You know, this isn't going to help with the "West Virginia" jokes.

The story can be found here.

Finally.

No point in letting the distaff monopolize everything:

Behold the Catholic Dads blog!

Sign me up.

Oh, and the crucial question--who's bringing the beer to the first meeting?

[H/t to Mr. Anderson--said in my best Hugo Weaving voice, of course.]

It's a beautiful day.

The Detroit River webcam gives you a flavor of it, if not the full spring fever dose. Note also that the camera comes with a ship schedule if you want to see the big lakers in action.

What am I doing inside again?

My bookshelves will have a little more space after this evening.

They are going to be one Robert Sungenis title shorter(1). I've decided that Not By Faith Alone shall go the way of all flesh as a (minor) protest. And by that, I mean "removed from any form of circulation whatsoever." The used bookstore won't see it, either.

Perhaps my own gloss on Exsurge Domine? I'm itching to grill.

The good news--if the author in question repents, I'll buy another copy. Everybody wins.

---------
(1) I'm keeping Not By Scripture Alone. He didn't write all of that one.

Some guys have all the luck.

Jay Anderson gets a well-deserved quote in the Washington Times today, for his Catholic version of Godwin's Law.

Well done!

Hexed!

Saturn's polar hexagon (apparently the Voyager missions photographed it too--news to me) has now been photographed by the Cassini mission:

The scientists say it shouldn't exist, but the planet doesn't seem to care.

Photo via Space.com.

I heard the opening of the Dennis Miller Show.

Pretty good stuff. And a murderer's row of guests, to boot.

He was a little nervous, but he relaxed and started riffing after a while.

Then again, I'm pretty well in the bag for Miller--I was a fanatic about his syndicated late night talk show, way back when. I even liked him on Monday Night Football, which puts me in a distinct minority.

Have fun storming the castle!

[Unseemly language alert.]

Somebody at the Reason [sic] blog engages in autoerotic asphyxia as he imagines a Giuliani presidency:

So is Rudy carving out a niche as the fiscal conservative candidate who'll govern like Reagan without the speeches to the March for Life?

Libertarian IQs seem to have suffered precipitous fall-offs over the past five years. And here's something you can take to the bank: like atheists, the louder and more evangelistic the libertarian, the dumber he is. Which is why I find the emergence of Sam Harris a very comforting phenomenon: if people think that dipshit is some kind of intellectual messiah, persecution isn't exactly around the corner.

Back to the equally brain-dead Giuliani comment, which seems to assume that dumping all those stinky embarrassing pro-lifers overboard in favor of lower taxes will be some electoral gold. Wow--brilliant! A sure recipe for duplicating Alf Landon's numbers. Yes, let's throw overboard the people who, for minimal return, actually are willing to sacrifice and be ground-pounders for the GOP, all so that we can woo--um.... I guess guys who write for Reason.

"Any second thoughts, General Custer?"

Let's try it this way--you don't have people standing outside of tax agency offices across the nation every week asking for an end to high tax brackets. But you do see folks outside of abortion clinics every week. The latter level of commitment is critical for GOTV, especially at the local level. Toss that aside for marginal low-commitment types who can be wooed away on other issues and you have the recipe for permanent minority party status.

Yeah, go ahead Party of Lincoln--consummate your Rudy crush. And after you've finished telling me to piss up a rope, I'll be happy to return the favor.

Knut!

Ah, animal rights extremists, once again winning friends and influencing people.

Yeah, the story is perilously close to its sell-by date, but it's still interesting. Is it just me, or is "authenticity" as a cultural concept starting to wear a might thin?

What was most amusing for me was the proposed death by the would-be cub-clubbers: a quick, sterile euthanizing.

But that's not exactly how it happens in nature, is it, Dieter?

A more natural, red-in-tooth-and-claw end would be to let the cub starve to death, drown it or sic some predator on it. But Herr Aktivist isn't calling for that, for some odd reason.

Anyway, the Berlin Zoo is making the right call and telling them to stick it up their umlauts.

Moral of the story?

Don't mess with cute.

More armed Trads!

Mike Inman is teaching his womenfolk the fine art of shooting.

Becoming a bit of a trend, what with Hilary pulling an Annie Oakley last weekend.

If Mike starts sending missives with the header Arriba Kentucky!, I'll let you know.

Somewhere on the East Coast, Chris Hedges has soiled yet another mattress pad.

Happy Feast of the Annunciation!

A little El Greco to celebrate the occasion:

And if you don't like El Greco, don't talk to me.

New blog tags.

I've added Man Stuff (and I'll be pistol-whipping Eric Scheske once he recovers sufficiently from surgery--he knows why ;-) ), Nomos (which will appear with passenger pigeon frequency), Deep Stupidity, and Prayer Requests.

The rationale for labelling will, as always, remain opaque.

Speaking of Hilary...

She experiences the joy of firearms and the righteous smiting of targets in this post. Now you have even more reason not to cross her.

Only one quibble: A Chinese rifle? Tsk, tsk.

And before you get too mad, note that I recently acquired a 2 disc Purcell compilation.

So there.

Thank you, Zach Frey!

I now have archives again, thanks to a nifty bit of code he sent me.

Scroll down and you can find the monthlies in all their original glory.

Enjoy! Or not, as is your wont.

Sunday's Galactica season finale.

Spoilers ahead, for those who have yet to catch up--e.g., Hilary.


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First thought: whoa. Didn't see Tigh as a toaster coming (at least not before the penultimate ep). Though it does nicely explain Lucy Lawless' apology before her model was boxed.

Nor did I see Tyrol--though at least the latter was, in retrospect, hinted at during season 2 (h/t to the writers for playing fair on that one). Say--looks like we have another hybrid child, too--one the Cylons have not the faintest clue about.

Second thought: all right, Starbuck's back!

Third thought: Is Starbuck the final Cylon? I think the answer is "no." Remember "Aurora, goddess of the dawn." That was not insignificant. Which also raises the question of just who "not-Leoben" is.

Fourth thought: Who's the final Cylon?

Thought woven in throughout the revelations: How do the final five differ from the other seven? No pre-programming, obviously, and no "destroy the humans" mindset. Perhaps the Cylons claim the other five as members when they truly are not. At a minimum, they are fundamentally very, very different.

Final thought: 2008?

I'm going to kill somebody waiting for that one.

Watch Galactica Sitrep for roundups and updates. It's my favorite Galactica blog, handily offering such useful info as the fact Season 4 will be 22 hours long (not episodes, mind) instead of the minimum 13.

The fifth annual Detroit Catholic Men's Conference.

T'was excellent. I attended with Pustula Terribilia, better known as Bubbles the Terrible, combox raconteur and the most Catholic Evangelical on God's Green. His beloved wife followed the lead of mine and generously issued a day pass.

The recordings will be available here in due time. Especially worthwhile were Fr. John Riccardo and Bp. Robert Carlson of Saginaw, who was greeted like he was Ted Nugent by the Saginaw contingent.

Be there next year--it's scheduled for April 12, 2008.

An apology.

Upon receipt of protests of my Dan Maguire post and following some soul-searching, I feel morally obligated to issue apologies to the following:

1. To all members of the mustela nivalis family, more popularly known as the weasel:

and

2. To the makers of the Garden-Weasel:

I never meant to impugn such fine species/products by comparing either to an unrepentant whore for the abortion industry.

This is hilarious.

The Top 15 Unintentionally Funny Comic Book Panels.

[Language warning--a little risque, and the site itself isn't a Carmelite retreat, either.]

Good.

The USCCB's Doctrine Secretariat offers Prof. Dan Maguire the clenched fist of fellowship.

He's an odious, grandstanding little weasel, repellent at so many levels.

E.g., he dumped his first wife for his nose doctor, and he's such a shining witness to the Catholic tradition that his son is now a Muslim. Say what you will about Thomas Maguire's decision, he certainly was paying attention while growing up.

Yep--the Detroit housing market is nightmarish.

This article is making the rounds, with reports of half-million dollar houses going at auction for less than one third of the listing price.

A caveat: foreclosure auctions are a skewed sample of the market. They usually have a lot more problems than just ex-owners who are unable to pay.

That said, it's still a frigging nightmare. We had a realtor in (a friend of the family) to give us the lowdown on the housing market in these parts.

The bottom line: If everything comes together, we just might be able to sell our house for what we paid for it. Factoring in inflation, we'll lose money. That's a gut punch, especially given the update money we've poured into it over the past six years.

Michigan is the only State in the Union currently in recession. It's bad enough now, but if Ford can't pull out of its death spiral, it's going to get very, very ugly.

A standing ovation.

For the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, who are raising funds to defend the passengers being sued by the flying imams in Minnesota.

[BTW, for those lacking shark fins: the listing of "John Does" is a legitimate procedural device used in civil rights cases when the identities of defendants are unknown at the time of filing. Discovery then identifies the offending parties, so some passengers are going to get sued, make no mistake. Nothing quite like using a lawsuit to bludgeon people into silence.]

This is of a piece with the Muslims who are appalled (another standing o) by the Three Little Puppies laugher in Merrie Olde Englande (since put on hold, I'm glad to report).

Solus Monaghan Gloriam.

Fr. Fessio has been fired by--and summarily evicted from the premises of--Ave Maria University.

And don't get me started about the whole law school fiasco. I know faculty and students at AMSoL, and they are both of high quality, academically and spiritually. Monaghan's making a fair bid to destroy the entire AM project with his behavior.

If you want to follow this story, keep up with the happy (OK, not always so happy) warriors at Fumare, who manage to find an ideal metaphor for Fessio's firing (note that they aren't big fans of the Jesuit Father themselves).

Memo to self: never entrust your future to whimsical billionaires.

Sign of the times.

When respectfully standing up for traditional marriage in your spare time is remotely controversial, Yeats starts echoing in the distance.

Good for Coach Dungy.

All aboard!

OK--who's going to the Detroit Catholic Men's Conference this weekend? nudgecough Matt? coughcough Anyone? Bueller?

It's always a good experience, with Charismatic preaching and Traditional piety (last year featured a 20 minute procession of the Blessed Sacrament in a gold Papal monstrance accompanied by singing in Latin, if that gives you any indication).

This year's speakers are Bp. Robert "No, I don't 'grow seminarians like Sea Monkeys,' it just looks that way" Carlson, Ralph Martin and Fr. John Riccardo and his father, John Riccardo. Not a clunker in the bunch, and there never have been. No Richard Rohr manhood-as-perpetual-weeniedom, no dissenters on perpetual nostalgia trips to 1976, none of that. The Archdiocese has its share of problems, but the men's and women's conferences are first-rate productions that serve up Catholicism straight and undiluted.

If you can, go.

My moment of uncontrolled nervous hysterical laughter.

And by "moment," I mean "one half hour."

Heather, in a stunning display of impudence, is reporting signs of nausea.

Remember that moment in Hoosiers where Gene Hackman's Coach gets thrown out of the game, leaving Dennis Hopper's Shooter, the hapless town drunk with basketball smarts, in charge of the team?

Remember the "deer in the headlights" look Shooter had? Remember him going fetal?

I'm Shooter--glad to meet you.

Irony, n.

Heather takes The Boy to his annual Well Child checkup and he horks in the wastebasket in the lobby as she's signing him in.

All aboard to Chunder City!

Doing better.


Yesterday I was just about normal--for me. Which was good, seeing as we had to assemble the bunkbed I purchased for the older two on Saturday, when I was more a zombie. Fortunately, my braaaiiiinsssss-starved brain still had good judgment, as I picked up a nice steel frame model from IKEA (more about that store later). It also may have to stay with the house when we move--I'm not sure how disassemble-friendly it is.



Maddie may have caught model-fever, too. Though it's even money whether she's just jealous of her brother's work with Dad on the armored car. In any event, I promised her we'd go to the hobby store to get her a kit, too. She wanted a "battleship," having heard me talk about my first model kit. This is what she had me get, also on Saturday:

She's a little unclear on the ship class concept, but I have to admit it is a ship designed for battle (it's the same type of ship as the tragic Sheffield). She also turned down my efforts to interest her in the North Carolina and the New Jersey ("Honey--these are battleships--and American, too!"). But another thing in the plus column is that she didn't glom onto another piece of German military hardware. Good--the Sceptred-Isle blood's still showing in one of them.

That said, it's considerably trickier than the Puma--this one is turning into a boot camp for Dad's fine motor skills. I'll let you know how it goes.

Sunday, I picked up a couple of discontinued (read: deeply-discounted) Serta mattresses for the bunkbed, which should serve them well, too. Got to stretch that tax return a little further. The new bed also necessitated the disassembly of the toddler beds (one of which is for sale along with the mattress and a mattress pad--hint, hint, if you're in the Metro Detroit area. Use the email if you're interested). Heather became misty as the toddler beds vanished--I'm sure she'll blog on that, when she gets a chance.

The downside: the kids have caught what I had. Maddie barfed up her dinner on Friday night, and Rachel had a worse case last night. We spend a lovely two hours dealing with everything from the chunky industrial-waste stuff to near-dry heaves. She was a very brave and uncomplaining little girl throughout. No crying and almost no complaints. She's feeling better this morning, albeit with a little "hurt" stomach. No "throw-ups" yet, fortunately. We're waiting for the other shoe to drop with the lad, too. That will complete the course through the family, what with Mom being barred from getting sick by Medes-and-Persians style unalterable patriarchal edict. If she gets bedridden, the house burns down. I even delivered the proclamation in Full Yul Mode: "So let it be written, so let it be done."

Hey, it's worked so far.

Catching up.

I've been out of town, sick (as in "you talk about puke...") and busy with house-related stuff. Going to be more busy tomorrow.

Heather had a drunk show up on our back porch in broad daylight while I was gone, but managed to address the problem in a far more Christian fashion than I would have. The drunk's guardian angel earned hazard pay for that one, I'd imagine.

Oh, and I finally saw an episode of Rome--good stuff, indeed--thanks for the heads-up, Rich. Too bad it's getting cancelled.

Helpful unsolicited advice.

Read and enjoy Roman liturgy documents. Quote them. Use them to teach your children.

But never, ever, ever get excited about them. You aren't implementing them.

These guys are.

Hate to be the bucket of cold water, but there you are.

Blogging help requested.

Anybody who can help me reactivate my archives under the Novus Blogger system will earn my gratitude. Additionally, you will enjoy the satisfaction that can only come from helping someone with their problem.

And you just might save a kitten from a horrible, horrible fate:

Because I'm sure not going to pay anyone for it...

Thank you, Franklin Jennings!

Your suggestion on decal preparation for The Boy's armored car saved me three non-drooling years at the end of my life. [And just between you and me, I'm not exactly "wiry." I was a DT in high school, if that points you in the right direction.]

Still, it was a little frustrating at times. Lots of people talking, few of them know, on a 1/72 scale model decals were created below.

But the overall result was pretty good, actually.

The PC Police and the public domain.

As I was thumbing through the OCP missalette yesterday to find the closing song, I stumbled across a classic, Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring.

Not quite, of course. The presence of the word "Man's" would send some strong and empowered graduate of a nearby womyn's studies program into weepy fit.

[As an aside, isn't ironic that, far from creating truly proud and resilient people, the "[Group] Studies" programs have instead created intellectual celiacs incapacitated by the slightest irritant? Just a thought.]

And the good folks at OCP are only to happy to appease such imagined slights. It's now "Jesu, Joy of Our Desiring." The long-dead can't sue. Of course, the bleakly humorous reality is that the bowdlerizing doesn't lead to the songs being sung any more often. Even the celiacs can see it for the Newspeak that it is.

Finally, good news from St. Blog's.

Melanie and Dom Bettinelli have cause for optimism: the biopsy showed no cancer.

The Pawlaks are the proud parents of a bouncing baby boy, Charles John. The early photos reveal that CJ has adjusted to the new residence with a lordly grace.

Freeman Hunt and her husband also have a new boy, Toshiro Donovan. TD has a look common to newborns, the "I'm not expected to remember names yet, right?"

Colossal. Earth-shaking.

Use whatever epochal language you like, but this is a big one:

The Federal appeals court for the D.C. Circuit just struck down the District of Columbia's gun ban on Second Amendment grounds.

Watch this one--as the Volokh Report notes here, the political implications are wide-ranging.

BTW, it's not the first time a federal court has held in favor of the individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment (it has started trending that way), but this is the first time legislation has been voided by a court on these grounds.

This is a story to follow, folks.

Ick is not enough.

A German brother and sister are battling to have the nation's anti-incest law overturned. As an aside, I enjoy the BBC's "forbidden love" spin. A heads up to my British readers (if any): My deep-rooted pro-British sentiment (the mother country, and all that) is waning.

When you bar moral considerations from the scale, look how badly the law's defender's fare. Yes, yes--it's the Beeb, which means that the article is tilted. But the pragmatic dog won't hunt for long. Genetics--well, Hell, our Scientific Messiahs will have the embryonic wonder cure for that, soon enough. Just keep the taxpayer money flowing. In any event, it doesn't apply here because our Misunderstood Male Hero-Victim of Outmoded Social Mores had himself snipped back in 2004.

The most corrosive aspect of the Goodridge decision in Massachusetts is that it explicitly pooh-poohed children as a factor in its analysis. It's all about the mutual comfort of the couples themselves, and Stuebing and Karolewski are harmonizing that line perfectly.

For more fun, take a look at a thread on an older version of this story at Dean's World, and watch the tergiversations as the secular libertarians try--and fail--to draw a line against it. Or outright shrug it off.

Compare and contrast.

(1) The British are terrified of Frankenfood, which has human genetic material (cue Heston).

(2) But they are demanding Frankenstein be allowed to create human/animal hybrids that are 99.9% human. For spare parts, what what. "It's science!" barks Ron Burgundy.

Ingesting (1) is ungood. Ungoodthink. Injecting (2) is doubleplusgood, we bellyfeel.

I am certain God's favorite form of humor is irony. Otherwise, we wouldn't see so much of it.

We can live beside the ocean/
Leave the fire behind/
Swim out past the breakers/
Watch the world die...

H/t to Bill for the first link, Hilary for the second.

Prayers for the Bettinellis.

Going through another trial.

You have ours.

Time to Rudy down...

Jay Anderson has more info about Mayor Giuliani's judicial selections, shooting down any excuses for his failure to appoint the "strict constructionists" he claims to love:

The point Dale makes is one that Ted Olsen tried to make at CPAC. The Politico ran a rebuttal noting that Rudy picked the panel, and actually bucked the panel whenever he thought corruption was involved in a pick. The Politico also noted that Rudy had no problem tangling with other panels over which he had LESS control than the judicial panel.

Politico link here.

Watching Bill Simon, Ted Olson and other rock-ribbed conservatives try to spin the Mayor into something he's not is beginning to give me vertigo. More than a little like watching a barbershop quartet trying to cover Nine Inch Nails, in fact.

["It's not that shocking when you hear it like this:

(Harmonizing) '....from the innnnsiiiiiiiiiiiide....'"]

Got the Rudy Fever?

Nope--not catching it.

Still not (though there's something of a caveat on this, as I noted in the comments [Update: now part of the body of the post, many thanks!]).

If you want an antidote to the swoonfest over the former mayor of New York, I recommend PowersPoint, a moderately liberal blog that doesn't pretend the Left is infallible or immaculate.

Run by Kirsten Powers, it also has other contributors who have jointly managed to compile an interesting set of links on Mr. Giuliani.

Look, I can appreciate his good features, but the GOP is basically asking the SoCons to sell their soul for...what? Judicial appointments that may or may not pan out? That's pretty much all he's hinting at.

And don't get me started on the Catholic angle, either--he threatens to make Kerry look good, for the love of Pete.

Don't sign me up.

It's a boomlet, and it will pass. Because if it doesn't, it looks like I'm leaving the top part of the ballot unmarked in '08.

New blog alert!

So fresh from the oven the Sitemeter read 13 when I got there:

Recapturing Our Catholic Patrimony, by Peter and Sarah Park.

The first post gives you the flavor:

After a hosting a Lenten Discussion Series in 2005, my wife, Sarah, and I, by the grace of God, started a study series that examined the often overlooked Church documents that came before the Second Vatican Council. These documents contained much of the traditional teachings of the Church which seemed to have been lost in my Catholic education throughout high school and college. We named the group "RCP" - Recapturing Our Catholic Patrimony in light of Pope Benedict XVI’s 2005 Christmas message to the Curia. Each week we invite members of the local Catholic community in Houston to our home for a family dinner, fellowship, and a look at the teachings of the Church through the lens of tradition. We have a core group of about 12 regulars each week, growing bit by bit as RCP is made known by word of mouth.

Looks like it will be very worthwhile--and it comes with the imprimatur of EvilSteve and EvilHilary, too. What more could you want?

Courage Man has been blogging up a storm.

Great posts on:

(1) the slow strangulation of religious freedom in Great Britain (coming soon to the U.S. outside of Massachusetts);

(2) Thoughts about gay outreach Masses;

(3) and finally, an Andrew Sullivan aesthetic atrocity.

And, many thanks, CM, for the "born children" reference. Brought tears to our eyes--but in a good way.

The Boy™ and I built our first model.



An Italeri 1/35 scale [Oops--Sudden Onset of Illiteracy--it's a 1/72] mock-up of this little number, the Sd. Kfz. 234/2 Puma armored car:




It was his choice--a birthday present. He was jonesing to go back to the hobby store after getting a monster truck model last year, and the Puma makes perfect sense from his 4 year old perspective: it's a wheeled vehicle that blows things up. I like the Italeri kit because it offers two approaches--detailed and wargamer. The detailed version is just that--more historically accurate. However, the kit advises that this method is much more complicated and fragile. Given that it's been forever since I've assembled a model that involved glue, I picked "wargamer" in a heartbeat. Good call, dad. It's held up pretty well so far. Now all we have to do is add the decals and paint it. We were going to do it today, but since he broke the cannon (I fixed it), I told him he'd have to wait.


Now the only problem is that he wants to take a spin in the real thing. And Maddie wants in on the action--except that she's gunning for a battleship. She overheard me telling Dale that my first model was a BB--the U.S.S. Massachusetts, in fact.


And so it begins.

Well, that's cast a gloom over the evening.

Michigan couple has body parts delivered to house.

"My husband started to unwrap one and said, 'This is strange, it looks like a liver,'" Ludivine Larmande said. "He started the second one, but stopped as soon as we saw the ear.
Something wasn't right."

Um...that's it?

[GALACTICA SPOILER WARNING]














I trust the creators, but that's a pretty bleak and pointless end for Starbuck, for all the buildup. Her "destiny" is to be air pollution?

Anybody got anything?

What does anyone really expect from Coulter, anyway?

About once a year, she says something inexcusable from a high-profile, maximum-publicity pulpit. Coincidence? She cares as much about the impact she has on conservatives as a hurricane does about property values.

The outrage is in large measure appropriate, though part of me thinks it's mighty convenient. Many of the people currently in high dudgeon still think "godbag" is high-larious.

With that in mind, I have the perfect response for GOP candidates, personally approved by John Edwards himself:

The tone and the sentiment of some of Ann Coulter's comments personally offended me. It's not how I talk to people, and it's not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign, whether it's intended as satire, humor, or anything else. But I also believe in giving everyone a fair shake. I've talked to Ann; she has assured me that it was never her intention to malign anyone's sexuality, and I take her at her word. We're beginning a great debate about the future of our country, and we can't let it be hijacked. It will take discipline, focus, and courage to build the America we believe in.

Finally: Someone asking hard questions about a cherished myth.

Was the Death Star Attack an Inside Job?

Sure--some speeder-driving farm boy destroys the ultimate power in the universe. Riiiiiiight.

Oh, and more uncomfortable questions about the Death Star attack [do not miss the quotes in the combox, either]. You can't handle the truth.

I haven't been so excited since "Dio 2004."

Christopher Walken in '08.

Just imagine the negotiations with the Iranians:

That smarts, doesn't it? Getting slammed in the nose. F___ you all up. You get that pain shootin' through your brain, your eyes fill up with water.

That ain't any kind of fun, but what I have to offer you, that's as good as it's gonna get. And it won't ever get that good again.

We talked to your neighbors. They saw a reactor. Weapons-grade. Your reactor, and a whole bunch of delivery systems, buried in your desert. Mahmood, you seen your nukes?