From The Only In America Department:

The Dartmouth On-line announces human flesh flavored tofu. (Can you imagine what the focus group tests were like?)

According to Mark Nuckols Tu'06, humans do not taste anything like chicken. The founder and CEO of Hufu, LLC -- the company that produces hufu, a type of tofu that simulates the texture and flavor of human flesh -- claims that his company's product "tastes like beef but a little softer in texture and a little sweeter in taste."

"I have to admit that I myself have never sampled human flesh," Nuckols said. "However, I've done quite a bit of research on the history and anthropology of cannibalism and read enough accounts to have come up with a fairly good approximation."

This stuff could have possibly saved Jeff Dahmer.

His product, which contains zero fat and 100 calories per ounce-sized serving, was developed by a Dutch food processor and will be available through his website, eathufu.com, which is set to launch Thursday. The website, which ships internationally, will initially only offer Hufu Classic Strips, which, according to Nuckols, "will basically resemble the choicer flesh, which is upper arms, thighs and buttocks." Nuckols, however, assures customers that plans have been made to develop Hufu Hearts and Dr. Lector's Liver.

"For the cannibal gourmand, those are really the best parts," Nuckols said, noting that a recipe for Dr. Lector's Liver and Fava Beans will also be available on the website, along with several Aztec recipes and pieces of literature about cannibals. Nuckols called the website, which will also feature hufu t-shirts and aprons, "an entrée into thinking about cultural practices of other people."

Some, however, are skeptical about the success of hufu.

"It definitely tastes meaty, maybe a little like pork," Thaddeus Olchowski '08 said at a tasting offered by Nuckols at Tuck yesterday. "I don't like tofu and I don't like human flesh so I don't think I'll be buying this. It definitely tastes like something I've had at Food Court."
(Thanks to WND)

If you think this is scary, wait until Hitlery Clinton finds out that eating fetus diminishes wrinkles.

Announcing the death of the spokesperson

From now on, or until common sense returns to the world, it is "spokesthing". Also, "chairthing", etc.

BTW, why is "policewoman" still okay?

Web Site of the Day

ProDeathPenalty.org

The name says it all. Check here to see who's on deck. This page also lists each killer's known victims.
(Thanks to Best of the Web Today)


Update: Michael Ross came up lucky today. He knew the day and the hour, so he should have been prepared to meet his Maker. Also, he wasn't raped and butchered first.

Viability, anyone?

...or, Take that, you baby killers!


From The Washington Times:


Baby born weighing 11 ounces

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Her legs are no longer than an adult's pinkie and her feet are about the size of an adult's fingernails.
Weighing 11 ounces, Kalea Lyn Allen was delivered three months prematurely Tuesday by Caesarean section after an ultrasound raised concerns, Dr. John Stanley said. "She's a survivor," said her mother, 27-year-old Deidra Allen of Sayre. "She's fighting." The infant has about a 40 percent chance of survival and the first six weeks will be the toughest, doctors said. Many of her internal organs -- including her lungs, intestines and kidneys -- are underdeveloped.
Kalea will remain hospitalized at Mercy Health Center at least until her original due date of Aug. 12, Dr. Sylvia Lopez said. Her mother is expected to be released in about four days.

Estonia and Beyond: Dark Soviet record of WWII

UPI commentary by Tunne Kelam:


In the first five years after its "liberation," Soviet-occupied Estonia, with a population of 1 million, saw the arrests of 65,000 people on political grounds. Of those, many thousands were killed outright or died in concentration camps. In just one month, March 1949, 22,000 persons were deported from their homes to Siberia while about 10,331 who were also on the lists, managed to hide themselves, but lost all their property. Most remained outlawed for years.

The real experience of May 9 for those of us living in Soviet-"liberated" Eastern Europe was deprivation of all civic freedoms and of any right to a democratic and independent state. Estonia was subjected intensive Sovietization and Russification, which brought the Estonian people to the brink of becoming a minority in our own country. May 9 meant a "poisoned peace," as Gregor Dallas titled his recent book. This poisoned peace was rooted in the criminal alliance signed between two tyrants - Stalin and Hitler -- on Aug. 23, 1939.


We woke up with a hell of a lot of fleas after WWII.

Out of Africa

Hundreds of boys missing in London


London police say hundreds of young boys, nearly all of them African immigrants without documentation, have disappeared from area schools.

The remains of the few who have been found suggest to authorities that they are being brought into Britain to boost welfare benefits of adults and then killed ritually and secretly, the Sun reported Friday.

"We were really looking at black children, black male children, aged between 4 and 7," said detective Will O'Reilly. "And we found 300 of those who couldn't be accounted for. In the main these were African children. I think there were one or two from the Caribbean."

An autopsy on one victim's headless and limbless body found the highly poisonous calabar bean in his stomach, leading police to suggest he was fed the substance before his death.


May God have mercy on all souls.

The logical conclusion of the welfare state...

...on the corner (ha!) of Perversion Way and Socialism Street.


An unemployed German woman has been told that she faces a cutoff of unemployment benefits if she doesn't take a job at a registered brothel.

Ja?

Germany has about 400,000 prostitutes serving some 1.2 million customers daily for an estimated annual contribution to the nation's gross domestic product of more than $7 billion.

Several large cities, including Stuttgart and Dortmund, have come to depend upon substantial tax revenues from local brothels.

Gott in Himmel!

Meet my new definition of "fascist"

U.S. Judge Rejects Neb. Gay-Marriage Ban


Nebraska's ban on gay marriage was struck down by a federal judge who ruled the measure interferes with the rights of gay couples and people in a host of other living arrangements, including foster parents and adopted children. The constitutional amendment, which defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman, was passed overwhelmingly by the voters in November 2000.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon ruled Thursday the ban "imposes significant burdens on both the expressive and intimate associational rights" of gays "and creates a significant barrier to the plaintiffs' right to petition or to participate in the political process."

Bataillon said the ban "goes far beyond merely defining marriage as between a man and a woman."

This is the rule of one man. He has gutted the law, ignored the directly expressed will of the people, (Talk about being disenfranchised! Jesse Jackson, call your office!) and assumed dictatorial powers. This is precisely fascism, socialism, totalitarianism...take your pick.

This is sedition! Bataillon should have to share a cell with Harry Reid. At least until a real judge sets the date for his execution.

Reid cites FBI file on judicial pick

From Charles Hurt in The Washington Times:


Minority Leader Harry Reid strayed from his prepared remarks on the Senate floor yesterday and promised to continue opposing one of President Bush's judicial nominees based on "a problem" he said is in the nominee's "confidential report from the FBI."

Those highly confidential reports are filed on all judicial nominees, and severe sanctions apply to anyone who discloses their contents. Less clear is whether a senator could face sanctions for characterizing the content of such files.

"Henry Saad would have been filibustered anyway," Mr. Reid said on the floor yesterday, about the Michigan Appeals Court judge who is nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.

"All you need to do is have a member go upstairs and look at his confidential report from the FBI, and I think we would all agree that there is a problem there," Mr. Reid continued.

Republican staff members and supporters of Mr. Bush's nominees were outraged.

"Can you think of a better way to trash someone's reputation?" Sean Rushton of the conservative Committee for Justice asked after seeing a transcript of the remarks. "Say that there is bad stuff from an FBI investigation in a file somewhere and leave that hanging. This is character assassination of the lowest order and completely improper."
Republicans on Capitol Hill weren't saying much publicly, but several denounced the action privately as an "underhanded smear" or worse.


Senator Reid should be expelled from the Senate, and if possible, tried in a court of law, convicted, and locked up.

Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima

Pray for us, Blessed Mother.

Today is also the Feast of St. Imelda, patroness of first communicants and fervent communicants (if only we could always describe ourselves thusly!)
St.Imelda, pray that we may be filled with love and respect for The Lord in His Blessed Sacrament.

Today's reading is Acts 25:13-21
Today's Gospel reading is John 21:15-19


Everyday links: The Blessed Virgin Mary
The Rosary
Our Mother of Perpetual Help

Speaking of James Taranto, on July 23, 2003 he revealed what was wrong with me, all my friends, and the vast majority of my family members

Hitler Was Conservative, New Study Reveals

Blogger Rory Miller noticed this first, and we're a little reluctant to pick it up, because we can't tell if it's a parody. But it does appear on the UC Berkeley Web site, and it looks for all the world like a legitimate press release announcing a new "study." So here goes:
Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about the psychology of conservatism report that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include:
• Fear and aggression• Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity• Uncertainty avoidance• Need for cognitive closure• Terror management
OK, so far this sounds almost plausible. Now read this, from the same press release:
Disparate conservatives share a resistance to change and acceptance of inequality, the authors said. Hitler, Mussolini, and former President Ronald Reagan were individuals, but all were right-wing conservatives because they preached a return to an idealized past and condoned inequality in some form. Talk host Rush Limbaugh can be described the same way.
Of course! Hitler, Mussolini, Reagan, Limbaugh, they have lots in common. Can you imagine if some conservative published a "study" likening, say, Stalin, Castro, Bill Clinton and Alan Colmes? He'd be dismissed as a nutjob, attacked as a McCarthyite or both. But wait! Get a load of this, from the same Berkeley press release:
The researchers conceded cases of left-wing ideologues, such as Stalin, Khrushchev or Castro, who, once in power, steadfastly resisted change, allegedly in the name of egalitarianism.
Yet, they noted that some of these figures might be considered politically conservative in the context of the systems that they defended. The researchers noted that Stalin, for example, was concerned about defending and preserving the existing Soviet system.
So you see, all dictators are conservatives, just like Reagan and Limbaugh. Thank you, American higher education, for spending our tax dollars on this path-breaking research! This "study" is attributed to Berkeley's Jack Glaser and Frank Sulloway, Stanford's John Jost and the University of Maryland's Arie Kruglanski. Is it for real, or is some Berkeley prankster enjoying a huge laugh at their expense?

Pope Reportedly Wants to Share Power

To prove The Mudville Gazette is not "just" a Milblog, I give you this story on Pope Benedict XVI. Let us hope and pray it is just a little Vatican kerfuffle. (Ugh! Taranto, get out of my head!)

An American who has worked with Pope Benedict XVI has suggested the pope would embrace sharing more power with local bishops - a big issue in the United States, where Catholics have sometimes chafed under Rome's control.
Dominican Rev. Augustine Di Noia, undersecretary in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told Vatican Radio Wednesday that it was ``significant'' that the pope had included the bishop's miter in his papal coat of arms rather than the traditional papal tiara.
He said the choice indicated Benedict didn't want to be seen as a ``monarch'' but rather as the bishop of Rome who wanted to see more collegiality in the church, the Vatican term for power-sharing with local bishops.
``It can be seen to express an enthusiastic embrace of collegiality,'' Di Noia said.
Catholics in the United States have sometimes chafed about the level of control the Vatican exercised over the U.S. church during Pope John Paul II's tenure. Others, though, say Rome had to step in because the bishops were too lax in keeping the faith.

Want another Milblog link?

Try Michael Yon:Online Magazine.

You might have seen this photograph he took recently.

Blog of the Day

Check out The Mudville Gazette.

"Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." is their motto.

If you think I lean toward Milblogs, you may be right.

Today The Mudville Gazette lead me to Firepower Forward and this long distance perspective on the death of two Marines killed in Afghanistan on Mother's Day.
May God have mercy on their brave souls and may He comfort their loved ones.

Here are a couple of article links from The Mudville Gazette:

BODY COUNTS -Newsweek

AL-ZARQAWI SERIOUSLY INJURED, SAYS IRAQI OFFICIAL

Demise Of A Hard-Fighting Squad

'Floor It!' GI Shouts Amid Hail Of Gunfire


Now that's damn fine blogging!

Tales From the PETA-caust

From PETAKillsAnimals.com comes the news I have always known I would read someday.


PETA kills animals. By the thousands. From July 1998 through the end of 2003, PETA killed over 10,000 dogs, cats, and other "companion animals" -- at its Norfolk, Virginia headquarters. That's more than five defenseless animals every day. Not counting the dogs and cats PETA spayed and neutered, the group put to death over 85 percent of the animals it took in during 2003 alone. And its angel-of-death pattern shows no sign of changing.

Oh, Hypocrisy, thy name is Socialism!

On its 2002 federal income-tax return, PETA claimed a $9,370 write-off for a giant walk-in freezer, the kind most people use as a meat locker or for ice-cream storage. But animal-rights activists don't eat meat or dairy foods. So far, the group hasn't confirmed the obvious -- that it's using the appliance to store the bodies of its victims.

In 2000, when the Associated Press first noted PETA's Kervorkian-esque tendencies, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk complained that actually taking care of animals costs more than killing them. "We could become a no-kill shelter immediately," she admitted.

PETA kills animals. Because it has other financial priorities. PETA raked in nearly $29 million last year in income, much of it raised from pet owners who think their donations actually help animals. Instead, the group spends huge sums on programs equating people who eat chicken with Nazis, scaring young children away from drinking milk, recruiting children into the radical animal-rights lifestyle, and intimidating businessmen and their families in their own neighborhoods. PETA has also spent tens of thousands of dollars defending arsonists and other violent extremists.
(Thanks to Michelle Malkin)

Bolton smear is the death rattle of left-fascist Cubaphilia

Bob Novak delivers the inside stuff again.


Janice O'Connell, the veteran Democratic staff expert on Western Hemisphere affairs, acted as though she were seeing an apparition at 2:30 p.m. last Friday. She was present with other Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffers to question unfavorable witnesses about Under secretary of State John Bolton, President Bush's nominee to be ambassador to the United Nations. But outside the Dirksen Office Building's Room 419 appeared her archenemy: Otto Reich, coming not to bury Bolton, but to praise him.
O'Connell is only an aide to Sen. Christopher Dodd, but her effectiveness in making life difficult for enemies of Fidel Castro is legendary. She was largely responsible for blocking confirmation of Bush's 2001 nomination of Reich as assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs. Friday, Reich hoped to have his appearance before the Foreign Relations staffers become the hearing that Dodd and O'Connell had denied him. Even with Republicans in nominal control of the committee, however, Reich's complaint about the character assassination directed against him then and against Bolton now was removed from the record.

Wait a minute. Just who is in control of this committee?

O'Connell and the committee's Democratic chief counsel, Brian McKeon, had not expected Reich to be present Friday. ''Are you a volunteer?'' McKeon asked Reich, who replied he had been invited by the committee's Republican staff.
The dialogue was fierce and loud, once Reich's testimony began. Reich said that the systematic leaking of derogatory information about Bolton reminds him of O'Connell in 2001 putting out accusations made in supposedly secret interviews. ''That's irrelevant!'' O'Connell responded, moving that Reich's comments be stricken from the record. She moved that Reich be ruled out of order, and she usually gets her way inside the committee. Paul Foldi, the senior GOP staffer, ordered the comments, for which Reich had waited four years, be erased.

Oh, yeah. I forgot. The ones who know politics is a contact sport are in control. If you think the R's have the stones necessary to confirm honest judges to the Supreme Court, you are dreaming.

Hey Ohio! Dump Voinovich!

Damn! I thought PA's Arlen Specter (aka Senator Brain Damage) was the biggest Republican pinhead in the US Senate.

Congrats George. Your new nickname is Senator Guidance From Above. It's time we Daschle your ass.

Pat Buchanan steps in it

Newsday reports on the furor over Mr. Buchanan's latest column, Was WWII Worth It?


Was World War II worth it?

In the inflammatory world view of Pat Buchanan, the short answer is no. The war that stopped the Nazis' global campaign and the mechanistic extermination of European Jewry was actually not worth the effort.

The commentator yesterday offered equally provocative answers to other questions: Why destroy Hitler? And why venerate FDR and Churchill?

On the radio and Internet, Buchanan framed his positions as amplification of remarks made over the weekend by President George W. Bush that the pact ending the war brought on a Stalinist domination that was "one of the greatest wrongs of history."


Personally, I believe it was worth it. But I must admit the most important reason for this belief is the fact my father fought and was wounded twice in WWII. (The same goes for WWI. My father's father fought in it and one of my great-uncles survived a mustard gas attack.) Yes, they were draftees and had no choice. But fight they did. Why? To keep Europe free from the domination of a single Power. This was also the main rationale for the Cold War. I suppose it boils down to this for me: Europe is the home of western civilization and should be defended and I owe a debt to those who spilled their blood to defend it. (Of course, nearly every day the EU makes me reconsider.

There is nothing wrong with Mr. Buchanan asking the question or stating his opinion to answer it. He is exploring the same mine-strewn waters as Joe Sobran has been lately. (here and here) BTW, both men are Catholic. This is not a coincidence.

He did not mention Jews or the Holocaust - the most outrageous omission for Yaffa Eliach, a Holocaust expert and survivor. "For me it is very important to present the truth, to show the murder," Eliach said. "The idea was to kill Jews."

With all due respect to our Jewish brothers, it is obvious from their behavior and their words that FDR and the rest of our ruling elite would never have gone to war to stop the mass murder of the Jews. WWII was fought to protect Europe from German domination and Asia from Japanese domination.

Also, the Final Solution was as much a means to an end as it was an end in itself. Jew-hatred was used to unite the German people behind the Nazi party and whatever wars Hitler chose to wage. Apparently, the concept of "purity" appeals to many. My guess is most people who bothered to read Mein Kampf did not really believe he would try to murder all the Jews of Europe, much less nearly succeed.

Believing WWII was about saving Europe's Jews is like saying our Civil War was fought to free our slaves. These are cases of post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Both are noble reasons to go to war, but there is not a lot of nobility in the exercise of worldly power.

Saint of the Day

Today we honor Saints Nereus and Achilleus, martyrs. Pray for us, all you holy martyrs of the Church.


Today's reading: Acts 22:30, 23:6-11
Today's Gospel reading: John 17:20-26


Everyday links: The Blessed Virgin Mary
The Rosary
Our Mother of Perpetual Help

Did the greatest generation fail?

Marilyn Barnewall's provocative clue:


FAMILY

"I believe one major reason a lot of American kids became unmanageable brats and teenagers in the 1960s came from battle-wearied soldiers standing on Europe's shores. They awaited a ship to take them home after the WWII. They were so grateful to be going home alive, so grateful for the families or future families awaiting them, they made a promise:
'My kids are never going to have a tough life like the one I've just lived. Things are going to be better for them.' Unfortunately...they made life too easy for their children. It resulted in unchallenged kids, insecure, undisciplined youths. Kids need to be challenged. The only way to gain self-respect and a sense of self-reliance is to take a chance. ... We created a risk-free society so our kids didn't have the chance to face challenges. By doing so, we removed their opportunity to develop character -- and now we don't like the lack of character. We want them to be people we can trust. It is because our kids have had the chance to develop character removed from them that a large majority believe it is okay to cheat. That is our legacy to America's youth. How sad! Someone ought to give the senior citizens who thought sixties' escapism into drugs was cool -- the people who caused this problem -- a good spanking!"

--Marilyn Barnewall

Another Country - Another tour de force by Joe Sobran

Note: The link above will take you to Joe's current on-line column. The archive is here. Not all of his past columns are available in the archive.


In Washington the two parties have been fighting bitterly over the confirmation of President Bush’s judicial nominees. The Republicans may resort to “the nuclear option” to prevent Democratic filibustering and other obstructive tactics. The Democrats call Bush’s nominees “radical.”

I hardly know which side is more risible. Both parties blow their noses on the U.S. Constitution, so it hardly makes any difference which controls the judiciary. The Democrats are somewhat worse, which doesn’t mean the Republicans are good. To call the Republicans “radical” is to pay them a compliment they have done nothing to deserve.

The Democrats, whether they admit it or not, want judges who will declare homosexuality and same-sex marriage constitutional rights. But the Republicans favor unconstitutional Federal entitlements, expanded executive powers (Homeland Security, the USA PATRIOT Act, et cetera), and of course undeclared war. George W. Bush makes Bill Clinton look like Thomas Jefferson.

Iconoclast. Gadfly. Patriot. Catholic. One has to admire Mr. Sobran's brass.

What happened to the country we used to love and the world used to admire? For many years it was a country of implicit understandings about freedom and the good life. The government seemed to accept its limits and respect our desire to be left alone.

But as new forms of tyranny exploded abroad, our own politicians got ideas too. The concentration of power, economic dirigisme, high taxes, a mania for equality, and world empire became accepted as enlightened principles. Gradually, America became a profoundly different country. We hardly noticed it happening.

I am reminded of this, from Marilyn Barnewall. I think dozens, if not hundreds of books need to be written on this subject. What happened to cause the greatest generation, the generation of my dad and Joe Sobran's father, to fail to pass on its way of life to its heirs? (At least imperfectly so.) Barnewall provides a piece to the puzzle.

Much of the blame for this, I’m afraid, lies with the American Catholic Church, which, since the Second Vatican Council in the Sixties, has ceased to exert the gravitational force it did when I was a child, even as government has joined the mammoth entertainment industry in marginalizing all religion.

A damning indictment of the Americanized Catholic Church. I agree wholeheartedly. But do not believe for a minute this only means the priests and bishops and nuns of the United States. Ultimately, we, the laity are responsible.

Would my father’s generation have fought for this country in World War II if they could have foreseen the America of 2005? Despite the current celebration of “the good war,” I seriously doubt it. They thought they were fighting for a way of life that has now vanished, destroyed by politics and cultural decay. Maybe it was already doomed, and the war only hastened its destruction. (emphasis mine)

This last could be true. WWI could have begun the slide. It did, after all, destroy Europe as we knew it. (See Thomas Fleming here, and his books The Illusion of Victory and The New Dealers' War.)

Tens of millions died in “the good war,” probably including a Gershwin or an Edison, to say nothing of the misery of countless ordinary people. There is nothing about it to celebrate, unless you’re a politician who profits by the new order that arose in its ruins and survives today. Politicians love to commemorate wars, the men who died in them, and above all the politicians who started them.

When you look back on a famous victory in any war of the past, don’t be too sure the right side won.

Ouch. But Sobran is spot on. This is not treason, or defeatism, or even anti-americanism (although that may be closest to the truth if you define "americanism" as a particular ideology - the practicle embodiment of modernism. How about americanism as modernism immanentized ?)


What the heck am I typing about? The following, a description of "Americanism", is from Testem Benevolentiae, an Apostolic Letter of Pope Leo XIII of January 22, 1899:

"If by that name ('Americanism') be designated the characteristic qualities which reflect honour on the people of America, just as other nations have what is special to them; or, if it implies the condition of your commonwealths, or the laws and customs prevailing in them, there is no reason why we should deem that it ought to be discarded. But if it is to be used not only to signify, but even to commend the above doctrines, there can be no doubt that our venerable brethren, the bishops of America, would be the first to repudiate and condemn it, as being especially unjust to them and to the entire nation as well. For it raises the suspicion that there are some among you who conceive and desire a Church in America different from that which is in the rest of the world." (emphasis mine)


The perspective of The Catholic Church is by necessity profoundly different from that of any transitory political system or nation.

Yes, transitory. Persia fell. Rome fell. The Thousand Year Reich lasted merely a dozen. Some day, the USA will be no more. The Church remains and shall always remain until everything ends.

Regardless of the triumphs and achievements of our nation, she is merely of this world. We are transcendent, she is not. We can ascend to salvation or be damned to hell for all eternity. Our country cannot do either.

In a word, God must come first.

Cops ARE heroes

Michelle Malkin reminds us to ignore the haters in the press and remember the vast majority of peace officers who do a job the rest of us can't, and do it well.


Thus, we'll be subjected to wall-to-wall coverage of the Tasered pregnant lady and the shot-out SUV. But you won't see Peter Jennings reporting on the tragic loss of Denver Detective Donald R. Young. The married father of two and a recipient of the police medal of honor was shot three times from behind last weekend in a cold-blooded ambush. Police believe the tattooed young assailant, a suspected illegal alien, has fled to Mexico. Det. Young had received numerous awards during his 12 years on the Denver police force. He was awarded the police department's medal of honor and a distinguished service cross.

And you won't see Larry King talking about the murder of undercover vice Sgt. Gerald Vick in St. Paul, Minn., at the hands of a reputed gang member of the Vice Lords. Sgt. Vick was a Medal of Valor winner who had rescued two children in a raging house fire in 1990. The local St. Paul Pioneer Press recounted his heroism:
In 1990, Vick pulled [Rachel] Patterson's 3-year-old son clear of a fatal house fire on Sherburne Avenue in St. Paul. Then he broke through a window, crawled beneath the smoke and took her unconscious 15-month-old daughter out. He went back in to rescue her husband and 5-year-old son, but it was too late.

Here's a prayer for you:

"Officer Vick saved my life," said Patterson's daughter, Kacheala Willis, now 15 and in the 10th grade at a high school in Houston. "I hope he makes it into heaven."

And

Sgt. Vick leaves behind a wife and two children.


Sunday, May 15 is Peace Officers Memorial Day. Fly your flag at half-staff until noon to remember the everyday heroes who died defending us from predators. If you cannot raise and lower your flag, the proper etiquette is to tie a length of black ribbon to the top of the flag pole for the memorial period.

Web Site of the Day

Catholic Relief Services is one of the most effective (and most efficient) charities in the world. And when you contribute to CRS, you do not have to worry about your money being used to buy condoms and Norplant in the third world.

You can review their Annual Summary for the fiscal year ending September 2003 here in pdf format. The financial information begins on page 14.

BTW, CRS is still working to help those who survived last December's tsunami. Sometimes things exist even if you do not see them on your TV.

Saint of the Day

Today we honor St. Ignatius of Laconi. Pray for us, St. Ignatius.


Today's reading: Acts 20:28-38
Today's Gospel reading: John 17:11-19


Everyday links: The Blessed Virgin Mary
The Rosary
Our Mother of Perpetual Help

Major K.'s wish list for his guys in Iraq

The only thing I can do is post it and hope someone who can help sees it.

- Handcuffs, basic, not fancy, but police quality. Plastic flexcuffs work but are a pain to remove and a couple of soldiers have cut themselves doing so. Only the MP's are issued real handcuffs. We could use lots.

- Body Armor. Not the big bulky stuff that we wear, but the level IIIA, concealable stuff that cops wear, to outfit my informants, so that no one knows that they are wearing it. We have plenty of our own, but none of this type. We could use about 5-6 sets, preferably size medium.

- Mini-mag or Surefire flashlights, AA sized, also for my Iraqi contacts, I have exhausted my supply. We have plenty of batteries.

- MP3 recorders with at least 64MB of memory - for documenting bad guys behaving badly

Catholic Leaders Launch 'Justice for Immigrants' Campaign

Do any of these "leaders" remember how they embarassed themselves and all Catholics when they lectured us on nuclear weapons, and the Soviet Union?

Catholic Church leaders, including Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., plan to unveil a new immigration reform program on Tuesday.The plan calls for legalizing the undocumented; expanding opportunities for foreigners who want to enter the country legally for work or for family reunification; establishing a temporary workers program; and "re-establishing due process rights and other legal safeguards" for immigrants.

What about the economic damage illegals do to honest, hard working, legal Catholic immigrants?

A tale of two mothers

From Mychal Massie at WND comes some straight talk about babies and the baby-killing killers who kill them.


No matter how the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood, the National Organization of Women, the National Abortion Reproductive Rights Action League or any of the other alphabet groups frame their argument, abortion is murder – abortion is evil.

Amen.

It is murder because it is the taking of an innocent life. It is evil precisely because it is the taking of innocent life. It is an abhorrent practice commissioned upon those who have either bought into a lie or are devoid of understanding. In recent weeks, abortions involving both of the aforementioned have been played out with little or no mainstream media coverage.

Amen.

Angele, a single mom with two children, had her baby – who was aborted alive – die in her arms while the abortion workers refused to help her. The child named Rowan was fully developed and viable at 22 weeks, 5 days. I urge everyone reading this to view what Planned Parenthood refers to as a "blob of tissue."
Angele believed she had no options, and that is exactly what these merciless carnivores want women to think. They offer one solution and one only. Women are not told of the threat of various types of cancer resulting from abortion. They are not told of the countless numbers of post-abortion complications, emotional stress and not infrequent instances of death. They are lead to believe the abortion is nothing more than a few moments of mild discomfort, when in reality it is akin to using a vacuum cleaner to drain a gold-fish bowl – fish and all – and then smashing the bowl.

Do you still need a reason to do everything possible to stop the illegal obstruction of judges dedicated to restore the rule of law to our benighted nation?
Contact your senators before it is too late. The Republicans cannot be trusted to do what is right. They must be pushed, prodded, and overwhelmed with messages from voters.

The religion of peace strikes again...

...or, I'll bet Rex Reed never had to put up with this.


From WND:


The website of a Catholic civil rights group was hacked over the weekend, apparently by Islamic extremists.
William Donohue, president of the New York City-based Catholic League, said the breach began yesterday, one day after his comments about the controversial new Hollywood film on the Crusades, "The Kingdom of Heaven," were published in the New York Post.
The unknown hackers replaced the home page with one of their own, featuring a photo of a Palestinian holding a rock in each hand, facing down Israeli soldiers. It included epithets against President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, called for freedom for "Palestine" and Iraq and sent greetings to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

Putin - The Russian DeGaulle?

Arnaud de Borchgrave, in the Washington Times, offers an interesting alternative reading of Putin's Russia.


The disoriented Russian leadership eagerly accepted the advice of well-meaning American economists who advocated cold-turkey market economics and democratic politics. Enormous chaos ensued, as well as revolving door politics.
Boris Yeltsin followed a path well trodden by France's Fourth Republic after World War II: a new government every six months. Until Mr. Putin came along, that is. His model was France's Fifth Republic, which Charles de Gaulle began crafting when the army brought him back to power. This could only be done by throttling back on the excesses of democracy, which had followed four years of Nazi occupation. A democratic free-for-all in Russia followed 70 years of communist repression. A strong presidential system at the center, structured by Putin, put an end to chaos in Russia, just as de Gaulle had done in France.
Mr. Putin rescinded elections for governors in Russia's 89 regions in favor of Kremlin appointments, again emulating France's system of some 90 prefects appointed by the president and reporting to the interior minister.


Remember the furor over that?


When this reporter wrote Mr. Putin's two geopolitical mentors were de Gaulle and Gen. Pinochet in a forward to a 2000 study on Russian Organized Crime for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the new Russian president messaged back: "Thank you for the homework -- and for understanding what we are attempting to do."


So what we have now is preferable to the Soviet Union. Fine. I wonder how stable Putin's regime is and can it survive him?

The British boycott of Haifa University is based on a libel.

From OpinionJournal.com:


On the eve of Passover, the British Association of University Teachers took a decision to boycott two of Israel's eight universities--Haifa and Bar Ilan--for their alleged collusion with the Israeli government in its mistreatment of the Palestinians. Haifa was also accused of curbing academic freedom. This decision is breathtaking, and it will surely feature in the annals of the European radical left and its perverse contribution to peace in the Middle East.


Why doesn't anyone care? I suppose it can be dismissed as an academic squabble, nothing more.

Life is strange and beautiful and...

Some links to the world of Henry Darger.

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4.

Henry J. Darger was born in 1892 and lived with his father, a tailor, in Chicago. He was moved to a Catholic asylum when his father became crippled, and after many attempts, successfully ran away at age 16.
Darger spent his life working as a janitor in Catholic hospitals, living alone in a rented room on Chicago's north side, attending Mass up to five times a day, and writing a picaresque tale in 15 massive volumes, composed of 145 handwritten pages and 5,084 single-spaced typed pages, and titled The Story of the Vivian Girls, in what is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion. To accompany this enormous literary production, Darger also created several hundred large-scale illustrations ? pencil on paper drawings painted over with watercolor and occasional additions of collage ? that relate the story: On an unnamed planet, of which Earth is a moon, the good Christian nation of Anniennia wars with the Glandelinians, who practice child enslavement. The heroines are the seven Vivian sisters, Abbiennian princesses, who, after many battles, fires, tempests, and lurid torture, succeed in forcing the Glandelinians to give up their barbarous ways.


All this brings to mind a story of Chicago, The Devil In The White City. Certainly Mr. Darger knew of these events.

Web Site of the Day

Overlawyered.com

Walter Olson brings us the frightening facts of our judicial system.


Check out these recent posts:

"My patient lived -- so she sued me"
Woman awarded $45,000 after dog kills cat

Battle of the Day

On this date in 1969, the Battle of Hamburger Hill began.

Saint of the Day

Today we honor St. Solange, patroness of shepherds, children, and rape victims. She is also invoked for and against rain.
This is also the feast of Blessed Damien of Molokai, who should be canonized soon.
Pray for us, all you angels and saints.


Today's reading: Acts 20:17-27
Today's Gospel reading: John 17:1-11


Everyday links: The Blessed Virgin Mary
The Rosary
Our Mother of Perpetual Help

From the Never Forget the Holocaust No Matter Who You Are Department:

May God have mercy on the brave soul of Janusz Korczak.


Janusz Korczak was a Polish Jewish educator who ran an orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto just prior to its liquidation in 1942. His story is at once tragic and courageous. Given the chance to escape the ghetto, Korczak chose to stay with his children, ultimately perishing along with them at Treblinka.


Never forget, heroes are everywhere.


Like Anne Frank's, Korczak's diary was later published, after being smuggled out of the ghetto after his death and sealed up in the walls of a Catholic orphanage that Korczak previously ran in a Warsaw suburb. Even before his diary, however, Korczak was already a well known educator throughout Poland. He wrote 24 books and published over a thousand newspaper and magazine articles on childhood education. In the mid-1930s, he hosted his own radio program.


For the Catholics in the audience who think the Holocaust has nothing to do with them, remember St. Maximilian Kolbe and St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein).

Religious zealot pharmacists a danger to free society

So vomits a man with the improbable name of Steve Gushee. This denizen of the fever swamps is a religion (hee hee) writer for Cox (how appropriate) News service and apparently an Episcopal priest (but obviously not one of the good ones).



There is no need for a religious police in this country. Self-righteous citizens are doing the job for them. Their faith-based prejudice, as is often the case, brings more harm to women.
The latest example is the growing number of pharmacists who invoke their conscience to deny women legitimate prescriptions for birth control and morning-after pills.
They do more than simply bear witness to their belief. They deny that freedom to others. They disregard physicians' orders and violate the legally protected doctor-patient relationship.


You may check out the whole sordid mess at the link in the title if you like, but let me save you a few brain cells and whatever food you may have in you.

It seems this man of the cloth has created out of whole cloth (sorry-could not resist) a pseudo-constitutional right to fornicate that trumps the real Constitution's rights of freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

I actually love to see things like this in the newspaper and on-line. It means the good guys are fighting back.

Support your local Catholic pharmacist and companies like Walgreen's that protect their employees' freedom of conscience.
Don't forget to encourage your children to become pharmacists. There is more than one way to protect the Natural Law!

We have linkage!

Happy, happy, joy, joy. TheChurchMilitant has its first link. Many thanks to Professor R.J. Rummel of Freedomist.net for 1) noticing my nonsense here, and 2) linking his excellent blog to mine.
His link may be found at the top of my links list at the top of this page.

Saint of the Day

Today we honor St. Pachomius, hermit and monk.
Pray for us, all you angels and saints.


Today's reading:Acts 19:1-8
Today's Gospel reading: John 16:29-33


Everyday links: The Blessed Virgin Mary
The Rosary
Our Mother of Perpetual Help