Some Thoughts

“These events mobilize the Church to find appropriate responses and should be placed in a more wide-ranging context that concerns the protection of children and young people from sexual abuse in society as a whole. Certainly, the errors committed in ecclesiastical institutions and by Church figures are particularly reprehensible because of the Church’s educational and moral responsibility, but all objective and well-informed people know that the question is much broader, and concentrating accusations against the Church alone gives a false perspective. By way of example, recent data supplied by the competent authorities in Austria shows that, over the same period of time, the number of proven cases in Church institutions was 17, while there were 510 other cases in other areas. It would be as well to concern ourselves also with them.”

- Fr. Frederico Lombardi
Vatican Radio
March 9, 2010

He should have stopped writing after the words “particularly reprehensible.”

Yielding to pressure from the NRA and Republican Party, Starbucks allows customers to carry concealed weapons into its stores.  All customers, however, are required to wear shoes and a shirt.

- Various press

Conceal your guns under your shirt?

Catholic Charities of the Washington Archdiocese this week has a) suspended its 80-year-old foster care program because District of Columbia law would require it to accept applications from same-sex couples, and b) suspended health insurance to the spouses of ANY new employee (straight or gay) or the new spouse (straight or gay) of any employee because it wants to make sure that no coverage is provided to any gay person.

The Church has not divulged whether already established foster-care families discovered to have a gay member will be broken up, or whether insurance coverage of existing employees will be suspended if a family member comes out as gay.

- Various press reports

Could it be true that a Church that has paid out an estimated $1 billion in compensation to victims of priest pedophilia, harbored most of the priests from lawsuits, and kept the priests on the payroll is so pure that it can’t let a gay couple adopt a child or get health insurance?

From an official Republican fundraising package used at a Florida event on February 18.

By your fear-mongering and name-calling we shall know you.

A 40-year-old Woodbridge woman who dragged a man more than a mile under her car after an accident on Centreville Road this week turned herself in to police on Wednesday afternoon after she was charged with felony hit and run and reckless driving, Prince William County police said.

- Washington Post
February 24, 2010

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“If these liberal neo-monarchists succeed, they will kill the very spirit that has built the nation — the innovating, inventing, creating, independent current that runs from coast to coast.  And we won’t let ‘em do it!”

- Mitt Romney
former Massachusetts Governor who’s taken credit for
Health Care Reform like that proposed
by the Obama Administration,
apparently referring to the Obama Administration
February 18, 2010

A “neo-monarchist” would be someone who wants what?

“Waterboard them!”

- Mob chant, referring to President Obama and Democrats,
during speech by Florida candidate
for US Senate, Marco Rubio
February 18, 2010

“We will get useful information from them, and then we will bring them to justice in front of a military tribunal in Guantanamo!”

- Marco Rubio, referring to
waterboarding US Government leaders
February 18, 2010

What would happen if leftists called for torturing government officials?

“Tracy [California, near Sacramento] residents will now have to pay every time they call 911 for a medical emergency. But there are a couple of options. Residents can pay a $48 voluntary fee for the year, which allows them to call 911 as many times as necessary. Or there’s the option of not signing up for the annual fee. Instead they will be charged $300 if they make a call for help.”

- Channel 13 (NBC Affiliate)
Feburary 18, 2010

How much for a pickup by a mortuary?

“People who could not even spell the word ‘vote,’ or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House.  His name is Barack Hussein Obama.”

- “Tea Party” keynote speaker former Congressman Tom Tancredo
(grandson of Italian immigrants)
February 4, 2010

What’s a committed socialist ideologue anyway?

“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be [putting it in an e-mail] in the first place. … But if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines, including Google, do retain this information for some time. And [...] we’re all subject, in the US, to the Patriot Act, and it is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities.

- Google CEO Eric Schmidt
CNBC Interview
December 3, 2009

“In order to comply with government search warrants on user data, Google created a backdoor access system into Gmail accounts. This feature is what the Chinese hackers exploited to gain access. …  An infrastructure conducive to surveillance and control invites surveillance and control, both by the people you expect and by the people you don’t.”

- Bruce Schneier
CNN
January 23, 2010

Huh?  And Google’s complaining about hackers?