s beyond belief”) is for children aged eight to 17 and will rival traditional faith-based breaks run by the Scouts and church groups.

Monday, June 29, 2009

I told you so

Almost two years ago today, I blogged about my blogger friend's experience in Kawasan. Recently, media personality Bobby wrote about what he learned from a Kawasan tour guide.

I learned from my guide that tourists are complaining that some tour guides and their cohorts rob visitors of their valuables. Tour guides (locally known as haulers) are also charging exorbitant fees, especially from foreigners. But robbery incidents have been reduced after local officials met with and warned tour guides about this.

They're still at it over there. Any typhoons coming around?

Anno Paolino ends

The year dedicated to St. Paul ends today. How did you spend the last year?

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Cap and Trade all you want

US House of Representatives passed the Cap and Trade Bill yesterday, what one congressman called "the largest tax increase in American history under the guise of climate change." Many have said the bill was not read by all in Congress. Everyone's waiting for Senate action. Meanwhile, the fear of higher costs for American families continues. Green jobs are promised. Spain has retrenched so many because of "greeen jobs", and the US is still pushing for these, I wonder. Of course, US beat Spain in the Confederations Cup -- maybe they think they can also beat them in the "green jobs" thingy.

Michelle talks of how the science, once again, was trumped by ideology.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

*That*, Detective, is the right question

Del Spooner gets to ask the right questions in the end.

MSM at the WH, well, they need to ask better. That's what The Anchoress thinks. She introduces her 10 Questions WH Press Corps left unasked, thus:

Yesterday’s O-presser was a little interesting. The White House seems to be doing what I predicted the other day; they’re suggesting that the so-so Cairo speech was the impetus for the popular uprising in Iran. Funny how that worked out. When the president finally figured out what was the right side to be on, then it was the side he’d always vociferously been on, and in fact, he caused the whole thing to happen. But the Weenee diplomacy is still on.

While the White House co-ordinated a question from the Huffington Post, even astonishing the press corps with their brazen stagecraft, here are some questions that the mostly fawning press did not ask the adolescent-angst-ridden POTUS:


"Prejudice never shows much reason." (Lawrence Robertson)

Photo from IMDB.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Will they listen at all?

Hey, cut off the global warming alarmism already. Although I have been saying this for long, look who's saying the same now: a PR firm advising the Democrats (H/T: Steve)

2. Use global warming only as a supporting story, not as the primary frame.

Awareness about global warming is broad, and some in the public are seriously concerned about it. But almost no one in our groups expressed such concern; for most voters, global warming is not significant enough on its own to drive support for major energy reform. So while it can be a part of the story that reform advocates are telling, global warming should be used only in addition to the broader economic frame, not in place of it.
Hah!

Monday, June 22, 2009

Chopper-gate

Last week, former President Joseph Estrada, who was visiting South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat said that the official trip of President Gloria Arroyo to Japan and Brazil was a waste of people's money, that it would have been better to use the money spent on the trip to help alleviate the lives of Filipinos especially in these trying times (sorry I can only find this as "proof"). I find his statement full of hypocrisy considering that he just bought a $1.6M helicopter, that's over P70 million. Even as he says he is only one of three owners of the chopper (yeah, right), sources also say that he bought two choppers, a King Air plane, and 20 vans. Now, how far would the money used to buy those go to help alleviate our lives? Of course, he denies the other chopper, the plane, and the vans.

Year of the Priest

On June 19, coinciding with this year's celebration of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Pope Benedict XVI declared a special Year of the Priest. CNS reports:

In his address, Pope Benedict said the priestly ministry consists of total adherence to the ecclesial tradition of participating "in a spiritually intense new life and a new lifestyle which was inaugurated by the Lord Jesus and which the apostles made their own."

Priestly ordination creates new men who are bestowed with the gift and office of sanctifying, teaching and governing, he said.

The pope underlined the necessary and "indispensable struggle for moral perfection which must dwell in every authentically priestly heart."

The pope said he was calling for the special year for priests in an effort to foster the priest's yearning "for spiritual perfection, upon which the effectiveness of their ministry principally depends."

"The awareness of the radical social changes over the past decades must stir the best ecclesial energies to look after the formation of priestly candidates," the pope said.

This means great care must be taken to ensure permanent and consistent doctrinal and spiritual formation for seminarians and priests, he said, specifying the importance of passing down, especially to younger generations, "a correct reading of the texts of the Second Vatican Council, interpreted in the light of all the church's doctrinal heritage."

Priests must also be "present, identifiable and recognizable -- for their judgment of faith, their personal virtues and their attire -- in the fields of culture and charity which have always been at the heart of the church's mission," he said.

"The centrality of Christ leads to a correct valuation of ordained ministry," he said, adding that, without priestly ministry, there would be no Eucharist, no mission and even no church.

Therefore, he said, it is crucial to make sure that new bodies or pastoral organizations are not set up "for a time in which one might have to 'dispense with' ordained ministry based on an erroneous interpretation of the rightful promotion of the laity."

"This would lay the foundations for further diluting the priestly ministry, and any supposed 'solutions' would dramatically coincide with the real causes of the problems currently connected with the ministry," he said.

Let us say extra prayers for all the priests this year.

There are pictures at Lover of Futility of the solemn vespers led by the Pope at the start of the Year of the Priest.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Not a super Mom


I just had to link to Danielle at IC.

I know just what they mean. I couldn't do it either. Until, with God's help, I did.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Will the One also endorse our right to develop nuclear energy?

The One is in favor of nuclear energy. He has expressed this many times in the past, and even supports Iran's right to develop nuclear energy (he reiterates the same in a BBC interview as reported by WaPo). Since RP's environmentalists are so so enamored by the One, as if he cannot say nor do wrong, they are not protesting the One's stand on nuclear power, and instead whine about a plan to rehab the BNPP or to make new ones. I dare the environmentalists to protest the One or dare the One to endorse our right to develop nuclear power -- besides, we are not producing nuclear weapons, unlike Iran and North Korea.

Yes? Yes? I don't think so. RP is of no significance to him.

Related.
Obama also said that it was unfair that "some countries have weapons that others do not" and proclaimed that "any nation -- including Iran -- should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."

Wait -- how about us? If a fanatical holocaust denier with messianic delusions can have nuclear power, can't the U.S. at least build one nuclear power plant every 30 years?

I'm sure Iran's compliance will be policed as well as North Korea's was. Clinton struck a much-heralded "peace deal" with North Korea in 1994, giving them $4 billion to construct nuclear facilities and 500,000 tons of fuel oil in return for a promise that they wouldn't build nuclear weapons. The ink wasn't dry before the North Koreans began feverishly building nukes.

But back to Iran, what precisely do Iranians need nuclear power for, again? They're not exactly a manufacturing powerhouse. Iran is a primitive nation in the middle of a desert that happens to sit on top of a large percentage of the world's oil and gas reserves. That's not enough oil and gas to run household fans?

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

From the lips of babes

This came about last month yet, but this is what they say now (which many in the other side of the fence have been saying all along backed by research). This is dangerous lifestyle, and they now agree. Using this though to want to claim more rights, to "equitable levels of programming supports based on needs when compared with programming supports from the general population and other minority populations."

Legacy of his first 100 days

What the One has done, in light of the pro-life movement.

Summary

The facts of the first 50 days of the Obama presidency seem overwhelming. According to the 55-page pro-abortion document, "Advancing Reproductive Rights and Health in a New Administration," $4.5 billion in federal funding will be disbursed at home and abroad to "advance reproductive rights." This document is posted on www.change.org, Obama's official website for his transition team.

Obama's Steps for the First 100 Days projects the end of the Mexico City Policy, the Hyde Amendment, the Kemp-Kasten Amendment, the Weldon Amendment, restrictions on emergency contraception (Plan B), the termination of all abstinence-only programs and a reversal of the recent HHS regulation protecting pro-life physicians and institutions. By Day 50, many of these had been accomplished already. Any present obstacles to so-called abortion rights not covered by removing these restrictions, such as the ban on partial birth abortion and state laws requiring parental notification, will be covered by the passage of the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) or perhaps by many acts or regulations each embodying one particular aspect.

We draw the attention of our readers especially to the coercion which is built into many of these measures. A combined United States-United Nations assault on the freedom of poor countries to determine their own domestic policies on population is already underway.

At home, the Obama regime will take on more abusive, tyrannical features as it seeks to destroy the rights of people to disagree and dissent. All along, this has been the implication of the new legislated rights to kill and to overthrow the natural moral law in family and sexual matters introduced 40 years ago.

... - Alas it is much more. Freedom of speech, thought and religion are now under attack. False "rights" are about to triumph. The Culture of Death is seeking to destroy the Culture of Life. In this it will fail because of the secret power on the side of Life, which will conquer even despite the mass apostasy of its Protestant and Catholic followers.

Monday, June 08, 2009

Good thing they don't sell baloney

Did you read about the Memphis-based Burger King franchisee who put up "Global Warming is Baloney" signs in his stores?

No guts no glory!

H/T: GHB