Sarah Palin

I gotta say it! I love, Love, LOVE Sarah Palin! I love that she's authentically pro-life, and I really love the way she's got the uber-lib types scrambling! This is fantastic!

One of the best lines? Hugh Hewitt said something to the effect that after failing to diminish her appeal, the media and the Dems have gone back to Mordor to regroup.

On a side note, my hubby said that I look like her . . . now if that's not the sweetest compliment, I don't know what is.

Ten things I'd like to see in action meme . . .

Courtesy of Redneck Catholic (formerly Ignorant Redneck Rants):

10. Kentucky State licensing of me to practice the Law.
9. Derek Jeeter. (I'm not really a baseball/Yankees fan, but . . .Hello, Mr. Jeeter!)
8. A steam cleaner on the area rug in the front room.
7. My honey playing soccer. (He's got skills! Even better than Jeeter!)
6. The end of abortion.
5. Renewal and revitilization of convents.
4. My pregnancy. (Don't get excited! I'm not preggers yet, but it IS on my wish list. Hey, maybe it will help with number 5 . . .)
3. It would be nice if the Republican party could return to it's conservative roots.
2. The kids playing.
And . . .
1. Fr. Klotter bustin' out in the Extraordinary Form!

Long Time No Post Round-up

I haven't posted in a long time, so I thought I'd do a round-up of everything I've been up to in the past few weeks . . .

First and foremost, of course, I got married. The wedding was awesome. We used the Extraordinary Form and it really was beautiful! I wish I had a recording so I could re-listen to it. But of course, I have to put up some pictures.

Here is one where we are saying our vows . . .



And here is a funny one of the wedding party, and one of my nephews, whose presence we were very perturbed by . . .




I also attended The Church Teaches Forum, and was fortunate enough to get a photo with Cardinal Arinze!




When I was introduced to His Eminence by Mom, and appropriately kissed his ring (ahem, IR, or should I say RC?)I asked for a picture and he said, "Okay, but not by yourself." Which was fine by me, but I wasn't sure what the caveat was for . . . Mom said that it could be scandalous for the Cardinal to have a picture with a young woman by herself, or it could be used for scandalous purposes, which I think is pretty respectable. The man in the picture is Pat Monaghan, who practices International Law with the ACLJ, I think, so not bad company!


Some of you may be thinking to yourselves, "Isn't this girl supposed to be studying for the Bar Exam?" The answer is "Yes!" The following is a little overview of what I have been doing instead . . .

putting up pot racks . . .


painting . . .



and hanging pictures . . .


Emphatically NOT studying. Heaven help me! Please say a prayer that I will be dedicated to memorizing the Rule of Law over the next few days, and maybe that the rules I memorize are the ones we're tested on!

June 14, 2008

I'm getting married at 10:00 a.m. I wonder if I'll sleep tonight?

I've been tagged!

IR at Ignorant Redneck Rants has tagged me with a meme:

Rules:
Answer the questions.
Tag 3.5 other blogs.

!-- Would you rather give up ice cream, or Pizza? I'm sorry, I didn't hear you . . .
@--Which season would you eliminate? The end of Fall, all of Winter, and the beginning of Spring.
#--You're stuck on a desert island, would you rather have your best friend with you, or cable television? Is this a redundant question?
$--would you rather be a bird, or a fish? Cardinal Bird
%--Which song would you ban from wedding receptions? Any song with words.
^--You have 5,000 dollars to spend in one store, where do you go? Home Depot. I'm in the process of making my fiance's house less of a bachelor pad!
&--You get to have one president of the US as a drinking buddy. Who do you pick? Hmmm. Tough one. I'd have to go with Reagan. He'd bring jelly beans!

But I can't tag 3.5 other blogs . . .I can't count that high! ;)

Is this funny . . .or one of the scariest videos ever . . .?

It's official!

I have successfully graduated from law school.

On to the Bar Exam . . .

Don't you hate it when . . .

you think of the perfect response, oh, about two weeks later?

After my trip to NY to see Papa Benedict one of my classmates made the comment, which I've seen on left-wing blogs about a hundred times, that the Pope has "sooo much money" and "it just seems like he should give it to the poor and live more like Jesus." Generally when I've seen those types of comments on blogs I kind of do an eye roll and dismiss, but when someone says it to you in person you have to respond. So I squinched my eyebrows together at my classmate and mumbled that most of the Pope's "stuff" was gifts and that it didn't really belong to him, it belonged to the Church, so he can't just give it away.

Not a very satisfying response. Or persuasive.

So I was stewing about this interchange until it suddenly hit me:

Matthew 26:7-13

7There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat. 8 But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste? 9 For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor. 10 When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me. 11 For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always. 12 For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial. 13 Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.


Why, oh why, didn't I say something pithy, clever, and thought provoking like, "The disciples asked that same question of Jesus when the woman annointed him with expensive oils."

GRRRRRR!

Pope Benedict XVI

I am lucky enough to have a ticket for the Papal Mass this weekend in New York. I can't wait to see Papa Benedict!



Love the shoes.

I've been tagged!

Well, this is the first time I've been tagged with a meme (courtesy of Ignorant Redneck, http://reneckcatholic.blogspot.com) so I'll give it a shot. It's a nice distraction from my Administrative Law final exam that is due at 4:30!

Here goes:

1. When tagged, place the name and URL on your blog.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write 7 non-important things/quirks/habits about yourself.
4. Name 7 of your favorite blogs.

7 non-important things/quirks/habits about myself:

1. I have a footnote in a Georgetown Law Review article.
2. I have thirteen nieces and nephews, courtesy of two of my sisters.
3. I would like to win the procreation race in my family. So far the high scorer has eight.
4. If I need to control a laugh, I hold my nose.
5. My fiance and I met on Ash Wednesday last year while volunteering at an income tax clinic. He says he was attracted to the ashes.
6. I am a major procrastinator. Hey, I need the pressure!

and last but not least . . .
7. My blog is named after my cat, who was named after the Mines of Moria in LOTR. My cat disappeared about six years ago. She's not dead, she's on the incredible journey. Mom thinks she made it to Hollywood.

My seven favorite blogs? This is a tough one, since there are so many good ones, but here are the seven I read most regularly:

1. Ignorant Redneck
2. Pro Ecclesia * Pro Familia * Pro Civitatis
3. Thoughts of a Regular Guy
4. The Curt Jester
5. Et Tu, Jen?
6. Catholic Caveman
7. And last but not least, this is my brother-in-law's blog . . .Seeking Justice

Thought I'd throw on some pictures from the Barrister's Ball

Here's my honey. He is very handsome!



Notice that I have no feet in this picture! Someone should have caught that . . .

Christendom College

Well I'll be! Pope Benedict mentioned my alma mater!

Here's what he said:

To special groups

I offer a warm welcome to all the English-speaking visitors and pilgrims attending today's Audience, including the groups from England, Denmark, Sweden, Indonesia, Canada and the United States. I extend particular greetings to the visitors from Christendom College and to the many student groups present. May this Lenten Season purify your hearts and renew your faith and your hope in the mystery of Christ our Redeemer. God bless you all!

Even though I wasn't with the group . . .I think the blessing applies to me too! ;)

Wedding Update

I went to my bridal shower this weekend in Virginia. It was really interesting to see the ladies I know from different walks of life interacting with each other.

We played the toilet paper wedding dress game that I love. That's my only complaint as far as the shower went . . . I didn't get to play any of the games!

On the Anniversary of Roe. . .

Planned Parenthood loves having access to high school students. They claim that they are interested in the "health" of these young people, and also have a goal of reducing "unplanned" pregnancies. Yeah right. Check out this consumer report, which rated the condoms distributed by PP as "poor"! Considering that the majority of people seeking an abortion claim a "contraceptive failure" we shouldn't be surprised that PP is quite willing to up those numbers. More money in the bank!

Another interesting tidbit amidst all the media yowling about abstinence only education, is that in California, the first state to reject federal funding tied to abstinence programs, the STD rate among teenagers is skyrocketing. Mmmmm . . .chlamydia, now that's healthy! To view charts of California's STD rates and teen pregnancy, go here and here. And of course, here is a report concerning abortions funded by Medi-Cal in 2001.

Obama: Mr. Abortion

Obama Is the Most Pro-Abortion Candidate Ever
By Terence P. Jeffrey
CNSNews.com Editor in Chief
January 09, 2008

Barack Obama is the most pro-abortion presidential candidate ever.

He is so pro-abortion that he refused as an Illinois state senator to support legislation to protect babies who survived late-term abortions because he did not want to concede -- as he explained in a cold-blooded speech on the Illinois Senate floor -- that these babies, fully outside their mothers' wombs, with their hearts beating and lungs heaving, were in fact "persons."

"Persons," of course, are guaranteed equal protection of the law under the 14th Amendment.

In 2004, U.S. Senate-candidate Obama mischaracterized his opposition to this legislation. Now, as a presidential frontrunner, he should be held accountable for what he actually said and did about the Born Alive Infants Bill.

State and federal versions of this bill became an issue earlier this decade because of "induced labor abortion." This is usually performed on a baby with Down's Syndrome or another problem discovered on the cusp of viability. A doctor medicates the mother to cause premature labor. Babies surviving labor are left untreated to die.

Jill Stanek, who was a nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Ill., testified in the U.S. Congress in 2000 and 2001 about how "induced labor abortions" were handled at her hospital.

"One night," she said in testimony entered into the Congressional Record, "a nursing co-worker was taking an aborted Down's Syndrome baby who was born alive to our Soiled Utility Room because his parents did not want to hold him, and she did not have the time to hold him. I couldn't bear the thought of this suffering child lying alone in a Soiled Utility Room, so I cradled and rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived."

In 2001, Illinois state Sen. Patrick O'Malley introduced three bills to help such babies. One required a second physician to be present at the abortion to determine if a surviving baby was viable. Another gave the parents or a public guardian the right to sue to protect the baby's rights. A third, almost identical to the federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act President Bush signed in 2002, simply said a "homo sapiens" wholly emerged from his mother with a "beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord or definite movement of voluntary muscles" should be treated as a "'person,' 'human being,' 'child' and 'individual.'"

Stanek testified about these bills in the Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee, where Obama served. She told me this week he was "unfazed" by her story of holding the baby who survived an induced labor abortion.

On the Illinois Senate floor, Obama was the only senator to speak against the baby-protecting bills. He voted "present" on each, effectively the same as a "no."

"Number one," said Obama, explaining his reluctance to protect born infants, "whenever we define a pre-viable fetus as a person that is protected by the Equal Protection Clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we're really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a -- a child, a 9-month old -- child that was delivered to term. That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. I mean, it -- it would essentially bar abortions, because the Equal Protection Clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an anti-abortion statute."

That June, the U.S. Senate voted 98-0 in favor of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act (although it failed to become law that year). Pro-abortion Democrats supported it because this language was added: "Nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being born alive as defined in this section."

Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer explained that with this language the "amendment certainly does not attack Roe v. Wade."

On July 18, 2002, Democratic Sen. Harry Reid called for the bill to be approved by unanimous consent. It was.

That same year, the Illinois version of the bill came up again. Obama voted "no."

In 2003, Democrats took control of the Illinois Senate. Obama became chairman of the Health and Human Services committee. The Born Alive Infant bill, now sponsored by Sen. Richard Winkel, was referred to this committee. Winkel also sponsored an amendment to make the Illinois bill identical to the federal law, adding -- word for word -- the language Barbara Boxer said protected Roe v. Wade. Obama still held the bill hostage in his committee, never calling a vote so it could be sent to the full senate.

A year later, when Republican U.S. senate candidate Alan Keyes challenged Obama in a debate for his opposition to the Born Alive Infant Bill, Obama said: "At the federal level there was a similar bill that passed because it had an amendment saying this does not encroach on Roe v. Wade. I would have voted for that bill."

In fact, Obama had personally killed exactly that bill.

Merry Twelve Days of Christmas!

H/t: Thoughts of a Regular Guy

Porn for Kids in Louisville Libraries

A while back I posted a video from American Life League which spoke about a sexually graphic book that is marketed to kids. This is a book that is banned from prisons for being too explicit. Well, one of my intrepid blog readers, who was referred to as "Torch" in a short-lived TV program, brought to my attention the presence of this book in the Louisville Free Public Library. Here's the url for the online catalogue listing.

http://pac.lfpl.org/polaris/search/searchresults.aspx?ctx=1.1033.0.0.4&type=Keyword&term="It's%20perfectly%20normal"&by=TI&sort=RELEVANCE&limit=TOM=*&query=&page=0

(You will probably have to cut and paste the address.)

And yes it is in the "children" section.

If anyone has an opportunity, please stop by your local branch and complain about this book. If there is enough of a ruckus, it could get pulled.

And they wonder why we voted down the library tax . . .

Newspaper headline: "Teen birthrates rose, therefore abstinence only education is a failure!"

Our local newspaper, The Courier Journal (Dad calls it The Curious Urinal, but that's a little too vulgar for my blog), published an editorial which cited the rise in teen births as evidence that abstinence only education isn't working. Let's play spot the fallacy, shall we? the following is the text of the editorial, with my comments in bold.

Some responded with shock to the news that U.S. teen births rose 3 percent in 2006, the biggest increase since 1991. Notice that he(?) is talking about births here, not pregnancies.

The majority of the 440,000 such births in 2006 were to girls between 15 and 19 years old. Black teens saw the largest increase, but these statistics were up among all ethnic groups except Asians.

We can hope that this is a statistical fluke, not the start of a trend.

However, we believe the case has been made anew for a balanced approach to sex education. Abstinence-only programs have been showered with federal dollars during the Bush years, but they're not realistic.Huh? Got any evidence for this claim?

And that's notwithstanding one conservative scholar's ridiculous claim that teens who became pregnant were "highly educated about contraceptives but wanted to have babies." His line of reasoning is easily discredited by scientific findings that teenage brains are works in progress. Development is slow in the region of the brain that allows one to fully consider the consequences of actions, for oneself or for others.Stating that teenagers brains are not fully developed and/or unable to understand consequences is an argument for parental supervision and perhaps a "no dating until your brain is fully developed and you are ready to put someone else's needs before your own" rule, of course this would prevent some people from dating until they are 40, but that's another topic . . .

What's needed for people in that age group is comprehensive sex education. Abstinence is an important option, of course, and should be included in any well-thought-out program. So this editor thinks that someone who has no concept of consequences should be given condoms and that will just solve everything? Is this supposed to be peruasive? Sorry, Charlie. Teenaged promiscuity is the problem. To solve the problem, you must address the problem.

However, really effective sex education also should involve frank discussions about sexuality, including the use of condoms to avoid unwanted pregnancies and prevent sexually transmitted diseases. Again, you've stated that teenagers can't use their brains. Taking the taboo off of promiscuity isn't the answer. Teens coming from non-actively religious households may enjoy the sex without consequences message, but no one has bothered to show that this type of behavior, i.e. sterilized, extramarital sexual activity has no negative effect. Putting aside the fact that such behavior is offensive to God, isn't there evidence that teenaged sexual avtivity leads to depression, eating disorders, and inability to form emotional attachments, among a host of other problems, not to mention BABIES?

Yes, it's crucial that we talk to teenagers about the moral and physical risks of having sex, especially before they're mature enough to understand the potential consequences. However, our great challenge is to arm young people with the best possible information, so that they are more likely to make the best possible decisions, if, which is likely, they sometimes find themselves feeling overwhelmed by an urge that's as normal as breathing. Isn't the best decision staying abstinent until marriage? Furthermore, didn't this editor already state that teens don't have well-developed brains? Is he now going to tell us that teens will, with cold, calculating logic, reach for the Trojan in the heat of the moment?

The truly insulting part of this editorial (yes, it is insulting to our intelligence) is the slight of hand as far as pregnancy vs. birth. There is simply insufficient evidence to conclude anything about the role of abstinence only education in this 3% rise in teen birthrates. what this editor has performed is the infamous, post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, but then wasn't even honest about that, by conflating pregnancy with birth, and not addressing whether the abortion rate had risen, fallen, or remained the same. For example, pregancy rates could have been constant but this is a portion of young women who chose life for their babies, where in prior years they may have aborted. It is even possible that pregnancy rates went DOWN, with a higher birthrate. Furthermore, were the "conservative critics" right in that the majority of teens getting pregnant were well aware of the availability of condoms? It's a hard sell to say that they weren't, since you would basically have to live in The Shire to be unaware of condoms.

Just for the record, I am personally opposed to any kind of "sex ed." in public schools, outside of a biological explanation of how babies come to be, whatsoever. Partly because I don't trust public educrats to teach abstinence properly (whatever happened to chastity?), and partly becuase I think parents bear the responsibility of teaching their children morals. When this type of responsibility gets farmed out to the government, parents end up having little to no control over how their children are going to be introduced to sexuality, which will form the basis of their "worldview" on male-female (or considering today's educrats, any other imaginable combo) relationships. It's hard to counteract such a "feel good morality," and once a parent gets wind of it, it may already be too late.

Rudy in Kentucky

Rudy Guiliani came into Kentucky yesterday, and I was disappointed to discover that our former Congresswoman Anne Northup is sponsoring a fundraiser for him. She was a reliable pro-life vote, but now her sponsorship of Ghouliani makes me nervous about her commitment to ending abortion, since I'm sure she'll run again.

"Planned Parenthood" Sexualizing Children

There is a common social mythos that "preparing" a child (as young as 8!) for sexual activity will prevent them from engaging in risky behaviors. This is a scam perpetrated by Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the United States. The actions of PP remind me of the tobacco companies. Recruit them young, get them hooked, and watch the money roll in. All the while denying that there are harmful effects. At least with the tobacco companies it was only physical side effects. With PP and the promotion of promiscuity, sterilization, and abortion, the side effects run the gamut from physical, emotional, and psychological harm all the way to spiritual harm.