Blogworthies LII

Because The Blog from the Core simply can't cover everything.

Noteworthy entries @ Power Line, Armavirumque, small dead animals, Clarity & Resolve, A Western Heart, The Corner, Silflay Hraka, Catholic Analysis, Discriminations, Lead and Gold, Recta Ratio, Wittingshire, Wizbang, Belmont Club, Jihad Watch, Pontifications, Rightwingsparkle, Dust in the Light, Lex Communis, ScrappleFace, Althouse, IowaHawk, Instapundit.com, Belmont Club (again), and Shrine of the Holy Whapping.

The Blogworthies series is one year old this week!

We Reply to the Star Tribune @ Power Line:

We sent this column to the Minneapolis Star Tribune yesterday, in response to the attack on us which they printed on Monday: ....

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity @ Armavirumque:

In 1859, two revolutionary books were published. One was Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. The other was John Stuart Mill's pamphlet On Liberty. Darwin's book revolutionized biology and fundamentally altered the debate between science and religion. Mill's book revolutionized the way we think about innovation in social and moral life.

What is your opinion of innovation? Do you think it is a good thing? Of course you do. You may or may not have read Mill on the subject, but you have absorbed his lessons. What about established opinion, customary ways of doing things? Do you suspect that they should be challenged and probably changed? Odds are that you do. Mill has taught you that, too, even if you have never read a line of On Liberty....

And So It Begins @ small dead animals:

.... I hold no particular religious beliefs. My support for preserving the traditional definition of marriage is rooted in basic anthropology and solidified by a suspicion that same-sex marriage has more to do with forwarding the agenda of the extreme left than it does with concerns about minority rights. If minority rights were truly the issue at stake, there would be full-out legislative war between the Federal Government and province of Quebec over minority language rights.

The secular left advancing same-sex marriage legislation in Canada purports to have a deep commitment to protecting religious freedom from erosion by homosexual rights advocacy. In reality, that commitment amounts to little more than a winking promise to allow people to "believe in something that doesn't exist"....

Political Correctness = Denial of Reality @ Clarity & Resolve:

In a juxtaposition of the day and night worlds of Western culture and the Palestinian Arab culture of death, a provocative newspaper ad featuring pictures of two young girls from each has just been pulled from American newspapers....

**WORLD EXCLUSIVE!!** Superhero, tank threatened... @ A Western Heart:

In what has become an increasingly dark day for Coalition forces in Iraq, A Western Heart has just learned that forces loyal to terror mastermind Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi have captured Gotham City crimefighter Bruce Wayne/Batman, and are threatening him with death via M1 Garand, photon torpedo, and Tyrannosaurus Rex if all Iraqi prisoners — including former President Saddam Hussein — are not released within 72 hours....

Iraqi Elections @ The Corner:

Maybe I am mistaken, but I sense that the reactions to the Iraqi elections — good and bad, including even those on The Corner — don't come near to reflecting its significance. This is an event like Dien Bien Phu or the collapse of the Berlin Wall. It marks a turning point in history. It changes the future, of course, but it also changes the past. As the plainly angry and frustrated responses of the Left demonstrate, it places the entire Iraq adventure in a better and more optimistic light. It gives legitimacy to the wider democracy project. And it challenges the passionate belief (passionate because not wholly believed) of the UN-EU-Third World-Davos world establishment that history is tending inevitably in their direction: namely, towards "governance" by a non-democratic confederation of elites....

Some Pigs Are More Diverse Than Others @ Silflay Hraka:

Compiled from wire reports.

"The lifeblood of any strong university is its diversity of ideas which allows for the environment necessary to educate and train young learners and advance the boundaries of knowledge," said a statement released Tuesday by university spokesman Peter Caughey. "Debate is a fundamental characteristic of a university."

The university's Board of Regents planned to meet in an emergency session Thursday to discuss Churchill, who resigned as chairman of the university's department of ethnic studies this week.

Also under discussion will be the new CU effort to diversify various departments, among them the besieged ethnic studies department....

Barclay's Flesh and Spirit @ Catholic Analysis:

Today, I would like to give a brief review of biblical scholar William Barclay's small book Flesh and Spirit: An Examination of Galatians 5:19-23 (Abingdon Press, 1962) (127 pp.). Barclay was a professor of divinity and biblical criticism at the University of Glasgow and a clergyman in the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian). Many of you have probably seen his many other books at your local bookstore....

The New York Times: A Serial Serial Comma Offender @ Discriminations:

One of the mixed race South African yachtsmen described in the New York Times article I discussed in the post immediately below

hung with gangs and watched men die on the streets. When he was 8 a classmate stabbed him. When he was 14 he was arrested for beating a high-school teacher.

Today, 19-year-old Marcello Burricks helps trim the mainsail on a 25meter racing yacht in this city's stunning Table Bay. The only people he wants to beat are Larry Ellison, Ernesto Bertarelli and a host of other billionaires in the next America's Cup.

I mention this here not to bring attention to the criminal conditions Mr. Burricks overcame but to the New York Times's current, continuing, and grammatically criminal offense of refusing to use the serial comma....

Give us science, but not too much @ Lead and Gold:

This Weekly Standard piece is shocking without being surprising. We've known for years that Alfred Kinsey and his cult winked at pedophilia and treated criminals as unbiased researchers. Their work was fraudulent from beginning to end....

Annulments @ Recta Ratio:

.... Not every marriage that breaks down is invalid. Given the careful preparation of most Catholic marriages today, it takes a lot of stretching of the circumstances that existed at the time of the marriage to declare a Catholic marriage invalid. The tribunals really have been looking for a reason to grant the annulments to grant the huge percentage that they have granted for the last 30 years.

Some 90% of petitions are still granted in the US, Canada, and Western Europe. This is a shameful state of affairs, and anyone who takes advantage of it is participating in the sin and scandal of a too-lenient clerisy, rather like all those folks just before the Reformation who bought indulgences and thought they were going to Heaven....

Eternity Set in Our Hearts @ Wittingshire:

I wasn't going to write about this — mainly because I found it too disturbing — but Joe Carter has written a post about it, so I'll go ahead....

"Bush lied, people died:" A look at Iraq and the WMD issue @ Wizbang:

"Bush lied, people died" has become a mantra among opponents of the war, in reference to Iraq's possession or non-possession of weapons of mass destruction. I think it's long past time this allegation has been given a thorough scrutiny....

The Insurgency Revisited @ Belmont Club:

Dan Darling links to an analytic piece by Newsweek on the origins of the Iraqi insurgency, some aspects of which resemble an old Belmont Club post, which I have juxtaposed for comparison. Here are some of the similarities with the Newsweek article....

Fitzgerald: Persecution of Christians in the Muslim world @ Jihad Watch:

The Vice President of the Jihad Watch Board of Advisors, Hugh Fitzgerald, on ongoing persecution and discrimination against non-Muslims in the Islamic world: ....

From Lutheran to Catholic @ Pontifications:

After a year and a half as a Catholic and three semesters in a Catholic seminary there is a lot that I could say. I could say that I have no regrets, and that would surely be true. I might confess to still enjoying a certain sense of relief in leaving behind the struggle to be Church in a body (The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) which wanted to be nothing more than a denomination. It is good to be where Church teaching actually corresponds to the Christian tradition and not to have to fight for such basics as marriage, the liturgy or the episcopate....

One of the advantages of going to elaborate galas,... @ Rightwingsparkle:

... other than dressing up real pretty, is being able to hear amazing speakers and getting to meet them. Saturday night we went to The Annual Wildcatter's Ball. The Speaker was James Baker, former Reagan Chief of Staff, Bush Senior's Sec. Of State, and later Bush Senior's Chief of Staff as well. These are just a few things he has accomplished. Here is his full biography. I know he took a lot of heat during the Reagan years, but what I remember most about him is his strength and dignity during the 2000 election mess. After the dinner I got to meet him and tell him how much I appreciated that....

The Impossibility of Discrete Policies @ Dust in the Light:

On my list of intended posts is a response to some comment-section speculation about why folks would spend so much time opposing same-sex marriage — or any other aspect of the "gay rights" movement, for that matter. The insinuation is that the interest is peculiar unless there's some hidden motivation of the sort in which Freudians specialize....

PoMo Rhetoric. @ Lex Communis:

Watching C-SPAN 2 this weekend, I was introduced to the "academic bad writing" award, which in 1998 was "won" by Judith Butler, a leading feminist professor of Rhetoric, for this gem: ....

Iraqi Voting Disrupts News Reports of Bombing @ ScrappleFace:

News reports of terrorist bombings in Iraq were marred Sunday by shocking graphic images of Iraqi "insurgents" voting by the millions in their first free democratic election....

Quick, change that headline! @ Althouse:

Earlier today, I commented on the somewhat positive NYT headlines here, including one that said "Amid Attacks, a Party Atmosphere on Baghdad's Closed Streets." That article was picked up by Memeorandum, which collects blog commentary on it: a lot of prominent bloggers have observed that even the NYT is acknowledging the great success. Then, I clicked on the link for the article and the headline is now....

It Is Finally Time To Exit The Oldsmobile @ IowaHawk (emphasis in original):

Iowahawk Guest Commentary by Senator Edward M. Kennedy

Like all Americans, I had high hopes for the future of the Oldsmobile and its passengers, as we struggle against the onrushing water and its poorly-designed shoulder belts. But as claustrophobia sets in we must begin to sober up and face the truth: hope is no longer an option....

Hate-Filled Stupidity From Left-Leaning Academics Isn't News... @ Instapundit.com:

... anymore, which is why I haven't been paying much attention to the story of Colorado professor Ward Churchill's comparison of 9/11 victims to Eichmann....

A Trip Down Memory Hole Lane @ Belmont Club:

Mary Madigan at Michael Totten's site adds another nuance to our understanding of George Orwell's 'memory hole' concept. She reminds us that the practice of obliterating the past in order to leave the field clear for the seeds of new thought is an ancient practice. Her example is the Wahabi destruction of history....

On Kissing Bishops' Rings and Women's Hands @ Shrine of the Holy Whapping:

.... Our age suffers, I believe, from a surfeit of misplaced humility. This comes as no surprise — I believe it was Chesterton who said that in the end most vices are merely virtues run riot, divorced from the intricate web of checks and balances which governs Christian morality. The modern vestment industry banks on it as a clear-cut fact. Priests are too timid to wear the gorgeous pomp of their office....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 02/05/05 08:05:17 AM
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