January 2010 Archives

Pro-Life Outside The Mainstream

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Good article on how the pro-life movement is bigger and broader than the media and political focus group stereotypes:

The group most important to contradicting mainstream presumption, in my view, are pro-life Democrats. The progressive liberalism dominating the Democratic Party, which includes a rigid litmus test for being “pro-choice,” is a formidable challenge for the pro-life movement, not to mention, an extreme political calculation on the part of Democrats. The conventional political assumption that people who have pro-life views on abortion are “conservative” is nonsense. If the Democratic Party wants to be successful, it will have to accommodate those with diverse views on this issue.

RTWT. Certain forked-tongued Catholics in public life have claimed that voting pro-life is imposing one's "personal beliefs" on others -- implying that those "personal beliefs" are particular religious beliefs and practices, that protecting unborn life is the equivalent of mandating meatless Fridays and the Apostle's Creed. The broad array of non-Catholic and non-religious groups shows just how silly that excuse is.

NARAL: The Musical!

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With lyrics by Bob the Trousered Ape:

It started with a post at Drawin Catholic:
I'm darkly amused by the picture of a pro-abortion counter-protestor to the March For Life carrying a sign which says, "Won't Get Laid Without Roe v. Wade". Why, precisely, does the bearer think that anyone else should be worried by this?

In the comments, then, one Kyle R. Cupp opined, "Such rhythm, such rhyme! Her sign could start the chorus of a hit pop song."

Like waving catnip in front of a cat...

I’m a girl with great ambition,
Dreaming of a high position:
Who would date a quarterback, a movie star, a politician;
But they don’t get a chance
Of a glance
Into my pants
Unless they meet my one condition,Which is:
They don’t get laid,
No they don’t get laid,
They don’t get laid without Roe v. Wade!

Quoth President "Let me be clear" Obama:

The last thing I will say, though -- let me say this about health care and the health care debate, because I think it also bears on a whole lot of other issues. If you look at the package that we've presented -- and there's some stray cats and dogs that got in there that we were eliminating, we were in the process of eliminating. For example, we said from the start that it was going to be important for us to be consistent in saying to people if you can have your -- if you want to keep the health insurance you got, you can keep it, that you're not going to have anybody getting in between you and your doctor in your decision making. And I think that some of the provisions that got snuck in might have violated that pledge.

Now, let me get this straight: "some provisions" just "snuck in there" (as opposed to being written and voted on by members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate), and those random "provisions" "might have" broken promises (and statements) that citizens would be able to...


  • keep their existing insurance

  • make decisions with their doctors without government interference

Which would imply that all those people who were saying that the health care bills, if passed, would eventually force people to give up their existing insurance and face government interference with private medical decisions -- all those people who were called (and are still being called) "obstructionists", "scaremongers", "teabaggers", and who knows what-all else -- all those people were correct.

And President Obama's administration was calling them liars.

So: allowing random legal provisions that violated previous pledges to magically come into existence; insisting that those legal provisions did not exist and that people who insisted they did were dupes or malevolent liars; berating people who voted against the reform bills because of thse provisions and then, in the same weekend, casually noting that well, yes, those provisions exist but are already being taken out (really? when? and by whom?)....

...that does bear on "a whole lot of other issues," doesn't it?

Peony's seven quick takes

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7_quick_takes_sm.jpg

1.

Pansy's computer is broken and that's why we haven't been hearing from her. She is taking things day by day, and greatly appreciates your prayers.

2.

This weekend, we'll be celebrating the seventh anniversary of the blog! Any nominations for favorite posts from the past to reprint?

3.
Look what I am having for a snack this afternoon:>

cookies.jpg

That's Royal Rum coffee from the Mystic Monks and cookies from my oven, using a recipe I learned from my mom. Jealous yet?

4.

In our eternal quest to Get It Together, Pansy and I are buddying up and using some of the suggestions in this book:

These ladies are Flylady's mentors. The premise is to set up a sort of tickler file to keep track of cleaning routines and keep from getting sidetracked (something I'm very prone to.) In this book, they also have suggestions for getting kids involved in keeping up the house (one suggestion involves blaze-orange stickers and the possibility of docking points from siblings.)

So far, I've set up a little system of index cards to help me with meal planning. Pansy went straight to first principles and used her first batch of index cards to plan out daily prayers and devotions.

5.

Oh, all right: Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe

6.

Plug time! Check out Faith on the High Wire (and not just because Kathy links back to here.) I see she has a post up that mentions Pansy's bishop....

7.

Boy, did I feel smug reading the Washington Post after the March for Life: In the Metro section, Robert McCartney's column began....


Iwent [sic] to the March for Life rally Friday on the Mall expecting to write about its irrelevance. Isn't it quaint, I thought, that these abortion protesters show up each year on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, even though the decision still stands after 37 years.

Quaint? Quaint? You saw it first here in 2005:

(snarkily imitating a Washington Post writer) Imagine! After 32 years, there are still benighted souls out there who think abortion is... wrong! Doesn't it remind you of those Japanese soldiers who fought in the jungles for 50 years after the peace treaty? It would be so... quaint, if it didn't hit so close to home and if they weren't messing up Monday's traffic so. Good thing this was on the first page of the Metro section, even though this is an issue of national interest drawing protesters from around the country. And that praying thing, it's just so creepy.

Three quotations from the Angelic Doctor:

"Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious. "

"Man cannot live without joy; therefore when he is deprived of true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures. "

"Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath, and a glass of wine. "


HT: Micki, curatrix of the holy cards

"Biography for Beginners"

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Nifty! You can read this ground-breaking book online here, complete with the original illustrations by G.K. Chesterton.

Afraid of using semicolons? Today's your lucky day; Joe Carter at First Things links to a memorable guide.

(For myself, I might have forgotten a great deal of Ecology 402, but I've never forgotten dear Dr. W's comment on my final paper: "I applaud your correct use of the semicolon.")

An IM conversation from 2004

PeonyMoss: OT, this stinks, I am looking for web citations about that sappy space opera I like and am not finding much
PANSY: which opera?
PeonyMoss: Snow Queen, World's End, Summer Queen by Joan Vinge
:PANSY: oh
PeonyMoss: "space opera" -- soap operas in space
PANSY: ok
PANSY: I was thinking LaBoheme
PeonyMoss: Rudolf and Mimi are not in space to the best of my knowledge
PeonyMoss: but then it's been a while since I saw it
PANSY: lol, you haven't seen the latest version

Mark Shea told me to post this.

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Gens Pittsburgh Ferrarii

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Please pray....

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...for a teacher at Hambet's school who (unexpectedly) entered eternal life last night -- and for his students.

Worse and worse in Haiti

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Archbishop Serge Miot of Port-au-Prince among the dead; "hundreds" of priests and seminarians still buried under the rubble of the cathedral.

HT American Catholic

My newest project: embroidery

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It's all the Church Ladies' fault. Ever since I read their post last fall on monogrammed handkerchiefs,I've had embroidery and monogramming on the brain.

Today, I couldn't stand it any longer. I'd found some men's handkerchiefs on Etsy and had picked up some embroidery needles. I've gathered together my floss and hoop. I've printed out some possible monogram patterns. Now, I'm off to let Hambet choose one and I'll be off!

Muram aries attigit

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Trust me, it's funny: a Florida lawyer explains to his counterpart exactly why settling out of court is the prudent option.

I am of the opinion that it is malpractice to file a libel suit without first serving a §770.01 demand, and any lawyer who does not even try to serve a §770.01 notice is quite simply, too mentally deficient to practice law....

Apparently, your client’s umbrage stems from my client’s tweets concerning your client. Below, I provide a reproduction of his Twitter posts from October 8, 2009 (when my client
had a confrontation with one of Route 60 Hyundai’s employees) until October 21, 2009,
when my client became bored with the subject....

And it just goes on from there. The letter concludes with the words Muram aries attigit.

As Political Glimpse explains:

The letter, which deserves to be read in full, concludes with the declaration that the customer intends to pursue counteraction according to the principle of muram aries attigit, which translates as “the ram has touched the wall.”

This refers to a Roman military policy toward cities the Romans placed under siege. The local authority would be told that, as a matter of policy, once the first battering ram touched the city wall, there would be no surrender accepted, no quarter and no mercy.

HT A Political Glimpse from Ireland via House of Erastosthenes.


Di Fattura Caslinga: Pansy's Etsy Shop
The Sleepy Mommy Shoppe: Stuff we Like
(Disclaimer: We aren't being compensated to like this stuff.
Any loose change in referral fees goes to the Feed Pansy's Ravenous Teens Fund.)


Pansy and Peony: The Two Sleepy Mommies



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