1. CONFIRMATION BIAS, by Bill Maher -- http://www.real-time-with-bill-maher-blog.com/real-time-with-bill-maher-blog/2013/1/22/confirmation-bias.html
Mr. Maher takes apart John McCain, (and Sarah Palin), and Lindsey Graham. Short commentary, but true.
"Chuck Hagel is the first enlisted soldier ever nominated to head the Pentagon. About time, isn't it?
To explain Hagel's dovishness, the insufferable Lindsey Graham said about Hagel, 'I think he's very haunted by Vietnam.' As if that's a bad thing. I like the idea of having a Secretary of Defense who's personally haunted by the reality of war -- maybe we should even make it a prerequisite for the job. We'd certainly save a lot of lives and money that way."
2. RHODE ISLAND MOVES CLOSER TO APPROVING SAME-SEX MARRIAGE, by Isolde Raftery -- http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/23/16652418-rhode-island-moves-closer-to-approving-same-sex-marriage?lite
Rhode Island's House Judiciary Committee has approved a new bill supporting same sex marriage. It is now scheduled to go to the full House for a vote. Leaders of the U.S. House, however, continue to fight against the issue at the Supreme Court level.
"Even if the bill passes, Rhode Island may be preempted by the U.S. Supreme Court, which received its first brief on same-sex marriage on Tuesday. The brief, which came from supporters of a 2008 California ban on same-sex marriage, urged the justices to let voters define marriage.
A separate filing from the top three Republican members of the House of Representatives - Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy - urged the court to uphold Section 3 of a 1996 federal law, the Defense of Marriage Act, that has the effect of denying same-sex couples a variety of federal benefits that heterosexual couples receive."
3. PRIEST IS PLANNING TO DEFY THE VATICAN’S ORDERS TO STAY QUIET, by Douglas Dalby --http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/world/europe/priest-is-planning-to-defy-vaticans-orders-to-stay-quiet.html?_r=0
Rev. Flannery is my kind of priest.
“The Rev. Tony Flannery, 66, who was suspended by the Vatican last year, said he was told by the Vatican that he would be allowed to return to ministry only if he agreed to write, sign and publish a statement agreeing, among other things, that women should never be ordained as priests and that he would adhere to church orthodoxy on matters like contraception and homosexuality.
‘How can I put my name to such a document when it goes against everything I believe in,’ he said in an interview on Wednesday. ‘If I signed this, it would be a betrayal not only of myself but of my fellow priests and lay Catholics who want change. I refuse to be terrified into submission.’…
…In the letter, the Vatican objected in particular to an article published in 2010 in Reality, an Irish religious magazine. In the article, Father Flannery, a Redemptorist priest, wrote that he no longer believed that ‘the priesthood as we currently have it in the church originated with Jesus’ or that he designated ‘a special group of his followers as priests.’
Instead, he wrote, ‘It is more likely that some time after Jesus, a select and privileged group within the community who had abrogated power and authority to themselves, interpreted the occasion of the Last Supper in a manner that suited their own agenda.’"
#1 ~ I am sickened by the depth oh hatred burning so deep in the souls of republicans in power.
ReplyDelete#2 ~ Yayyyyyyyyyy!
#3 ~ after reading this item I am wondering if,perhaps, the church described by Father Flannery, and seeing how it illustrates how the Roman Catholic Church wants to lock itself into an ancient time, should change their name to the Roman Amish Church