Article from The Weekly Standard-Pelosi is losing it....

Daniel Halper has called attention to Nancy Pelosi's remarkable
 interview with Al Hunt on the topic of Barack Obama and Israel.
 I'd note one comment in particular:
 Pelosi's claim that President Obama "has been there [Israel]
 over and over again."

Wow. I'm involved with the Emergency Committee for Israel.
 We have an ad up in several states calling attention to the fact
 that President Obama, who's been quite the world traveler,
 has never visited Israel as president. Did we make a terrible mistake?
 Were we unjust to President Obama? Do we have to pull down the ad?

No, no, and no. Contrary to Pelosi's apparent claim, President Obama
 hasn't been to Israel over and over again. He's never been as president,
 which is certainly what Pelosi implied. Well, maybe he visited Israel
 "over and over" before becoming president, and that's what Pelosi meant to say?
 No. When he was senator, Obama went on two trips to Israel,
 once with several other freshmen members of Congress, and
 then as a presidential candidate. And he'd never been interested
 enough in Israel to visit as a private citizen. So much for the notion
 that Obama's been "over and over again." 

So Pelosi is wrong, and the Emergency Committee is right.
 But Pelosi's resort to a whopper to try to reassure pro-Israel 
voters does suggest how worried Democrats must be about 
the reaction to Obama's attempt to create distance 
between his administration and Israel, as Obama's Israel policy gets more scrutiny.

Article by William Kristol found here.

Day for Life

Our Lady of Walsingham Ordinariate supports the English Dioceses which have a Day of Life today and it is not too late to say a rosary or visit a Church and pray for life issues. I apologize for the lateness of this message, but the e-mail came late. I encourage all my Ordinariate friends to join in this day of prayer. Humanae Vitae is not an option.

Day for Life is the day in the Church’s year dedicated to celebrating

and upholding the dignity of human life.

The Church teaches that life should be protected and nurtured from conception

 to natural death.

This year's Day for Life falls on 29 July 2012. 

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor once wrote that we need to build

"an ethos of life that protects persons from womb to tomb - especially the most vulnerable". 

Consequently, the Catholic community in England and Wales gathers on the last Sunday

 in July every year to pray for all who care for and nurture life from its

 very beginnings and growth to its final years. We also pray for legislators and

 those in authority that they respect and protect human life in all its stages.

On Cromwell and Cheesecake

There is a dessert company named Gü, which has this list on a package of miniature cheesecake thingies and all over the website; sounds like a to-do list of a particularly narcissistic 15 year-old. I do not think I shall buy these again.

Pleasure is everything
Give in to happiness
Reject propriety; embrace variety
Prudence is sooo 1658
Life is fleeting; clasp it hard with both hands
Seek delight
Trust your impulses
Ordinary is pointless
Break free.

Even though the lemon curd was above average, after typing out the list, I defiantly will not be buying anything of this brand again. Who wants the mix of Post-post-Modernist philosophy and neo-paganism on the back of one's dessert box? Yuck.

1658 was the year Oliver Cromwell died. So, I suppose the reference is to Puritanism and the stringent rules of the Protectorate. However, as a Catholic, my people were never bound by such silly no-cheesecake rules. I mean, really....

JonathanCatholic Post on The Protector Male

In my last post, I talked of the importance of culture and religion in developing men, the modern West as to a system encouraging the development of Peter Pans, and the Islamic system as to a system that prompts the development of men into Predators. Now, however, I would like to focus on the positive male characteristic: the Protector. As Supertradmum has noted often, the Protector is rare in our world today. There are very few of this type of men left, and it is a duty for all men, I feel, to grow by the grace of God into a Protector and bring good to the world. I had the wonderful opportunity in my life of knowing a Protector, and it is from this experience that I would like to flesh out an image of this type of man, as a goal to work toward, as it is for me, or as a filter to discern other men by.

The man that I knew and loved is my great-uncle, now quite elderly. I have not had many years with him, but I still have gotten quite the impression of him, and when I was a child my mother would tell me stories about him. He grew up in a good, Christian home, of Norwegian descent and in a small town. Born of two very devout Christians, he was raised with the values of hard work, duty, virtue, honor, and integrity. He lived them out throughout his life, marrying and having three children, and raising them to love God and neighbor. All three model him to this day, and are good people with their own children, and grandchildren. He is the type of man who always worked hard and reaped the benefit of this work by always having more than enough money for a comfortable life. He is the type of man who would walk up to a family member he hadn’t seen in many years, and say to him, “I expect great things of you,” as he did for me when I was young. He is the type of man who has shepherded and been the strength of his wife for twelve and going on thirteen years, through the throes of Alzheimers, visiting her every day to feed her, pray with her, and be with her. He is the type of man who spontaneously and generously gives money to family and friends for a meal or for ice cream, as he did with his young nieces and nephews, and would help anyone in need at any time. He is to this day a pillar and a foundation of his family, a patriarch, and an intercessor, living to see his great-grandchildren growing strong in Christ and supporting generations of people under him like rings on such a great family tree. This is my dream, and this is the type of life that is well-lived as a man. He isn’t perfect, but he models the devout Christian life of a Protector, filled with virtue and duty. He is an inspiration to me, and hopefully he is to you as well, as we all find our way to more fully fit, as a key in a lock, into that place in Christ’s Sacred Heart carved out for us from eternity. JonathanCatholic