Jim Phelan: 21st Century's Cultural War Hero

  Photo

In a 4 to 3 ruling, California’s highest court overturned the state’s ban on same-sex marriage today. This, despite voter’s not being in favor of same-sex marriage. Two dozen couples and gay rights groups petitioned lower courts, ending up at the highest court.

According to news reports, the cultural war is not over as other groups will seek to put measures on the ballots in November that will back current laws banning gay marriage by putting it the state’s constitution.

Interestingly, 6 of the 7 judges were appointed by Republican governors.

What is your opinion on the ruling?

Gianna Jessen is full of life.  

"This woman has an incredible will-power and despite having cerebral palsy, as a result of the attempted abortion, she has run the Boston Marathon and even the London Marathon!"

From Criagslist's Blog

Ebay has filed suit against craigslist and its board of directors:

http://news.ebay.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=305980

We are surprised and disappointed by Ebay’s unfounded allegations, which came to us out of the blue, without any attempt to engage in a dialogue with us.

Coming from a shareholder that views craigslist as a prime competitor, filing suit without so much as mentioning these assertions beforehand seems unethical, and hints at ulterior motives.

Ensuring the future well-being of craigslist and the craigslist community is admittedly very important to us. But Ebay has absolutely no reason to feel threatened here — unless of course they’re contemplating a hostile takeover of craigslist, or the sale of Ebay’s stake in craigslist to an unfriendly party. (In which case, they’re out of luck.

For our part, we have always treated Ebay very fairly as a minority shareholder, and plan to continue doing so, despite this unfortunate development.

Addendum in response to commenter question - To be perfectly clear, Ebay’s stake in craigslist has not been unfairly diluted as they have claimed.

Ebay said this:

The complaint is being filed under seal because some of the information about craigslist contained in the complaint is governed by confidentiality restrictions.

Add this to the laundry list for CL.

Other reports: here, here, here, and here

Despite recent negativity about the upcoming Olympics, there is still alot of inspiration to hold on to.  Our athletes did not choose the locale of the Olympics, and they deserve our support.  These men and women have trained most of their lives for a chance to compete in the games.

The video is about Ryan Hall, a US man, who at the time, was training for the Olympic Trails in marathon.  Not only did he make the Olympic team, he won the race and broke a record.

Albuquerque photographer Elaine Huguenin, who refused to take pictures of a gay couple's “commitment ceremony” because of her religious beliefs, violated New Mexico discrimination law, a human rights panel ruled. The ruling said Huguenin should pay $6,637 for the couple's attorney's fees and costs.

The Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian organization that defends religious liberty, plans to appeal to state district court.  ADF's senior counsel, Jordan Lorence, said:

"The fact she is a commercial business does not mean she loses her constititutional protection. ... The constitution prevents the government from forcing people to choose between their faith and their livelihood.”

What do you think?  Should Huguenin be free to discriminate on what business she takes, based on her religious convictions?

Does the ADF have a good change of getting this ruling reversed?

Story Here and Here                       Photo credit:About.com

Obama Turban

I have not heard alot from the MSM about the Compassion Forum (the brainchild of Faith in Public Life) which aired Sunday on CNN.

I found these words by Eboo Patel from a collaborative of Newsweek and the Washington Post interesting:

Obama (finally!) discussed his positive experience with Islam in Indonesia. He described it as a tolerant faith which lived comfortably with other religions, in a society where women had freedom and dignity. He concluded by saying that it was clear to him that Islam, like other religious traditions, had much to offer the modern world.

Finally, according to Obama:  America is a Christian nation, a Jewish nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, a Muslim nation, an atheist nation, etc.

Everybody's favorite dead-pan teacher and game show host, Ben Stein, is the face of a new documentary to be released April 18^th called "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed". It's ostensibly a movie about attacks on freedom of speech in today's hostile climate among scientists in academia, but some suggest that on closer inspection it really seems to be a thinly veiled screed for Intelligent Design. A quick search of the web provides the background: the production company for the film is the same that produced The Passion of the Christ ; its CEO and one of the film's producers recently questioned the Godliness of the administration at Baylor University over an ID-related incident; and the producers used Stein as the narrator specifically because he wasn't "overtly religious."Professor Paul Zachary Myers at the University of Minnesota is one of the scientists interviewed for the film. He's recently been caught up in a blog exchange with the film's producers regarding this and other topics to do with the movie. Read the arguments and decide for yourself whether you'll see the film. You can find the producer's first post here followed by Myer's response, followed by the producer's response. Even Bill O'Reilly interviewed Stein.

So, what do you think? What are your thoughts of the controversies?

Is there really an attack on the freedom of speech in today's academia and does a hostile climate exist for scientists who are conservative?

Will you watch "Expelled" when it hits theaters?

Click here to find out where Expelled is playing at a theater near you.

Sensitive military items are being offered for sale through Craigslist, the Government Accountability Office said in a report, a practice that puts U.S. service members and allies at risk. reported here.

GAO found numerous defense-related items for sale to the highest bidder on Craigslist and other sites,  the report said.  "A review of policies and procedures for these web sites determined that there are few safeguards to prevent the sale of sensitive and stolen defense-related items using the sites."

The GAO report expressed concern that items such as the protective gear could be reverse engineered by adversaries in order to design countermeasures.

I found this interesting:

In a statement to a congressional subcommittee Thursday morning, Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist (pictured above), said that GAO mischaracterized his site by calling it "a global marketplace with international reach." He said it was a collection of separate, local marketplaces and that sales involving shipping are rare and strongly discouraged.  He said that Craigslist nonetheless does not accept misuse of its site and is eager to solve this problem.

"Contrary to what the GAO report implies, Craigslist has more people actively engaged in its anti-fraud efforts than any Web site on earth," said Buckmaster. "In addition to our in-house anti-fraud team numbering a dozen or more staff members, and the automated blocking and screening routines we have developed, Craigslist benefits from tens of millions of passionate users diligently reviewing every ad on the site, with each user having the power to delete inappropriate ads, which power they exercise to the tune of several million ads removed each month."

The latter of course is misleading.  Makes it sound as though readers have absolute power to delete inappropriate ads (which would mean over 90% of the personal ads) and from my experiment THAT IS JUST NOT THE CASE!

Seems as though Catholic Schools are sliding off course? This is certainly true as liberal administrators at the University of St. Thomas, a Catholic university and private college in Minnesota, censored the appearance of prominent pro-life and black speaker Star Parker.  Star—the best-selling author of numerous books—was slated to speak on campus about the devastating impact abortion has on minority communities. UST Vice President of Student Affairs Jane Canney nixed the idea entirely, citing “concerns” that the lecture was being underwritten by Young America’s Foundation.  This, even despite students’ advocacy and desire to host Star.  While banning Star, they made room for Al Franken and transgender speakers.

At one time, Ms Parker was not happy about Mary Cheney's book, Now It's My Turn: A Daughter's Chronicle of Political Life, or Cheney's insistence that gay marriage has a rightful and, what should be, a legal place in our society:

 Cheney effortlessly transforms traditional marriage and family from the core institution on which free society is built into an instrument of oppression.

What would the Pope say about St Thomas nixing Star?                                                                                                

[Photo: Marywood University, Scranton, PA]

American Government

An article in the New York Times said a high school student complained that ''American Government'' by conservatives James Wilson and John Dilulio presented a skewed view of topics from global warming to separation of church and state. In response to the student, the text was changed.

One example is where, the 2005 edition of the textbook, states that ''science doesn't know whether we are experiencing a dangerous level of global warming or how bad the greenhouse effect is, if it exists at all.''  A newer edition published late last year was changed to say, ''Science doesn't know how bad the greenhouse effect is.''

New York Times went on to say this:

While there are still some scientists who downplay global warming and the role of burning fossil fuels, the overwhelming majority of climate scientists and peer-reviewed scientific research say human activity is causing climate change. Last year an international collection of hundreds of scientists and government officials unanimously approved wording that said the scientific community had ''very high confidence,'' meaning more than 90 percent likelihood, that global warming is caused by humans.

Of course, they failed to mention this: