My Changing Views of Catholics and Catholicism

Tonight’s podcast posted on David Oatney and the way my view of Catholics and Catholicism:

Part One
Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

A Great Blog

I’ve added some thing to my Blog Log and I wanted to bring your attention to the absolutely hilarious satire at Blame Bush: Because Bush is to Blame for Everything by Larry Chomstein (probably not his real name).

Here are some excepts of his work:

Mom and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms. Ever since I refused to pay her way to Crawford so she could erect a cross in my honor, she’s been giving me the silent treatment. But the piercing screech blaring out of the TV last night was as familiar as a cat in a microwave. A small orange tabby, to be precise. And though I’ve never forgiven her for it, her appearance on the evening news made me beam with pride.

“Bush murdered my son,” she tearfully wheezed into the camera. “He murdered him for no other reason than to steal Iraq’s oil the way he stole the election. Click here to learn more. I’ll never get my Larry back, but I can fight to insure that no more working families have to bury their children – many of whom don’t even make a Living Wage thanks to Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent. Click here to learn more. If the Shrub really does care about our troops likes his PR people say, then he’ll stop the killing. He’ll be a uniter, not a divider, and call for the immediate withdrawal of all our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, the removal of all Jews from Israel, and an end to imperialist U.S. aggression abroad. Oh, and the legalization of marijuana.”

Lacking funds for her trip, Mom had apparently made some minor “revisions” to her travel plans. Instead of Bush’s Crawford Ranch, she was now camped out in front of Bush Garden Japanese Restaurant in downtown Seattle. But while the location had changed, her message remained the same: Bush is evil. Now, in the ninth day of her courageous vigil, the local media had taken notice, and Mom’s bloated visage was all over the six o’clock news.

The guy is funny. Its a great piece of satire and I tip my hat to him.

Fluorescent Bulbs

Well, I’m doing something environmentally friendly and saving myself a load of cash. At the suggestion of my father-in-law, I’ve begun replacing my old bulbs with newer fluorescent bulbs which take a lot less energy. The bulbs I’ve been buying basically take 1/4 of the Watts of normal light bulbs and give off less heat, so its a little cooler and the lights are actually brighter.

In the short-term, its going to be a little chunk of change, the bulbs run about 3 for $9.50 at Wal-Mart, so they’re not cheap, but they’re guaranteed to last 5 years, so won’t have to replace them, plus they’ll take less than a quarter of the electricity. I plan to buy 3 bulbs a month and slowly phase out the old lamps from my house.

I’ll still keep the old bulbs for some lights. I’ve got at least one lamp in the house, we almost never use and I can’t see putting a bulb someplace where it won’t be used when its a very expensive light bulb.

Anyway, save yourself some money, cut your power bills, and send the money to help your favorite cause.

Good News on Roberts

After word of Roberts working for homosexuals and for playboy, we get some good news on the good judge. He appears to have some very strong Conservative leanings. According to the AP he described abortion as a “tragedy” and expressed support for school prayer. It does give an idea that Bush had reason to think he’ll be good and so should we. We need to be careful on judging by anything he did in that past. Roger Taney represented a Methodist minister charged with starting a slave insurrection and freed all of his slaves but still wrote The Dred Scott Decision. So nothing we know about the candidate will tell us what he’ll do on the court.

Day of Wrath, O Day of Mourning

A Man of Conscience Passes…

The Lincoln Journal-Star reports on the death of Judge Joseph Moylan. Moylan resigned from the court a decade ago when presented with a case with a minor requesting a waiver of parental notification:

Gretchen Moylan said her husband had reviewed the law, and his notes said:

“By the time I was assigned a case in August 1993 … I knew what I had to do.”

Said Moylan at the time: “My personal belief is that someday we’ll all meet at the final judgment and give an accounting of our lives. I’ve got a lot of things I wish I didn’t have to account for, and I don’t care to add something like this to the list.”

The guy was obedient to his conscience. This is a rarity in our political and judicial world. Rest in Peace, may the Lord God comfort His family in this time of sorrow.

A Nice Podcast

My friend David Oatney did a nice little audio blog/podcast on our conversation. It was a very nice piece and I said a little bit about David tonight, but I’ll have more to say in tomorrow night’s podcast.

Anyway, take a listen, it was just some very kind things he had to say:

Adam Graham, etc