Brutally Honest

"These statistics are bogus"

That's the conclusion of Lydia McGrew at What's Wrong with the World as she looks at the Guttmacher study claiming that 98% of Catholic women use contraception:

Recently I received a phone call from my non-Christian (as far as I know) philosopher friend Neil Manson who, because he has an active and fair mind, had been exercised over what seemed to him the high FQ (Fishiness Quotient) of the statistical meme presently going around to the effect that "98% of Catholic women use birth control." Or something. Maybe "98% of Catholic women have used birth control." The former is obviously ludicrous, as it would seem to include elderly Catholic women, of whom it seems plausible that there are more than 2% among Catholics. Anyway, Neil wanted to know if I had read anything debunking the statistic.

Well, I had to admit that I hadn't. This is mostly because the relevance of the claim to the HHS's mandate is, to put it mildly, obscure. If a large percentage of Jainists are chowing down on hamburgers on the side, it hardly follows that an expressly Jainist charitable organization should be forced by the federal government to fund a plan that buys free hamburgers for its employees. If a bunch of Quakers turn out to have gun licenses, employees of an expressly Quaker organization are not therefore entitled to have their fees paid to a shooting range or their ammo. provided at no cost through an employer plan. There is this commonsense notion that organizations that are explicitly identified as religious are allowed to uphold the actual doctrinal and behavioral standards of their respective religious bodies. Whether the rank and file membership of that religious body follow those standards in daily life should be irrelevant.

Still, it has proven rather interesting to look into the statistical claim.

And look she does, with a fine tooth comb.  Read the entire piece and then really tick off your Catholic bashing friends by passing it on.

Watch 'em froth at the mouth.

Damned liars.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

"Computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause"

Don Surber is airing some most inconvenient facts:

16 actual scientists have joined 1973 Nobel-winning physicist Ivar Giaever in calling global warming concerns overblown. In a letter published in the Wall Street Journal today, the scientists called for everyone to remain calm — and mocked the alarmism by UN bureaucrats over global warming and carbon dioxide.

They recommended that the world do nothing about global warming for the next 50 years.

“The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant,” the scientists wrote in their letter, which the Wall Street Journal headlined: “No Need to Panic About Global Warming. There’s no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to ‘decarbonize’ the world’s economy.”

The letter went on to explain that warming may actually benefit life on Earth: “CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere’s life cycle. Plants do so much better with more CO2 that greenhouse operators often increase the CO2 concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth. This is no surprise since plants and animals evolved when CO2 concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today. Better plant varieties, chemical fertilizers and agricultural management contributed to the great increase in agricultural yields of the past century, but part of the increase almost certainly came from additional CO2 in the atmosphere.”

The scientists did not dismiss entirely the idea that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases may be increasing temperatures. The scientists simply said there is no proof that the globe is warming.

“The lack of warming for more than a decade — indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections — suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause,” the scientists wrote. “Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.”

The scientists made many of the same points skeptics such as Anthony Watts and cynics like me have made: Global warming alarmism is an industry that has enriched many, many people.

The 16 scientists made a grand suggestion: Do nothing.

There's more and it's worthy.

Doing nothing however is something I'll disagree with vehemently.  What needs to be done is being done but we need more rigor and vigor.  

What must be done is the continued unmasking of the fakery that is the global warming movement.  May many more scientists have the courage to stand as these 16 have done.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

"The president seemed very earnest..."

Archbishop Timothy Dolan gets a bit of an education as to this President:

In the wake of Presdent Obama's controversial decision to mandate that religious groups pay for contraceptives for their employees, much of the coverage focused on how the president had disappointed progressive allies by giving religious groups an extra year to comply.

But the decision also had New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, feeling personally betrayed.

"I have to say, there's a sense of personal disappointment," Dolan said Tuesday after he gave a lecture on "Law and the Gospel of Life" at Fordham Law School.

Last November, amid deepening tensions between the bishops and the administration over the pending contraception mandate and other issues, Obama invited Dolan to the Oval Office, where the two men shared what Dolan called a productive and "extraordinarily friendly" meeting.

"The president seemed very earnest, he said he considered the protection of conscience sacred, that he didn't want anything his administration would do to impede the work of the church that he claimed he held in high regard," Dolan recalled on Tuesday. "So I did leave a little buoyant."

That optimism ended last Friday, however, when Obama phoned Dolan to tell him that he was not expanding the conscience exemption to include religious institutions — such as Catholic hospitals, universities and social service agencies. In a bid to appease critics like Dolan, the White House gave church organizations an extra year to find a way to comply with the mandate that all health insurance plans provide free contraceptive coverage.

"I had to share with him that I was terribly let down, disappointed and disturbed, and it seemed the news he had given me was difficult to square with the confidence I had felt in November," Dolan said.

I have tremendous respect for Archbishop Dolan.

I hope he uses this as a teachable moment.

AP blasts SOTU speech

Calvin Woodward is going to pay a price for this one:

It was a wish list, not a to-do list.

President Barack Obama laid out an array of plans in his State of the Union speech as if his hands weren't so tied by political realities. There can be little more than wishful thinking behind his call to end oil industry subsidies - something he could not get through a Democratic Congress, much less today's divided Congress, much less in this election year.

And there was more recycling, in an even more forbidding climate than when the ideas were new: He pushed for an immigration overhaul that he couldn't get past Democrats, permanent college tuition tax credits that he asked for a year ago, and familiar discouragements for companies that move overseas.

A look at Obama's rhetoric Tuesday night and how it fits with the facts and political circumstances:

OBAMA: "We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That's long enough. It's time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that's rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that's never been more promising."

THE FACTS: This is at least Obama's third run at stripping subsidies from the oil industry. Back when fellow Democrats formed the House and Senate majorities, he sought $36.5 billion in tax increases on oil and gas companies over the next decade, but Congress largely ignored the request. He called again to end such tax breaks in last year's State of the Union speech. And he's now doing it again, despite facing a wall of opposition from Republicans who want to spur domestic oil and gas production and oppose tax increases generally.

---

OBAMA: "Our health care law relies on a reformed private market, not a government program."

THE FACTS: That's only half true. About half of the more than 30 million uninsured Americans expected to gain coverage through the health care law will be enrolled in a government program. Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income people, will be expanded starting in 2014 to cover childless adults living near the poverty line.

The other half will be enrolled in private health plans through new state-based insurance markets. But many of them will be receiving federal subsidies to make their premiums more affordable. And that's a government program, too.

Starting in 2014 most Americans will be required to carry health coverage, either through an employer, by buying their own plan, or through a government program.

---

OBAMA, asking Congress to pay for construction projects: "Take the money we're no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home."

THE FACTS: The idea of taking war "savings" to pay for other programs is budgetary sleight of hand. For one thing, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been largely financed through borrowing, so stopping the wars doesn't create a pool of ready cash, just less debt. And the savings appear to be based at least in part on inflated war spending estimates for future years.

There's more, all leading to a conclusion many of us have known for years.

Obama is a charlatan.  And those who support him are fools.

Welcome to the truth AP.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

"I happened to read it, and was struck by this brazen bit of Obama BS"

John Hinderaker on Obama's comments commemorating the 39th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade Superme Court decision: 

Obama’s proclamation was not widely noted, except in circles that take (as Scott put it long ago) the sacramental view of abortion. But I happened to read it, and was struck by this brazen bit of Obama BS:

As we mark the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we must remember that this Supreme Court decision not only protects a woman’s health and reproductive freedom, but also affirms a broader principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters.

If that doesn’t provoke hollow laughter, you haven’t been paying attention. Do President Obama and his fellow Democrats seriously believe that “government should not intrude on private family matters?” Let us count the ways! First, compare Obama’s declaration today with what he said when Michelle Obama announced her anti-childhood obesity project. Did you think that how much your kids weigh is a “private family matter,” in which “government should not intrude?” Don’t be silly:

I have set a goal to solve the problem of childhood obesity within a generation so that children born today will reach adulthood at a healthy weight. The first lady will lead a national public awareness effort to tackle the epidemic of childhood obesity. She will encourage involvement by actors from every sector — the public, nonprofits, and private sectors, as well as parents and youth — to help support and amplify the work of the federal government in improving the health of our children.

So the future weight of your minor children is a “goal” of the federal government. Of course, that is just one example out of many. For example, do you think it is a “private family matter” whether you feed your children Cheerios and corn flakes for breakfast? Think again.

Is it an imposition on “private family matters” when a pediatrician cross-examines your child about whether you own a gun? The liberals don’t think so.

You might be so silly as to believe that teaching your children about sex is a “private family matter.” I won’t even bother to provide a link for this one.

The subject of Obama’s declaration was abortion. But suppose your teenage daughter can get an abortion without your even finding out about it: is that a government intrusion on “private family matters?” Sure, but one that liberals like Obama favor.

He's got more and it's well worth your time.

As is this excerpt of a most righteous rant on the same Obama quote from she who knows how to give righteous rants:

Let’s spell this out; let’s clarify this vague, euphemistic line, for the sake of transparency, shall we? Because this dual-mouthed president is all about transparency — he even won an award for it, which he received without press — the fulfillment of our daughter’s dreams lie in the freedom and ease with which a sucking hose or a scraping curette may introduce violence and slaughter within their wombs, at the very core of their beings, in order to shred their children to pieces. For this 100% NARAL-approved president who passed up every opportunity to show even a scintilla of mercy for a baby born alive during an attempted abortion, our daughter’s dreams depend on their being able to find someone who will burn their baby in utero, or shove a pair of scissors into the partially-delivered child’s skull, or toclose the lid on the garbage pail until the bothersome crying ends.

In Obama’s world, our daughter’s happiness depends upon having these options at their disposal, literally and figuratively. Because love, and the sneaky way it has of showing up whenever a baby is born and then complicating everything, (because it is meaningful and real) is an insufficient vehicle for the fulfillment of women, and their self-actualization.

Arise, daughters of America, and build your dreams upon the slaughter of your progeny;some say the fullness of our humanity was built upon the flesh and blood of one woman who said “yes” to a daunting and difficult proposal, but I say your fulfillment, your dreams and your future are better built upon the garbage heaps of “no” we’ve encouraged you to form out of your own flesh-and-blood in the empty landfills of government compassion, hope and change.

Because “yes we can,” is all about the hope and change that’s built on our emphatic “noes”. No, to life. No, to conscience. No, to compassion that is not mandated. No, to assistance givenby any but government. No, to any power greater than ourselves and our glorious government.

“I don’t want them punished with a baby”

Moloch couldn’t have said it more cunningly.

Nicely done.  So nicely and righteously done.

Yesterday I happened to stumble across a site I should've known is out there but was surprised nevertheless when I found it.

It's called Catholics for Obama.  And there are other similar Catholic organizations. Many apparently having been out there since the 2008 campaign.

Listen, you can choose to support whomever you want.  It's what America is known for.  

Freedom.

But as a Catholic who has somewhat recently re-embraced the faith of his childhood, as someone who has decided to return but not first without checking (hopefully thoughtfully) on what Catholics believe and what tenets of the faith to adhere to as best I can, I'm shaking my head.  

It's next to impossible to understand how a Catholic could remain in support of someone who... well... speaks as cunningly as Moloch.

It simply does not compute.

Perhaps one of you Catholic Moloch supporters could leave a comment and enlighten me.

Perhaps.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

What has he done lately in his role as President of the United States?

Color me curious:

Press secretary Jay Carney said Monday that Obama’s focus on the campaign “is relatively low now” because he is busy governing.

“He is not engaging particularly aggressively in his reelection campaign,” Carney said. “It’s only January. There is not a Republican nominee.”

Yet this week, the president is attending at least five fundraisers, including two Monday night in Washington and three events, including a public concert, in Chicago on Wednesday. First lady Michelle Obama, meanwhile, is appearing at four events in the swing state of Virginia this week, including two Democratic National Committee events.

On Monday night, Obama appeared at the Jefferson Hotel for an exclusive fundraiser with a group of 25 guests who had paid $45,000 apiece, with the money split between the DNC and Obama’s re-election campaign. Then the president attended an event for 700 people at the Capitol Hilton, which featured a performance by singer and pianist Sara Bareilles.

During the latter event, Obama made a lengthy speech that sounded very much like a draft of his campaign re-election message, hitting on his themes of fighting for the middle class and tying his GOP presidential opponents to Republican leaders in an unpopular Congress.

“Republicans in Congress and the candidates who are running for president,” Obama told the crowd in a refrain he would use twice more, “they’ve got a very specific idea of where they want to take this country.”

Then the president listed what he claimed were the goals of Republicans: gut education, technology and infrastructure investments; turn Medicare into a private voucher system; roll back the minimum wage, collective bargaining rights and environmental regulations.

“Republicans in Congress and these candidates, they think that the best way for America to compete for new jobs and businesses is to follow other countries in a race to the bottom,” Obama declared.

Obama also listed his accomplishments in office, citing his bailout of the auto industry, health care reform, the ending of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for gays and the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

I ask again, what has he done lately in his role as President of the United States?

Anyone?

Are you smarter than a third grade Occupy Wall Street protester?

We're supposed to believe that Albemarle County third graders wrote the following song... really:

Some people have it all
But they still don’t think they have enough
They want more money
A faster ride
They’re not content
Never satisfied
Yes—they’re the 1 percent

I used to be one of the 1 percent
I worked all the time
Never saw my family
Couldn’t make life rhyme
Then the bubble burst
It really, really hurt
I lost my money
Lost my pride
Lost my home
Now I’m part of the 99

Some people have it all
But they still don’t think they have enough
They want more money
A faster ride
They’re not content
Never satisfied
Yes—they’re the 1 percent

I used to be sad, now I’m satisfied
’Cause I really have enough
Though I lost my yacht and plane
Didn’t need that extra stuff
Could have been much worse
You don’t need to be first
’Cause I’ve got my friends
Here by my side
Don’t need it all
I’m so happy to be part of the 99

Bovine. Fecal. Matter.

There's no way an 8 year old writes that kind of crap.  The school system is insisting that they did.

Liars.

Hot Air has much more to include who might just be on the prime suspect list for filling young minds full of mush.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

While you slept, your rights were taken

By Locutisprime

Americans remain asleep and comatose to the realities of this administration and the powers that are being both taken and assumed by this president.

It was four short years ago when liberals and the mainstream media were decrying the Bush administration for both Guantanamo and the practice of intercepting overseas phone calls with 'known terrorists.'

What a difference an administration and a complicit media makes.

America now stands on the precipice of a brave new world of thought and speech control. The arrest of American citizens by military operatives and the detention of American citizens absent any constitutional protections is about to become law.  And even those in congress applaud these egregious acts as needed protections for us all.  Posse Comitatus is about to be no more and the American people haven't as much as whimpered.

Obama has dropped his threat to veto the bill and is now expected to sign it into law. Remember – it was Obama’s White House that demanded the law apply to U.S. citizens in the first place.

The bill which would codify into law the indefinite detention without trial of American citizens is about to be passed and sent to Obama’s desk to be signed into law, even as some news outlets still erroneously report that the legislation does not apply to U.S. citizens.

“The House on Wednesday afternoon approved the rule for the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), setting up an hour of debate and a vote in the House later this afternoon,” reports the Hill.

Mainstream news outlets like The Hill, as well as neo-con blogs like Red State, are still pretending the indefinite detention provision doesn’t apply to American citizens, even though three of the bill’s primary sponsors, Senator Carl Levin, Senator John McCain, and Senator Lindsey Graham, said it does during speeches on the Senate floor.

“It is not unfair to make an American citizen account for the fact that they decided to help Al Qaeda to kill us all and hold them as long as it takes to find intelligence about what may be coming next,” remarked Graham. “And when they say, ‘I want my lawyer,’ you tell them, ‘Shut up. You don’t get a lawyer.’”

'Those who would trade freedom for security deserve neither.' ~Benjamin Franklin~

Our forefathers are literally rolling over in their graves.

This administration sees the world as a battlefield, because they see Americans as their enemies. And they have now succeeded in crafting the law to accomplish that which our fore fathers sought to protect us from.

Jonah Goldberg: Obama is a kung fu master at defeating straw men

Consider this your must read of the day:

Sounding as if he were still running against George W. Bush, Obama laid the blame for our problems on the “most expensive tax cuts for the wealthy in history.” Of course, he leaves out that those tax cuts also went to the middle class.

He also forgets his own favorite metric of jobs “created or saved.” It’s a bogus, unprovable gimmick, used to defend his failed stimulus, but who is he to say Bush’s tax cuts didn’t save millions of jobs after 9/11?

Obama describes the Bush years as a libertarian dystopia of “‘you’re on your own’ economics,” when we ignored vital spending on things like education and poverty programs. This is Obama’s favorite straw man, and he’s a kung fu master when it comes to defeating it.

He leaves out that Europe already has his preferred policies and is about to go under.

More significantly, Obama leaves out that under “compassionate conservatism,” Bush was the first president to spend more than 3 percent of GDP on anti-poverty programs. Under Bush, federal spending on education grew 58 percent faster than inflation. Obama forgets that Bush fought for the biggest expansion of entitlements since the Great Society (Medicare Part D). He airbrushes away Sarbanes-Oxley, a new cabinet agency, faith-based initiatives, etc.

“Some billionaires have a tax rate as low as 1 percent,” Obama barked. “That is the height of unfairness.” Except, when the Washington Post asked the White House for evidence to support the claim, an official confessed they “had no actual data to back up the president’s assertion.”

That’s okay. Who cares about the facts when you’re fighting to make America safe for cynicism again?

Read the whole thing.  Pass it on.

Obama is attempting, as he promised, to remake America and he's been largely successful.

He must be stopped.  And it will be a fight to overcome his lies and the army of willing accomplices in the media and the ignorant on social media, leftist blogs and elsewhere who gullibly pass his lies along as truth.

Engage. 

To quote the leftists themselves... and this time be correct... it's for the children.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Va. County approves crucifixion of Santa at Courthouse

By Locutisprime

Some stories are so bizarre at first glance that your mind literally screams out, so absurd it seems that they must be someone's sick idea of a joke but more and more these sick jokes are becoming a reality. Enter one county in Virginia and their most recent contribution to the growing attacks on Christmas.

Crucified on the courthouse lawn:

A Christmas display outside the courthouse in Leesburg, VA featuring Santa Claus crucified on a cross was torn down by an angry resident in spite of arguments by elected leaders that the display was Constitutionally-protected free speech.
 “I am shocked that the county would allow such a thing as a crucified Santa on the courthouse lawn,” Elizabeth McGuirk, a mother of three told Leesburg Today. She it would “seriously disturb my children.”
 
“Disgusting, outrageous and absurd,” Supervisor-elect Ken Reid told MyFoxDC.com. “This fellow crossed the line. I’m worried about kids seeing this at the parade Saturday.
The display was erected by Jeff Heflin, whose application was submitted and approved by the Loudon County Board of Supervisors.

“The county would not dismantle it, the county gave it permission for it to be there,” Supervisor Steven Miller told the local newspaper. “We had the same thing happen a year ago when Ed Myers put up some vulgar parody lyrics of the “Twelve Days of Christmas.” Well those came down within an hour and that’s vigilantes.”

Video at the link.