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Friday, March 19, 2004

An Odd Name for a Church

St. Mary's Baptist Church. Guess they try to offer the best of both worlds.
McNewspaper Accuses Former Employee of Making Things Up

Hard to imagine that a five time Pulitzer Prize nominee would do such a thing, but who knows.

USA Today said Friday that an examination of the work of journalist Jack Kelley found strong evidence that the newspaper's former star foreign correspondent had fabricated substantial portions of at least eight major stories.

"As an institution, we failed our readers by not recognizing Jack Kelley's problems. For that I apologize," publisher Craig Moon said.

After spending seven weeks closely examining Kelley's work, a team of journalists also found that Kelley had lifted quotes or other material from competing publications, lied in speeches he delivered for USA Today and conspired to mislead the investigation into his work.
Speaking of Recusal Requests

Because of her affiliation with NOW, Justice Ruth "Buzzie" Ginsberg is formally asked by thirteen GOP members of Congress to recuse herself from any future cases dealing with abortion. (news link via Amy Welborn)
Scalia to Sierra Club: Up Yours!

From Peter Robinson at The Corner:

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has denied the Sierra Club's ridiculous motion that he recuse himself in the Club's case against Vice President Cheney. To wit:

"The question, simply put, is whether someone who thought I could decide this case impartially despite my friendship with the Vice President would reasonably believe that I cannot decide it impartially because I went hunting with that friend and accepted an invitation to fly there with him on a Government plane. If it is reasonable to think that a Supreme Court Justice can be bought so cheap, the Nation is in deeper trouble than I had imagined."

Thursday, March 18, 2004

Speaking of Beating Up on the Boy Scouts

The Federal government has been prohibited from submitting a "friend of the Court" brief in support of the Boy Scouts in a case involving the Boy Scouts' loss of a park lease in the City of San Diego.
Going Against the Currnet or Political Correctness Forerunner?

I attended my first San Francisco Catholic Professional and Business Club breakfast meeting today, and the featured speaker was a Franciscan brother who had previously spent over 30 years as a succesful Bay Area executive with Bank of America. His talk mostly centered on the joy he has experienced in doing community service and volunteer work (e.g., assisting Bay Area AIDS patients and manning suicide hotlines), and how that joy eventually led him into joining a religious order within the Church.

In general, the talk was ok. It would have been a lot better for me, though, if this former executive hadn't felt the need to briefly disclose how proud he had been of Bank of America when it decided several years ago to stop giving charitable contributions to the Boy Scouts over its policy of discriminating against inidviduals who openly practice homosexuality. "Going against the current" was how he described B of A's decision. I tell you, I almost lost it. Given the number of beatings that the Boy Scouts incur today in both the media and courts over their upholding of traditional moral values, I felt like standing up and rhetorically asking Mr. Franciscan brother, who by the way is also a divorcee, if he was sure he didn't mean B of A was a forerunner of secular political correctness. But since doing so would have been rude, and calling him out on his apparent okayness with homosexual behavior during the Q&A session probably would have resulted in me getting into arguments with every other person in the room (this IS San Francisco) I refrained.

Hopefully, next month's speaker won't say anything that's, well, stupid. Otherwise, my membership in this club is going to be one excruciating experience.
Academics Making Things Up. This is a Surprise?

A professor at Claremont McKenna College is seen vandalizing her own car before falsely reporting the damage as a hate crime.

The incident prompted all five of the Claremont Colleges to cancel classes March 10 for teach-ins and rallies against hate crimes. More than 1,000 people attended an evening rally at Claremont McKenna, where students pushed for racial and ethnic tolerance and Dunn was one of the speakers.

"Very admirably, the college community came together," Claremont McKenna President Pamela Gann said. "But to have within the community someone who is part of the investigation and questioned is repulsive to the values of the community."

Along with the vandalism, Dunn reported $1,700 in property missing from her car. The epithets on Dunn's car included derogatory remarks about blacks and Jews.

Police said Wednesday that Dunn could be charged with filing a false police report but said it was unlikely that she would be charged herself with a hate crime.

Tuesday, March 16, 2004

Chronicle Reporters Biased? Naaaa, Really?!

Two lesbian SF Chronicle journalists who "married" each other are taken off the same-sex "marriage" story at City Hall in order to avoid a "potential" conflict of interest. And if you actually believe the Chronicle is objective in its news commentary reporting, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.
Cold Feet

South Dakota's proposed banning of nearly all abortions fails by 1 vote.

The defeat of the bill, after the governor's recommended changes had passed the House 52-16, left several abortion opponents in the Senate gallery shaking their heads and an advocate of abortion rights smiling as the 17-18 vote tally was read.

A count of 18 was necessary to agree with the style-and-form veto.

"This just hurts; it's terrible," said Leslee Unruh, founder of the Alpha Center in Sioux Falls and an abortion opponent. "Women from across the country have called for this bill to be passed."
Newsflash: Kerry Hates Children

Although, his opposition to the Unborn Victims Act is consistent with his position that women should have the right to kill their children in the womb. BTW, anyone know if Kerry is "personally" against abortion?

Monday, March 15, 2004

Too Bad He Isn't a Catholic Priest

Another SoCal faith community files a lawsuit against a city for allgedly violating its rights under RLUIPA.

When his congregation withered to only 12 and the collection plate returned nearly empty, Pastor Andrew Derek Anunciation figured it was time for action.

For more than two years, his tiny congregation at Praise Christian Center has held services outdoors in a Huntington Beach industrial lot amid an ongoing dispute with City Hall.

Anunciation believes the city has been standing squarely in the way of moving the church into a converted warehouse by requiring numerous — and expensive — permits and upgrades.

"People have called me a radical and other names. But we feel like what we've been going through is a storm," Anunciation said.

"And we're not doing this just for our tiny church, but for other religious groups too."

The church filed a federal lawsuit in October, alleging, among other things, that the city was violating its religious freedom. This tack makes tiny Praise Christian part of a growing legal battle between church and state.

More than three dozen mega-churches, colleges and synagogues in the state are fighting government regulations and zoning laws that they feel violate the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000.

The act is designed to give churches a tool for clearing away onerous government restrictions.

Sunday, March 14, 2004

Rumor Mill: Gibson May Make a Movie About the Maccabees

Since neither Maccabees books are in Protestant bibles, I'd be interested to see how Gibson, if he makes the movie, would market it to Evangelicals. And I wish Abe Foxman would just shut his liberal anti-Christian pie hole. (news link via Relapsed Catholic)

"The way he treats history, with a cherry picker of that which fits his ideology or view, is not the way I would like the world to learn about the heroism of the Maccabees or Bar Kochba. So, thanks but no thanks."

Yeah Abe. Mel Gibson is a real historical revisionist for failing to express your apparent belief that there were absolutely no Jews involved in Christ's crucifixion. Oh look, the Easter Bunny!