extreme Catholic 

 
Is it called Ottawa or Iowa? Edmonton Sun

On his first foreign trip as president, [President Obama] came within a syllable of calling Ottawa Iowa.

As he and Prime Minister Stephen Harper emerged for a news conference after their closed-door meetings, Obama began: "It is a great pleasure to be here in Io ... in Ottawa."

He kept on without breaking stride.

Had this been a Republican it would be in the 10 minute rotation for 3 days. Since it is Obama, it was spiked in the MSM here. I saw it live on CNBC and knew that it would be ignored.

Labels: obama

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 8:08 PM   Permalink  

 
Historic Statues Beheaded in San Antonio: KMBT TV

A sacred, historic statue has been vandalized on the campus of a catholic high school in San Antonio as the statues of Saint Joseph and Baby Jesus were beheaded by vandals.

Labels: anti-catholic

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:26 PM   Permalink  

 
Alternative Energy

I wonder if the advocates of the common forms of alternative energy: wind, solar, and geothermal are sincere. Do they really believe that there's a chance that these will ever be a cost-effective replacement for even 50 percent of the energy usage of the United States are any part of the world? (ok, geothermal works for Iceland...)

In the case of wind, there are days when there is no wind, in the case of solar there are days when there is some or a total cloud cover.

The only way these technologies are even getting a tryout is the government subsidies. Would they ever reach a point where they could be competitive?

One day, it will all be nuclear power anyway. Let that day come soon.

Labels: poltics

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 7:19 PM   Permalink  

 
Catholics are why there is legal abortion in the United States

Most Catholics, yes, most Catholics are responsible for there being legal abortion today in the United States. Not abstaining from voting, most Catholics voted for Clinton and most Catholic voted for Obama. Pro-life Catholics do not need to become Republican. The political agenda for pro-life Catholics is (a) vote for the the pro-life candidate and (b) urge everyone to vote pro-life. The sooner "Faithful Citizenship" is repudiated the better as its statement that "Catholics are not single issue voters" was the permission slip to vote for the murder of the unborn.

(Some full disclosure, I was part of the Catholic blogger outreach in the successful 2004 campaign to reelect President George Bush.)

The primary author Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship was Bishop Dimarzio and you can see and hear him talk about a "hierarchy of values" immediately, then mentioning a dozen other issues, and then mentioning "life" as "most important" rather matter-of-factly at timestamp 00:50.

I don't doubt for an instant the sincerity and intelligence of Bishop Dimarzio. I believe his error was allowing language to make abortion merely seem to be only one of many moral issues of varying weight, and perhaps as a single issue, abortion carries the most weight.

He simply overestimated the ability of the average Catholic voter reading this to see nuance. He underestimated the rhetorical power of one clear unambiguous "Catholics are not single issue voters".

These six words were the tool in the hands of Obama's media outlets to hand out a bishops-endorsed permission slips to vote for Obama. It frankly cut us off at the knees from insisting that abortion was such a critical moral flaw of America that Catholic teaching required us to become single issue voters to deal with it. ("us" is not merely the Catholic bloggers and talk-show-callers, but serious Catholic opinion leaders like EWTN, Catholic Answers, and Priests for Life)

Labels: clinton, internet obama, politics, pro-life, usccb

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:25 PM   Permalink