Blogworthies LXXI

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

Noteworthy entries @ BeldarBlog, JimmyAkin.Org, The Curt Jester, The Conservative Philosopher, GetReligion, Hoystory.com, Sir Humphrey's (twice), Gateway Pundit, The Buck Stops Here, Dappled Things, Evolution News & Views, Power Line, IowaHawk, and Cor ad cor loquitur.

A Westlaw romp through Harriet Miers' record @ BeldarBlog (italics in original):

Critics of SCOTUS nominee Harriet Miers make much of the fact that she hasn't argued a case in the United States Supreme Court. And in fact, they've been pretty harsh, some of them, in characterizing her record as a practicing lawyer.

What's up with that? Anything to it? Well, heck, let's find out — shall we? Ever since Al Gore invented the internet, we've been living in the Information Age, so let's get some information!...

Times Religion Correspondent Can Barely Keep From Swearing @ JimmyAkin.Org:

The religion correspondent for the Time of London — Ruth "I'm Too Dangerously Unqualified To Keep My Job" Gledhill — has given vent to her spleen again in another tantrum disguised as a news story....

Recruiting posters for the Church Militant @ The Curt Jester:

The Church is traditionally divided into the Church Militant (Ecclesia Militans), comprising Christians who are living, and the Church Triumphant (Ecclesia Triumphans), comprising those who are in Heaven, the Church Suffering (ecclesia penitens) or Church Expectant (ecclesia expectans), comprising those presently in Purgatory. Now as an ex-Navy Recruiter I thought hey why can't we have some of those snappy slogans often employed by the military in advertisement for the Church Militant? So I have taken some of those slogans I have remembered through the years and applied them for Church Militant recruitment purposes....

Metaphysics and morality @ The Conservative Philosopher:

There is a tendency in recent philosophy to assume that moral reasoning can be carried on more or less in isolation from controversial issues in metaphysics. The assumption is that questions about justice, rights, virtue, and vice can largely be settled independently of questions about, say, the nature of the mind and its relationship to the body, personal identity, or even the existence of God. Liberalism encourages this attitude, since it seeks a conception of justice that is “neutral” between competing religious and philosophical worldviews, and thus assumes that such a conception is out there waiting to be found. The motive for such a view is obvious: metaphysical questions are often so contentious and difficult to settle that it would be nice if we could get on in our practical affairs without having to settle them. It would be nice, that is to say, if we could decide what to believe about matters of right and wrong without having to decide what to believe about questions concerning the nature of ultimate reality. There is one problem with the view, however: it is manifestly false....

Welcome to How Harriet Got Religion Day @ GetReligion:

Oh what a glorious day for the politicos. Can’t you hear the clickity-click of fundraising consultants over at NOW and People for the American Way (SaveTheCourt.org), not to mention Concerned Women for America and Focus on the Family? You can hear the cheers on both sides of the Church-State Sanctuary aisle, can’t you?

Let a thousand conspiracy theories bloom. This has got to be the least boring, most GetReligion-friendly story to come down the pike since, well, Mel Gibson was on a roll. This story is everywhere today [Wed. Oct. 5], and I don’t see it going away anytime soon.

If you read the waves of MSM coverage today about Harriet “Born-Again Pro-Lifer” Miers, you can’t help but hear the journalistic wheels turning. Let’s spin out a few theories....

Finally @ Hoystory.com:

Today's [Thu. Oct. 6] New York Times finally runs an article on the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Commitee's illegal accesssing of Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele's credit report, more than two weeks after the story first broke.

But the article is really a case study on spin — how to provide all the facts, but mislead and obsfucate in order to protect their ideological friends. The story is written as a horse race piece and not a hard news crime/scandal piece. You don't find out that there is a criminal investigation until the seventh graf. Talk about burying the lede. Frankly, if a first year journalism student turned this into me they'd probably get a D. It's well written, but the story is out of order....

AP and Reuters photographer Bilal Hussein colludes with insurgents @ Sir Humphrey's:

This is both disgusting and absurd. I was flicking through a Yahoo Photos thread called "US Military" when I came across six photos of the same small group of 'insurgents' posing for the photographer. The photos originate from both Reuters and Associated Press and are dated October 3rd, 2005. Reuters attributes the photos to 'Stringer', while AP attributes them to 'Bilal Hussein'....

BBC uses propaganda video to claim rebels have taken control of several western Iraqi towns @ Sir Humphrey's:

The BBC is now running video from Ramadi containing the same locations, props and actors as described in our previous post on AP/Reuters photographer Bilal Hussein....

Sooner Bomber Wanted to Buy Ammonium Nitrate! @ Gateway Pundit:

** Evidence is mounting that Joel Henry Hinrichs III, the University of Oklahoma student who blew himself up 100 yards outside the Oklahoma-Kansas State Football Game on Saturday night, had bigger plans. Joel tried to purchase ammonium nitrate at a feed store late last week. Joel attended the Islamic mosque near his apartment, possibly the same mosque as Zacarias Moussaoui attended. His Pakistani roommate has not been seen by neighbors since the incident. The very volatile explosive Joel used is the same chemical that Shoe Bomber Richard Reid tried to use before his arrest. It is very rarely seen in the US and is called "Mother of Satan" by Islamic extremists. ** ....

Birth Control Crusaders @ The Buck Stops Here:

This was an interesting passage from Robert Coles' book Children of Crisis: A Study of Courage and Fear, originally published in 1964. The book is about "southern children and adults of both races and all persuasions as they act and react to the civil rights turmoil of the 1960s."

The following is a long quote from a black woman who was talking about the birth control crusaders who had tried to recruit her to the cause: ....

Sunday Homily: The Peace Which Passeth All Understanding @ Dappled Things:

Have you ever noticed how often we pray for peace during the Mass? Today's Collect, or opening prayer, asked for peace. We prayed for peace in the Gloria: et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. We'll pray for peace in our general intercessions. And again in the Eucharistic Prayer, then several times more in the prayers after the Our Father, together with the dona nobis pacem of the Agnus Dei. Add in the other prayers for freedom from disturbance and anxiety, and you can see that we are very concerned, and with good reason....

Robert Pennock Takes the Stand in Dover Trial @ Evolution News & Views (emphasis in original):

The third morning of Kitzmiller vs. Dover found philosopher of science Robert Pennock testifying for the plaintiffs that science is a search for natural explanations of natural phenomena — a limitation known as methodological naturalism (or methodological materialism).

Pennock presented this as the definition of science, and said proponents of intelligent design are “trying to overturn" it, but later he conceded that there was a controversy among philosophers of science concerning whether methodological naturalism was essential to the definition of science....

Behind the Headlines @ Power Line:

We have obtained copies of Scooter Libby's letter to Judith Miller dated September 15, 2005, in which he again urged her to testify before the grand jury, and repeated the waiver that he gave her more than a year ago; a letter dated September 16, 2005, from Libby's lawyer Joe Tate to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, expressing astonishment at the claim that Libby's purported failure to give a "voluntary" waiver was the reason why Miller remained in jail; and a letter dated September 29, 2005 — the day before yesterday — from Miller's former lawyer, Floyd Abrams, to Joe Tate, in which Abrams disputes Tate's account of their conversation of one year ago and claims that Libby really is the "source" on whose behalf Miller languished in prison. Here they are: ....

Rainforest Iowa: Right For America, Right For Puppies @ IowaHawk:

Hello everyone, this is David Burge. In my role as the internet’s ‘Iowahawk,’ it has been my privilege to entertain tens of readers like you around the globe with my quirky brand of wacky wisecracks, rib-tickling funny boners, and good ol' slapsticking ‘think-chucklers’ – or, as I call them, ‘thucklers.’

Yes, we’ve enjoyed a lot of wonderful thuckling together, you and I. But today, I’d like to take a moment to wipe off the greasepaint, put down the seltzer bottle, remove my baggy pants and bring your attention to a very important topic near and dear to my heart: the endangered Iowa rainforest....

150 Reasons Why I am a Catholic (Revised) @ Cor ad cor loquitur:

.... 1. Best One-Sentence Summary: I am convinced that the Catholic Church conforms much more closely to all of the biblical data, offers the only coherent view of the history of Christianity (i.e., Christian, apostolic Tradition), and possesses the most profound and sublime Christian morality, spirituality, social ethic, and philosophy.

2. Alternate: I am a Catholic because I sincerely believe, by virtue of much cumulative evidence, that Catholicism is true, and that the Catholic Church is the visible Church divinely-established by our Lord Jesus, against which the gates of hell cannot and will not prevail (Mt 16:18), thereby possessing an authority to which I feel bound in Christian duty to submit.

3. 2nd Alternate: I left Protestantism because it was seriously deficient in its interpretation of the Bible (e.g., "faith alone" and its missing many other "Catholic" doctrines — see evidences below), inconsistently selective in its espousal of various doctrines of Catholic Tradition (e.g., the canon of the Bible), inadequate in its ecclesiology, lacking a sensible view of Christian history (e.g., "Scripture alone"; ignorance or inconsistent understanding of development of doctrine), compromised morally (e.g., contraception, divorce), and unbiblically schismatic and (in effect, or logical reduction, if not always in actual belief) relativistic.

Disclaimer: I don't therefore believe that Protestantism is all bad (not by a long shot — indeed, I think it is a pretty good thing overall), but these are some of the major deficiencies I eventually saw as fatal to the "theory" of Protestantism, over against Catholicism. All Catholics must regard baptized, Nicene, Chalcedonian Protestants as Christians....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 10/08/05 08:28:14 AM
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