That sure didn't take long

Minutes after finishing my post on Kelo v. City of New London, James Taranto's Best of the Web provided this bit:

"After celebrating the Supreme Court's decision yesterday to effectively give local governments carte blanche to seize land for private development, some local officials began quickly moving to use their new unlimited authority. Officials in the beachfront town of Freeport, Texas, announced they would move forward with plans to commandeer property owned by two seafood companies in order to allow the construction of a 900-slip private marina. Freeport will even be loaning the developers $6 million to finance the project, and if it fails the town won't be getting its money back. What is certain is that the displacement of the two seafood companies will cost scores of jobs."

(Sometimes I think that instead of taking the trouble to actually blog, I should just post a daily link to Taranto. He can make the rest of us bloggers feel so inadequate.)

Kelo v. City of New London

Anyone who owns a home, or dreams of owning one, should be profoundly disappointed by the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling in favor of the City of New London. Basically, the Court affirmed the right of your town or county to take your house to make way for a Target, an Ikea or a Best Buy.

It should come as no suprise that the split went Stevens (writing for the majority), Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter and Kennedy (the last two living proof that with the power to appoint Supreme Court Justices, a President doesn't always get what he bargained for) in favor; of course, leaving Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, and O'Connor against.

I am too tired and don't feel like working myself into a lather, so I haven't read Stevens' opinion. I have only read the news write-ups about it. As I understand it, the majority bloc did for the power of eminent domain (or takings clause) what Congress has done for the interstate-commerce clause: twisted it to mean pretty darn much whatever they say it means.

The traditional interpretation of eminent domain was that state and local governments could only take your property (traditionally land and/or a home) in order to benefit "public use". Throughout our country's history this had been interpreted to mean that eminent domain would be invoked in cases of public works (roads, bridges, schools, airports and the like).

In all cases of eminent domain, the appropriating entity must compensate the owner fairly. In Kelo, compensation was never the issue. It was understood that most people, fairly compensated or not, usually didn't want to give up their homes. At issue is the definition of "public use".

In Kelo, a narrowly-divided Supreme Court expanded this interpretation to include state and local government taking of private property for private development. In other words, your town could take your home, against your wishes, and allow a Starbucks to be built on what had previously been your land. This represents a radical departure from the previous interpretation since now the creation of private sector jobs and tax revenues is deemed to benefit public use.

I usually eschew "slippery slope" arguments but one seems a propos here. Just how many jobs must be created in order for it to be deemed a benefit to public use? If you and your wife are both employed, would the creation of three jobs be considered enough to justify a public taking?

In truth, not having read the majority opinion, I don't know if the Court enunciated any criteria in this area. I read nothing of the sort in any of the news pieces I read on the subject. This decision can only be seen as a drastic setback for private property rights. Combined with the Court's ruling in the Gonzalez v. Raich medical marijuana case, which brought back a more expansive view of the interstate-commerce clause, these rulings represent a blow to those citizens in our country who would like to see the power of government limited.

Well, at least Scalia got this one right. I still have a hard time believing he voted to uphold Gonzalez v. Raich.

Some people....

The nerve of some armchair diplomats is breath-taking. Take Madeleine Albright (please!). You remember her, right? She was the first woman Secretary of State - and an embarrassment to the United States. Recall that she was the one who danced with Kim Jong-Il in Pyongyang.

Ms. Albright also discovered her Jewish ancestry during her tenure at Foggy Bottom. Perhaps that explains her astonishing chutzpah.

Thanks to James Taranto's invaluable Best of the Web for highlighting comments Ms. Albright made about the Bush administration's diplomatic failings in sub-Saharan Africa:

"She decried the country's lack of support for sub-Saharan black Africa, calling Rwanda a 'volcanic' genocide [which occurred during the Clinton administration, while Madeleine was Ambassador to the UN recall] and the current situation in the Darfur region of Sudan a 'rolling genocide' that the United States must get involved in.

'There's no excuse. The money we spend in one year in Iraq would pay for 20 years of helping Africa,' she said.

This, in and of itself, would be bad enough, but contrast her bemoaning of the Bush adminstration's diplomacy in Africa with her own thoughts on the then-nascent "rolling genocide" (to use her term) in Darfur taken from a 2000 op-ed column by The Washington Post's Sebastian Mallaby:

"In a meeting last December, Albright suggested that, much as she deplored the country's suffering, 'The human rights situation in Sudan is not marketable to the American people.' Sudan's Muslim government may condone the enslavement of black people from the south; it may have pursued a war that has cost nearly two million lives; it may regularly bomb schools and hospitals. But Albright and one of her officials declined to call this 'genocide,' explaining that this might require the United States to do more about it."

The idea that she thought the Clinton administration had to "market" the idea that the US take action in a humanitarian crisis such as that in Darfur is simply repugnant. Americans know a wrong when they see it; they don't have to be sold on the idea of righting a grievous wrong.

For my money, Madeleine Albright has to rank as one of the worst Secretaries of State of all time, and certainly would be in the running for worst of the 20th century.

(For those interested, the latest National Review has an excellent article showing that the Bush administration has tried to do more about the slaughter in Darfur than just about any other country. In fact, it is the Europeans in the UN, most notably (wait for it) the French, who refuse to even consider threatening sanctions - much less sending in a peacekeeping force to supplement the African Union's woefully inadequate presence.)

The truth about the Democrat's filibusters

I know you will be shocked (shocked!) to learn that the Democrats in the Senate and the mainstream media have not been telling the truth about the filibuster of judicial nominees. So, here it is.

There is no long or honored tradition of using the filibuster in the Senate, and certainly not to block judicial nominees. In fact, the filibuster has almost always been used as an obstructionist tactic to block legislation that otherwise enjoys popular support . Recall Strom Thurmond's record filibuster of a 1957 civil rights bill.

The key difference here is that Thurmond actually took to the floor and spoke at length, without yielding, to block any other business from coming before the Senate. That is a "real" filibuster. Unlike today's filibuster in which all a Senator must do is signal his intent to filibuster (the so-called "gentleman's filibuster"). This is kind of like the batter signaling his "intent" to hit a home run and then just running around the bases and tagging home. That's ridiculous. The other team doesn't just accept the batter's intent. They make him go through the hard work of actually hitting the ball over the fence.

The first filibuster of a judicial nominee was in 1968 when Abe Fortas' nomination as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was filibustered. In addition to his nomination being opposed on ideological grounds, Fortas had serious ethical questions surrounding him as well. Opponents of Fortas' nomination wanted time to air these charges, so they filibustered. The two things to bear in mind about this filibuster are: (1) Fortas' opponents never intended to prevent his nomination from coming to the floor for an up-or-down vote; and (2) Fortas did not have the support of a majority of the Senate. In fact, the cloture vote (a motion to end debate, i.e., end the filibuster) garnered just 45 votes, far short of the required 60. Lyndon Johnson withdrew the nomination.

The filibuster did not raise its ugly head again until the Clinton administration. In 1996 Bill Clinton nominated a district-court judge named Richard Paez to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (the same circuit that told us that we had to remove the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance). In 1998 he nominated a San Francisco lawyer named Marsha Berzon to the same court.

Republicans, who were the majority at the time (just as they are now), wanted to block these nominations. The nominations were held up in committee until 1999 when Senate Democrats and President Clinton complained about the stalled nominations. Sens. Orrin Hatch and Arlen Specter then sided with Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee to approve the nominations and send them to a floor vote.

Now, here is where today's Democrats are caught in a lie. Paez and Berzon were never filibustered (contrary to the claims of Sen. Charles Schumer, among others). New Hampshire Republican Bob Smith tried to filibuster the nominations but his motions were defeated (85-14 in the case of Paez, and 86-13 for Berzon). Both nominees were subsequently approved.

Fast forward to 2003. The Democrats, still the minority, decided it was their prerogative to veto the President's judicial nominees. So, they began to use the filibuster. The Democrats have blocked 10 nominees from receiving up-or-down votes.

There are, I believe, three key differences between the 1968 Fortas filibuster, the 1999 non-filibusters of Paez and Berzon, and the 2003 filibuster of Bush's 10 judicial nominees.

First, in the case of the Fortas filibuster, the intent was not to block Fortas' nomination from ever reaching the floor. The intent was to allow for more time to study the nomination so that more information about Fortas could be brought to light prior to a floor vote. This is patently not the case with Bush's nominees. Witness this exchange between Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah over the Priscilla Owen nomination:

Bennett: "I ask unanimous consent that there be an additional six hours for debate on the Owen nomination."
Reid: "I object."
Bennett: "I modify the request to ten additional hours."
Presiding officer of the Senate asks if there are any objections.
Reid: "Yes. There are more productive things that could be done during those ten hours."
Bennett: "I ask if any number of hours would be sufficient for the Senator from Nevada."
Reid: "There is not a number in the universe that would be sufficient."

In other words, Senate Democrats fully intended to block this nomination from ever receiving an up-or-down vote. This wasn't about the advise and consent role. It was about obstructionism and denying the President his choices for the federal bench, pure and simple.

Second, the Democrats are the minority party. While the Constitution and Senate rules respect the minority, they clearly do not give them the power to block nominees from an up-or-down vote. Respect for the minority should not result in tyranny by the minority (something which is occurring more and more in our society). One of the perks of winning elections is that the winners (i.e., the Republicans) get to try and enact their policies and nominate people they believe will help them do that.

Third, the filibustered nominees enjoy majority support. In other words, were their nominations ever sent to the floor, they would be confirmed. This is what is most galling about this whole episode and stands in stark contrast to the Fortas "precedent". If a Senator objects to a nominee then he should vote not to confirm that nominee. If he wants to defeat an nominee, then he should convince 49 of his colleagues to do likewise. To do otherwise is cowardly.

Oh, and the fabulous compromise hammered out by the "McCain Seven"? Yeah, that lasted a long time. Democrats are at it again. Now they are filibustering John Bolton's nomination to be Ambassador to the U.N. Color me shocked!

Finally!

I love it when a national figure says something that I have been saying for some time. Follows is an excerpt from a column by former Clinton adviser Dick Morris:

"Frist just needs to end the 'virtual' filibuster and make the Democrats stage a real one, replete with quorum calls, 24/7 sessions and truly endless debate covered word for word by C-SPAN for all the nation to see - and ridicule." (emphasis added)

Morris makes the same point that I have made in several different posts - namely that the "filibusters" that everyone is so excised about aren´t really filibusters at all. Why the Republicans wouldn´t call the Democrats bluff on this remains a mystery to me.

Thanks for backing me up on this one, Dick!

Why doesn't some prominent Republican sue Howard Dean?

If I were a public figure, I'd sue him for slander.

The "never made an honest living" comment really chaps my hide. How dare he?! With one sound-bite, Dr. Dean has insulted the work ethic and integrity of millions of Americans.

As for the quote about the Republicans being a "white, Christian party", I'm sure this would come as news to people like Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Elaine Chao, and Carlos Gutierrez (none of whom are white in the sense meant by Dean); or Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol and Ken Melhman (who aren't Christian).

On the other hand, Howard Dean is a dream DNC chairman from a Republican standpoint. Not only is he alienating the very people the Democrats need to reach out to (the so-called "values voters"), he is so busy putting his foot in his mouth that the Democrats are lagging far behind the Republicans in fundraising. This is going to make it very hard for Democrats to fulfill Nancy Pelosi's (D., The Moon) prediction that her party will capture both houses of Congress in next year's mid-term election.

Who's the dunce?

This is rich. It's almost too good to be true!

For nigh on six years now the Left has repeated over and over that George Bush is dumb. They've repeated it so loudly and so often that it has become part of conventional wisdom. George Bush was presumed to have used his family connections and legacy status to win acceptance to Yale. John Kerry, on the other hand, with his erudition and French-ness was presumed to be the intellectually superior candidate.

Now the Boston Globe has revealed this:

"...Kerry received four times the number of Ds in his freshman year alone (than Bush received in four years of college) - one each in geology, and political science and two in history classes..."

Who's the dunce again?

Long Time, No Blog

For my readers out there, I just wanted to add a quick note to let you know that I am alive and well. I'm on the island of Sao Miguel in the Azores. The Azores, a Portuguese territory, are an island chain in the Atlantic. Just find Spain and Portugal on your map and then look to the left in the Atlantic.

Before that I was home for the month of May. I don't blog much at home since I am usually trying to catch up with friends and family and take care of all the little administrative details of my life. I generally do most of my blogging from the road. Unfortunately, the hotel here in Ponta Delgada (the capital of the Azores) doesn't have internet. Hence the lack of posts. I'm hopeful that next week will be a little slower and I'll get a chance to post.

I'm here until next Friday. I'll be home for almost a week and then I'm off to Frankfurt.

Another Format Change

You may noticed that I have added a "blogroll" on the right-hand side of my page. These are links to blogs and websites that I regularly read and enjoy. These are great sites and I encourage you to check them out.

Thanks to Laer Pearce of Cheat-seeking Missiles for getting me started!

Kerry bloviates on the Senate floor

Thanks again to James Taranto's Best of the Web for this speech by John Kerry:

"Forces outside the mainstream now seem to effortlessly push Republican leaders toward conduct that the American people really don't want in their elected leaders, inserting the government into our private lives, injecting religion into debates about public policy where it doesn't apply.

Jumping through hoops to ingratiate themselves to their party's base while step-by-step and day-by-day real problems that keep Americans up at night fall by the wayside here in Washington. We each have to ask ourselves, Who's going to stop it? Who's going to stand up and say: Are we really going to allow this to continue? Are Republicans in the House going to continue spending the people's time defending Tom DeLay or they going to defend America and defend our democracy?

Will Republican senators let their silence endorse Senator Frist's appeal to religious division, or will they put principle ahead of partisanship and refuse to follow him across that line? Are we really willing to allow the Senate to fall in line with the Majority Leader when he invokes faith, faith, all of our faiths over here? Joe Lieberman's a person of faith. Harry Reid's a person of faith. And they don't believe we should rewrite the rules of the United States Senate, and we certainly shouldn't allow this issue of people who believe in the Constitution somehow challenging the faith of others in our nation.

Are we going to allow the Majority Leader to invoke faith to rewrite Senate rules to put substandard, extremist judges on the bench? Is that where we are now? It is not up to us to tell any one of our colleagues what to believe as a matter of faith. I can tell you what I do believe though.

When you have got tens of thousands of innocent souls perished in Darfur, when 11 million children are without health insurance, when our colossal debt subjects our economic future to the whims of Asian bankers, no one can tell me that faith demands all of a sudden that you put the Senate into a position where it is going to pull itself apart over the question of a few judges. No one with those priorities has a right to use faith to intimidate any one of us."

Kerry is really all over the map in this speech. He seems to be talking about the Republicans' [as yet unexecuted] plan to change Senate rules to require a simple majority for a cloture vote (i.e., a vote to stop a filibuster - although this is a misnomer because in the case of judicial nominees there is no filibuster; merely the threat of one).

I have followed this issue very closely and I don't recall any Republican Senator invoking religion as a reason to confirm judicial nominees. In fact the only discussion of religion I have heard has been from Democrats criticizing nominees such as William Pryor. Senators Feinstein, Kennedy and Schumer accused Pryor of having such deeply held beliefs (i.e., his Catholic faith) that they would cloud his judgment on abortion. To be fair, Pryor has been a vocal critic of Roe v. Wade, but the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee were unable to cite one instance in his record where he allowed those beliefs to affect his carrying out the duties of his office (as Attorney General of Alabama).

I am really tired of Democrats feeling as if they have a right to characterize the positions and the actors on the Republican side. Many people in America think abortion is wrong. That doesn't make them extreme or outside the "mainstream". All this illustrates to me is that John Kerry doesn't have a clue what the "mainstream" really is.

And the endless characterization of Republican nominees as "extremist" is tiresome. Haven't there been any judges nominated by Democrats that were "extreme"? This is like news reports in which no-one is identified as "liberal" only "conservative". And calling the president's nominees "substandard" is just plain insulting - not to mention wrong. These jurists wouldn't be nominated without high marks for suitability from the American Bar Association.

I think it's flat-out hysterical that any Democrat can accuse the Republicans of trying to "insert government into our private lives". If any party can be said to stand for the idea of reducing government involvement in the lives of private citizens, it is the Republicans (although sadly in recent years it seems that the Republicans, too, have abandoned the idea of limited government).

Lastly, as Taranto points out, it's just possible (and I'm just spitballing here) that the Republicans want these nominees to be given an up-or-down floor vote so that they can get on with the real business of the Senate.

Even Senate Democrats don't love the U.N.

Chuck Muth turned me on to James Taranto's "Best of the Web". Check out this excerpt from a larger piece on the Bolton confirmation:

"The classic example of the U.S. leading the U.N. was the first Gulf War. In November 1990 the Security Council passed Resolution 678, which authorized member states 'to use all necessary means,' including military force, to liberate Kuwait, then under occupation by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The resolution also 'request[ed] all States to provide appropriate support' to that end.
In January 1991 Congress obliged. The House voted 250-183, with 179 Democrats voting 'no,' to authorize U.S. military force. The Senate vote was 52-47, with 45 Democrats voting 'no.' Only 86 House Democrats and 10 Senate Democrats voted in favor.

Among the negative votes were all five current Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who were then in Congress: Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, John Kerry, Paul Sarbanes and then-Rep. Barbara Boxer. All told, 25 of the 28 current Senate Democrats who were in Congress in 1991 voted against the Gulf War. (The three who voted for it, in case you're wondering, were Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Tom Carper of Delaware and Harry Reid of Nevada.)

So the U.N. gave the thumbs-up for military force and asked for help, and most Democrats balked.

It seems fair to conclude, then, that most liberal Democrats, like Bolton, are pro-U.N. only when it suits their purposes--and that their purposes are the opposite of Bolton's. That is, for the Democratic left, the U.N. is useful and worthy of respect only insofar as it acts as an obstacle to American leadership and an opponent of American interests."

What more could I possibly add to make this more devastating than it already is?

Democrats miss the point on the Bolton confirmation

Last month I wrote how I thought John Bolton was an inspired choice for the U.N. I think it's high time the United States sent someone there to represent us who wasn't in awe of this dysfunctional mess of agencies and commissions.

I also strongly believe that the president is entitled to have his people representing him and his policies. I think it would be a mistake to send some fawning, liberal internationalist to the U.N. in the wake of the Oil-for-Food scandal and the failure of the Security Council to enforce its own resolutions on Iraq. The U.S. needs to take the lead in reforming the U.N. so that it can live up to the goals and aspirations in its charter.

I definitely think John Bolton sends that message. Senate Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee don't agree however. It is, of course, their right to disagree. It is not, however, their right to deny the president his choice of representative to the U.N. based solely on ideological differences.

The advice and consent power does not give the Senate the power to veto presidential nominations. The framers of the Constitution gave the president sole power to nominate ambassadors, cabinet secretaries and judges.

The Founding Fathers debated long and hard on the role of the Senate in this process and in the end they decided that president should have pre-eminence. As John C. Eastman and Timothy Sandefur of the Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jursprudence put it:

"No one argued that the Senate's participation in the process should include second-guessing the judicial philosophy of the President's nominees or attempting to mold that philosophy itself. Indeed, such a suggestion was routinely rejected as presenting a dangerous violation of the separation of powers, by allowing the Senate to control the President's choices and, ultimately, intrude upon the judiciary itself...[The advice and consent power of the Senate] exists only to prevent the President from selecting a nominee who 'does not possess due qualifications for office.' Essentially, it exists to prevent the President from being swayed by nepotism or mere political opportunism. Assessing a candidate's 'qualifications for office' did not give the Senate grounds for imposing an ideological litmus on the President's nominees, at least where the questioned ideology did not prevent a judge from fulfilling his oath of office."

And yet ideology is what the Bolton confirmation fight is all about. The ideological differences here are simple and stark. One side believes that the U.N. is just one tool in an administration's toolbox and should be used to advance American interests. This view stems from the realization that the U.N. is a body that represents governments - each of which fights to advance their own interests.

The other side believes that the U.N. possesses some legitimate authority and stands above all nations of the world, and that the United States should subordinate its will to the U.N.

But the Democrats know they can't come right out and say that this fight is over differing ideologies, so they desperately fling dubious charges of "anger management problems" at Bolton in the hopes that it will stick. Essentially they are accusing him of being a big, fat meanie.

And while this is all very amusing, it's also totally irrelevant. What's important is how Bolton treats the people with whom he must do business (i.e., the other U.N. ambassadors) and how he articulates and executes the president's policies.

I always find it unfortunate when important people treat underlings poorly (and, by the way, it's far from clear yet that this is the case with Bolton), but if this were to become a disqualifying factor for public service or positions of great responsibility or authority, our pool of applicants would be reduced to kindergarten teachers.

President Bush needs to speak out publicly and forcefully for this nominee and not let this nomination go down to a combination of spineless Republican Senators (Chuck Hagel, Lincoln Chaffee, George Voinovich) and desperate Democrats.

So, is it about ethics or not?

Chuck Muth had this item in yesterday's "D.C. Confidential" Newsletter:

"WON'T TAKE "YES" FOR AN ANSWER

Congressman Tom DeLay and House Republicans offered to open an ethics investigation into allegations made against the House Majority Leader yesterday, but the offer was rejected by Democrats, for two reasons: (1) An investigation would clear DeLay and (2) an actual investigation will remove the partisan and fundraising advantages Democrats presently enjoy by being able to beat up on DeLay. Cynical Washington politics at its finest."

Relayed without comment. (If I started, I'd never stop...)

My first plug!

Ever since I started my own, I like discovering new blogs. Recently I happened across one such.

Cheat-seeking Missiles is operated by a public affairs consultant in Orange County, California, named Laer Pearce. That's about all I know about him other than he is a fine writer who is using, what he calls, "precision-guided logic bombs to destroy biased purveyors of *dem*-entia". After a couple of visits to his blog, I left him a comment letting him know how much I enjoyed his writing and invited him to peruse my own humble efforts.

The result is my first plug and "blogroll" listing. A "blogroll" is a list of other blogs that a blogger reads or admires. In addition, Laer also wrote a post encouraging his readers to check out my blog.

I'm very flattered by the attention and would like to urge anyone who stops by to check out Cheat-seeking Missiles.

U.N. Reform

This weekend I had a chance to watch the BBC News program "Talking Point". "Talking Point" is a viewer participation show and this weekend's topic was U.N. reform. The guest was Mark Malloch Brown, Kofi Annan's chief of staff.

A viewer e-mailed with the suggestion that perhaps the U.N. should set representative government as a precondition for membership. Mr. Malloch Brown responded that if that were the case, then China, representing 1/6th of the world's population, would be excluded from membership and its people "disenfranchised".

What on earth makes Mr. Malloch Brown think the Chinese people have any kind of franchise now? He unwittingly made the e-mailer's point. Namely that the U.N. is a body of governments, many of whom do not represent their people's wishes.

It was kind of revolting listening to all the callers and e-mails proclaiming the legitimacy of the U.N. Some people just aren't that smart.

God forbid they be consistent

On the topic of stalled judicial nominations, let's listen to the wisdom of New York Senator Charles Schumer (D):

"I also plead with my colleagues to move judges with alacrity -- vote them up or down. But this delay makes a mockery of the Constitution, makes a mockery of the fact that we are here working, and makes a mockery of the lives of very sincere people who have put themselves forward to be judges and then they hang out there in limbo."

Wow! I hadn't realized that Mr. Schumer supported an end to the Democrats' obstructionist tactics.

Unfortunately, consistency of principle is not Mr. Schumer's strong suit. He spoke these words about stalled Clinton nominees.

Well, they say payback's a bitch. I can only hope that Senator Frist and the rest of the Republicans in Congress can effect a rules change so that no president of any party will have to have his choices for the federal benches blocked on strictly ideological grounds.

Papamania

By now you've heard about the election of former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the papacy. What I'd like to talk about are the strange reports from news agencies on the views of non-Catholics.

This afternoon BBC News carried a television report about South African Anglican bishop Desmond Tutu's criticism of the Ratzinger election. Tutu would like to see a more liberal pope. (Perhaps one that sees the Catholic Church as a "living" church?) I wonder how would Bishop Tutu like it if the Pope were to criticize the selection of the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

Of course, Anglicans shouldn't be throwing stones. Their church is undergoing its largest schism ever over the ordination of gay clergy in the United States.

CNN felt compelled to tell us of "non-practicing" Catholics' disappointment with the new pope. These people would like to see the church sanction birth control, drop its opposition to homosexuality, and ordain women priests.

"Non-practicing" Catholics is an oxymoron. If you're not practicing, you're not really Catholic, now are you? These people are what I call "cafeteria Catholics". They pick and choose which teachings to follow. "Thou shalt not kill"? Sure. If more people follow this one, that decreases the odds I'll be knifed in a dark alley. So, okay. "Thou shalt not steal"? Sure. I don't want some thug mugging me, so I'll go along on that one. "Thou shalt not commit adultery"? Gee, I don't know. My new secretary is pretty hot. I'll have to think about that one - after I figure out if she's receptive to my advances or not. No to homosexuality? That's so judgmental. Better not. Abortion? It's so convenient. Pass.

All of this is somewhat akin to an ex-spouse offering her opinion on a current spouse. Sure, at one time I might have cared, but now? This would be like Botswana criticizing the election of an American president. Amusing, but hardly relevant.

Why don't BBC and CNN concentrate on what the 1 billion real Catholics think?

Just when I start to think...

...there is no cosmic justice in the universe something happens to make me reconsider.

Today my Orioles completed a three-game sweep of the hated New York Yankees, whipping the pinstripers 8-4 in Camden Yards today and moving into first place in the AL East. It's the first time the O's have swept the Yanks since 2000.

And, according to Fox Sports, Yankees' owner George Steinbrenner is none too happy about having a $206 million payroll and a last place team. That's right. $206 million! That's $85 million dollars more than the team with the second-highest payroll (the Boston Red Sox) and a whopping $132 million more than the team that just smoked them three times in a row! (Source CBS Sportsline.com)

Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it, George!

Format Change

Just an FYI that I've changed the settings on my blog to require users to log in before leaving a comment. This was a necessary change because of one sad, lonely individual who has a problem with my writings and has persisted in anonymous "drive-by" commenting. I find this type of behavior cowardly and tiresome, so I've turned off anonymous comments.

I would still like very much to hear your thoughts, but please be a man (or woman) about it and put your name by your thoughts. I'm happy to engage anyone in discussion about my postings but I have to know who you are to do so.

I hope this doesn't discourage too many of you from commenting.

Thanks!

Yankees Fans, Class Act

When I got home from Saudi Arabia last Thursday, I caught an edition of ESPN's SportsCenter. One of the big stories that day was the booing of Mariano Rivera by Yankees fans in a game against the Red Sox.

Let me start with a disclaimer: I am a Baltimore Orioles fan, so I hate the Yankees. I think the only excuse a person has for being a Yankees fan is to have been born and lived his whole life in (or near) New York. If that's not the case, you're a bandwagon-er. Period.

How could Yankees fans boo one of their best, if not the best, player over the last several years? Rivera's stats, especially in the post-season, have been sterling. The Yankees haven't had to go out and buy the best closer in the game (like they have with the rest of their pitching staff) because they've already got him!

The worst part of this whole incident is that the loss the Yanks suffered to their arch-rivals wasn't entirely Rivera's fault. High-priced superstar Alex Rodriguez bobbled a hard hit grounder to third - twice. What should have been an easy double play ball allowed a run to score, tying the game.

So you can see why it is a moral imperative to hate the Yankees. Not only do they buy the best players in baseball, like Randy Johnson this past off-season (even though they haven't won the World Series since 2000), but their fans are cretins.