Obama: "We vow to prosecute Chechen terrorists, and offer them a two-state solution"

(Dissociated Press) President Obama announced today at a press conference that he intends to prosecute all the Chechen terrorists responsible for the Boston marathon bombing, and offer them the eastern half of the United States.

"We must not let this derail the peace process" the President intoned, pounding his fist softly on the podium. "The only path to peace in this conflict is compromise and mutual respect. Everyone-- especially Chechens-- has a right to self-determination."

The President insisted that the United States must abide by the same rules it lays out for its allies around the world.

"The road to peace with Chechnya is a long one, and we must not allow spontaneous man-caused disasters to derail our struggle for co-existence."

The President apologized to Chechens for the American settlements east of the Mississippi "which violate international law", and vowed to sit down at the negotiating table with the militants responsible for the Boston bombings.

The President has also promised not to allow the bombings to halt the billions of dollars in aid that the United States plans to send to Chechnya. "It's important the we keep the doors to peace open", the President said.

Puppy Love

Lib Tracy Clark-Flory asks: should bestiality be illegal?

The lawyers aren’t arguing that Romero necessarily has a right to sex with donkeys, or any other farm animals for that matter. They’re specifically targeting the language of Florida’s anti-bestiality law, which does not require proof that an animal has been harmed or “of the sexual activity being non-consensual,” or even of penetrative sexual contact. 

The attorneys write, “Therefore, the only possible rational basis for the statute is a moral objection to sexual acts considered deviant or downright ‘disgusting.’” And that, they argue, is unconstitutional: “The personal morals of the majority, whether based on religion or traditions, cannot be used as a reason to deprive a person of their personal liberties.” 

If, however, “the statute were to require sexual conduct with animals to be nonconsensual or to cause injury in order to be a crime, then perhaps the State would have a rational basis and legitimate state interest in enforcement,” they write.

It may be an opportunistic defense, sure, but it also brings up some interesting, if squirm-worthy, questions: Why should bestiality be illegal? Is it because it’s socially unacceptable or because it causes harm to animals? If it’s the latter, is it OK for people to have sexual contact with animals in cases where the animal isn’t harmed?

Right. In Lib-land, the Constitution prohibits law based on morality. The actual basis for this view is obscure-- an emanation from a penumbra presumably. 

This new Constitutional right is unlike all those silly Constitutional rights that conservatives make up, like the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. 

Bestial marriage is on the horizon. Marriage equality.

"I hope we forgot to kill him properly."

Sam Rocha, on Patheos:

Beyond Abortion: Gosnell and a New Dark Age

I avoided the Gosnell story... initially. The headlines seemed too fantastic to be the wholly true and the details I gleaned made my stomach turn. I tend to monitor stories like these from a distance to see if they stick. This one stuck, thanks to Twitter and Facebook. I’ve only been able to read two articles — from the Atlantic and Slate — on this gruesome crime, and I read them hastily, with a sense of disgust and despair. I also found this article from 2011 about Gosnell in the New York Times, which I scanned. 

There has been some media coverage out there all along, it turns out, but it is the question of degree and quality — and volume — that is highly suspect. Salon seems to think that we just don’t read enough alternative media, which is true, but that doesn’t address the primary concern. 

This event is different, but strangely related to Savita [Halappanavar] for me. What got me so worked up about Savita now has me depressed and despondent, senseless and void. Numb. 

Let me be clear: cultural despair is not the same thing, I think (I hope?), as theological despair. Hope against hope. 

Welcome to the dark ages. An age where darkness is not the result of widespread ignorance or circumstance or feudal folklore. No. This is a time of intentional darkness. 

The Enlightenment is over. The grand experiment of it all, the United States of America, has failed, miserably. We have nothing left but a futuristic fantasy that propels us into techno-economic nihilism. 

We’ll forget Gosnell soon enough. Just as we forgot about the last person who told us that we’re headed for cultural suicide. 

No one gives a shit. 

The press that didn’t forget and buried the story, for whatever reason, is perhaps more laudable. At least they did the work. At least they remembered to forget. The rest seems fine with the forgetting whatever it needs to continue the business of distracting and forgetting and, slowly, killing memory and feeling. 

Flesh without blood. No life. 

There is utility in selective memory: the only reason to remember Gosnell will be to forget about what happened and, instead, advance the cause of the tribal interests we all have to play with at some point. 

The issue here is not just abortion. I know many Catholics who scoff at the naive and impractical “whole cloth” approach to questions of life and human dignity, but without a holistic view of the matter, we miss the real scope of this particular atrocity. It is a spectacular ecology of perversity and filth. This an “issue” of race, poverty, abortion, women, infants, fatherhood, and even capital punishment (depending on the sentencing of Gosnell). 

It is also a simple case of cold blooded murder. It doesn’t require as much nuance as other cases. It is closer kin to Newtown than Savita, in this regard. 

If we wanted to remember, we’d have to do a lot of serious work. Blogging, grabbing headlines, and pushing topics on Twitter is easy. But the hard work is memory work. Without memory there is no healing or forgiveness or proper war and melancholy.
Nothing lingers anymore. We are beyond abortion, we are on our way to nowhere.
Freud was right: we are unconscious. But we sleep without dreaming, we only snore, droning on and on. Noise. 

As I’ve said before, the culture wars are over. They are not resolved so much as they are too much work. Thinking in America has become a lost art. This is a post-Cartesian place.
Platitudes and melodrama don’t set a very good example, but that’s the point: I feel it too. I’m as lazy as you are. 

Don’t take this as anything but a reminder that everything is lost and the details are too tedious to remember. We can’t keep track of news headlines, much less history and ancestry and the Divine.

I guess I’ll see you all in hell. Only God can save us now, I hope we forgot to kill him properly.

"Welcome to the dark ages".

A bit pessimistic, but I can't argue with his assessment. We are in deep evil, and like Nietzsche's Last Men, we are too addicted to our comforts to care or fight.

I disagree with Rocha that "the Enlightenment is over". Abortion is where man's quest to measure all things by himself-- without God-- has long flowed. Gosnell is the Enlightenment, finally reaching its ocean. Abortion, like population control and genocide and total war and totalitarianism and euthanasia, is the Enlightenment's alluvium.

I agree that the Gosnell atrocity is an ecology of many evils-- abortion, murder, hatred of children and women, racism. Many things. The press hides it, but it's not clear that many of us care anyway. So many have lost all conviction. The killers work with passionate intensity.

Only God can save us. Only God could ever save us. Pray that we haven't killed Him too, in our hearts.  

Again.

From Ramirez.

Fifty million. And the trains keep coming.

Didn't we promise?

'Comparing violence of Islam to Christianity is liberal bullshit'

Telling the truth about Islamic barbarism isn't "phobia".

My least favorite comedian Bill Maher gets it right. Go figure.

Dissident nuns deny charges of heresy, step-up cat sacrifices

'This Vatican censure may be beyond the power of eye of newt',
said Sr. Simone Campbell, in dismay. 

(Dissociated Press) Dissident nun Sr. Simone Campbell, executive director of NETWORK, asserted recently in a Washington Post op-ed that she was "hurt" by the reaffirmation of the Vatican censure of the Leadership Conference of Women religious (LCWR) by Pope Francis.

The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith reaffirmed the 2012 censure of LCWR and NETWORK as undermining the Catholic faith.

The dissident nun complained about being excluded from the corridors of power:

[Actual quote] "From my vantage point (excluded from the halls of power and never consulted before being named as a problem by CDF) it appears to me that these actions continue to be about both church and U.S. politics. Women religious are a soccer ball between competing church departments. None of this is really about faith. The Vatican officials continue to say that they like our work when we do direct service, but they do not like our politics when they do not align with some U.S. bishops’ hard right views."

The U.S. Bishops' recent controversial "hard right views" include advocating world peace, nuclear disarmament, reduction of military spending, protection of the environment, the preferential option for the poor, aid programs for the underprivileged, advocacy for immigrants, support for poor families and protection of innocent human life.

Sr. Campbell, a Benedictine nun vowed to chastity, poverty and obedience, insisted that "admission to the corridors of power" is central to the Gospel message.

'The acquisition of personal power is what Christian life is all about. It's what the Lord taught us' intoned Sr. Campbell, holding up her tattered copy of Dreams of My Father.

Sr. Campbell and the nuns on the executive committee of LCWR also rejected Vatican findings that the organization's activities were politically motivated. 'We have served the poor for so many years, and that gives us the right to say anything we want." Sr. Campbell said. 'We may not be allowed to let our left hand know the good works our right hand is doing, but we can sure let the news media know what it's doing.'

Sr. Campbell offered her explanation for the Vatican censure:

[Actual quote]"The censure of our organization NETWORK is rooted in the passage of the Affordable Care Act in March of 2010 and the fact that I wrote a letter signed by 59 leaders of women religious congregations. This letter is credited by President Obama as being a tipping point in the passage of the bill. The U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops opposed the bill because their staff claimed that there was federal funding for abortion in it."

The dissident nun expressed consternation as to why the Vatican would censure nuns who slavishly toe the line of a political party devoted to the contraception mandate, the KKK-derived doctrine of separation of church and state invoked for a century and a half by anti-Catholic bigots, gay marriage, eugenics, infanticide and abortion on demand.

'I mean, all of these positions are straight out of Scripture' Sr. Campbell said, brandishing her copy of the Democratic Party Platform.

Sr. Campbell also rejected the Vatican findings that some of the LCWR activities bordered on heresy. 'This has caused us great heartache, and has even shaken our faith' she said. 'We prayed for days that the Holy Male Patriarch would would see things our way. We even increased our cat sacrifices and sprinkled eye of newt and immolated bat on our goat-head pentagram. '

'That usually works" she said, in dismay.

Jerry Coyne steps up his inspections of science classes

"Haben Sie über die Religion in Wissenschaft Klasse gesprochen?"

Jerry Coyne is shocked to find that someone, somewhere is discussing God in science class:

Ball State University, in Muncie, Indiana, is a public university (i.e., part of the state university system). As such, it must abide by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which has been interpreted as disallowing religious viewpoints (or religiously based theories) in public-school science classes. It is of course kosher to teach courses on the history of religion, or on the relationship between science and religion, but those must not pretend to be “science” courses, and must present balanced views—they can’t push a particular religious viewpoint. 

But it’s come to my attention that a science course at Ball State University—actually two courses, because it seems to be cross-listed—is little more than a course in accommodationism and Christian religion, with very little science. It’s my firm opinion that teaching this course at a state university not only violates the First Amendment, but cheats the students by subjecting them to religious proselytizing when they’re trying to learn science. 

Herr Coyne has astutely identified the "can't pretend to be science courses" clause of the First Amendment. 

Of course Jerry has nothing to do with Ball State University. He's not a student, nor an alumnus, nor is he on faculty. But a science inspector's work is never done.

Jerry provides an example of the verboten course description, and proclaims:

Can you believe that? It’s all pro-religious, and heavily larded with the works of Intelligent Design advocates (Stephen Meyer, Michael Behe), old-earth creationists (Hugh Ross!), and scientists who are Christian or religious (Guy Consolmagno, Owen Gingerich, and Paul Davies). 

The syllabus for the cross-listed Honors course, which the chair of the department verified to me as accurate, is even worse, for it includes Francis Collins’s book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Anthony Flew’s There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, and Polkinghorne and Beale’s Questions of Truth: Fifty-one Responses to Questions About God, Science, and Belief.” As the ultimate insult, the Honors syllabus further includes C. S. Lewis—his book Miracles! What is going on here? C. S. Lewis in a science course? 

You’ll have noticed, of course, the absence of any counter-accommodationist books like The God Delusion, Lawrence Krauss’s A Universe from Nothing, or any of Victor Stenger’s books on physics and religion.

Inspector Coyne relentlessly tracks down his suspect: the chairman of the astronomy department, whom Jerry threatens:

Dear Dr. Robertson, 

Although I’m not at Ball State, it’s come to my attention that one of your faculty members, Dr. Eric Hedin, is teaching a senior Honors course that is heavily infused with creationism and religion. The course is Honors 296, “The Boundaries of Science,” and to my understanding is listed as a science course, which students take for science credit. 

I have a copy of last year’s syllabus, which is apparently the same as this year’s, and I attach it. Have a look, and you’ll see that it is basically a course on the religious implications of science. The reading list tells the tale: there are books by old-earth creationists (Hugh Ross), advocates of intelligent design (Michael Behe and Stephen Meyer), and various people who comport science and faith. 

As as scientist, I find this deeply disturbing. It’s not only religion served under the guise of science, but appears to violate the First Amendement of the Constitution. You are a public university and therefore cannot teach religion in a science class, as this class appears to do. Clearly, Dr. Hedin is religious and foisting this on his students, and I have seen complaints about students being short-change[d] by being fed religion in a science course. 

Could you please confirm for me that this course is indeed being taught in your department, and that this is indeed the sylllabus? 

Perhaps you are not aware of this, in which case I’m calling it to your attention as chairman of that department. 

Cordially, 

Jerry Coyne

Hmmm... Public universities 'can't teach religion in science classes'? That's a new one. I am unaware of any federal or state laws or judicial precedents that regulate religious speech in public university science classes. It's a voluntary course, taken by adults.

Jerry must have us confused with the Soviet Union.

I doubt that in America federal judges will be monitoring university science classes for speech crimes. Perhaps they don't need to, with Jerry doing the monitoring and all...

Coyne didn't post Dr. Robertson's reply, but it sounds like Robertson told him to shove it.

Coyne explains:

What I want to say here is that I tried to register a complaint—a complaint that, I think, is completely legitimate—and was rebuffed by Hedin’s chair. 

This has to stop, for Hedin’s course, and the University’s defense of it, violate the separation of church and state mandated by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (“freedom of religion”) and which has been so interpreted by the courts. It’s religion taught as science in a public university, and it’s not only wrong but illegal. I have tried approaching the University administration, and have been rebuffed. 

This will now go to the lawyers.

The good folks at Ball State provide a course for students who want to discuss the deeper scientific, philosophical and theological implications of astronomy, biology and cosmology.

It sounds like a great course. All colleges should offer it.

Characteristically, Coyne, who believes that religion doesn't belong in science class, inserts lawyers and judges into science class.

Coyne's reply to a university's exploration of the deep philosophical questions raised by science is to call the police.


:-/