Via quaoar, the Pope has strongly backed Catholic clergy in their decision to excommunicate politicians who support choice:

Speaking to reporters on his way to Brazil, Pope Benedict has backed Mexican bishops who have threatened excommunication for parliamentarians who voted to legalise abortion in Mexico City. . . . "Yes, this excommunication was not an arbitrary one but is allowed by Canon (church) law which says that the killing of an innocent child is incompatible with receiving communion, which is receiving the body of Christ," he said.

Passing a law giving women the right to choose is not having an abortion so the logic escapes me here. I guess there is some accomplice theory but I have to wonder, what about laws allowing for birth control, also viewed as a grave sin by the Catholic Church:

the Catholic church also teaches that many methods of contraception would be a violation of natural law and therefore morally evil because they interfere with the natural processes such as condoms, diaphragms, other barrier methods, spermicides, intrauterine devices, chemical methods such as pills, patches, injections, and implants. Likewise the Catholic Church views surgical sterilization methods as being opposed to natural law because they prevent the possibility of conception.

Some politicians in the world voted to allow birth control. Are they going to be excommunicated?

And what about remarriage?

A guy went to the doctor and the doctor gave him six months to live. Six months later when the fellow hadn't paid his bill the doctor gave him another six months to live. -Henny Youngman

Here is a story I find funny:

A British man who went on a wild spending spree after doctors said he only had a short time to live . . . John Brandrick, 62, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer two years ago and told that he would probably die within a year.

He quit his job, sold or gave away nearly all his possessions, stopped paying his mortgage and spent his savings dining out and going on holiday. Brandrick was left with little more than the black suit, white shirt and red tie that he had planned to be buried in.

. . . [A] year later . . . . his suspected "tumor" was no more than a non-life threatening inflammation of the pancreas. . . . [H]e is considering . . . suing the hospital that diagnosed him.

Funny but I see his point. Reliance right?

I find the critiques of Karl Rove from Jon Chait and Matt Yglesias regarding his envy of persons of faith strange. I guess I find it so because, as an agnostic, I agree with Rove when he says, according to Hitchens:

“I’m not fortunate enough to be a person of faith.”

Chait and Yglesisas object to Rove viewing persons of faith as "fortunate." I ask why? Yglesias says:

I think it's not at all condenscending to say something like "I wish it were the case that my destiny were in the ends of a benevolent higher power." I could use the help! But what Rove [says] is different, and condescending, Rove is saying he wishes he thought the world were like that, but, sadly, he knows better.

How is Rove saying that? I know when I say it, I envy the serenity and yes, strength of purpose, persons of faith can have in their life path. I don't have that and I wish I did. How is that condescending? I can assure you that for me my envy is genuine. Remember, you can't choose to have faith, you have it or you don't.

Yesterday I stopped at the organic grocery and bought a plump free-range organic chicken to make chicken soup. I made it tonight, and while cooking it, happened across this:

About 20 million chickens being raised for human consumption in several states ate feed made with melamine-tainted pet food and are being held from market to keep them from entering the food supply, Agriculture Department officials said last night.

The agency called for the "voluntary hold" late yesterday, pending completion of a government risk analysis to determine whether the animals would be safe for people to eat.

I'm tempted to throw the whole thing down the garbage disposal. Then again, I hate giving in to fear. Does anyone know if organic chickens are given feed made with pet food? And what exactly is an "organic chicken" other than it's free to run around and not be penned in?

The U.S. is getting a new airline company. It brings new meaning to the term "no-frills." It's more like nickel and diming you to death. I won't be flying on it anytime soon.

Skybus, based in Columbus, Ohio, is charging extra for many items — $5 to check a bag, $10 for a preferred seat, $2 for a soft drink — and it aims to sell a lot of the stuff. Carrying food on board is not allowed, according to Skybus’s Web site, “unless you brought enough for the whole plane.”

The airline will sell tickets only through its Web site, avoiding the expense of maintaining a reservations call center or paying a sales commission to travel agents. Skybus is also outsourcing its maintenance, the staffing of ticket counters at airports and its baggage handling, all to keep costs low.

“Don’t call us,” the Web site explains. “We don’t have a phone number.”

The new list of the 50 best restaurants in the world was released today. You can view it here.

Only 8 are in the United States.

How many have you eaten in? I've only eaten in five, one in London, two in Paris, one each in New York and Chicago.

The one I'd most like to try: Bukhara, in New Delhi, which won as best restaurant in Asia. In the U.S., I'd like to eat at French Laundry in California.

Can you tell I'm writing this just before dinner?

Off-topic perhaps, but it's Friday and I'm sick of all the crime news this week.

In today's Washington Post:

Data shows that baby boomers are less healthy than their parents. Hard to believe with all our focus on gyms, health food and quitting smoking, but these are the facts:

Boomers are healthier in some important ways -- they are much less likely to smoke, for example -- but large surveys are consistently finding that they tend to describe themselves as less hale and hearty than their forebears did at the same age. They are more likely to report difficulty climbing stairs, getting up from a chair and doing other routine activities, as well as more chronic problems such as high cholesterol, blood pressure and diabetes.

One explanation:

It is too early to be debating these things in light of today's Virginia Tech tragedy, but I found these reactions worthy of notice. Atrios is against security checkpoints on campuses:

Without meaning to minimize the tragedy, can we stop the hysterical calls for increased security measures on college campuses. Large residential college campuses are like small cities, places where people live, work, and study. Calling for absurd things like random bag checks and metal detectors in such an environment is like calling for such things on city streets.

Glenn Reynolds is for more guns on campuses:

. . . These things do seem to take place in locations where it's not legal for people with carry permits to carry guns, though, and I believe that's the case where the Virginia Tech campus is concerned. I certainly wish that someone had been in a position to shoot this guy at the outset. Had [guns been allowed on campus], things might have turned out differently, though we'll never know now.

I leave you with your thoughts on these thoughts.

Via Digby:

[Former University of Florida football coach and current South Carolina coach] Spurrier brought up the [Confederate] flag issue Friday while accepting a leadership award from City Year at the service group’s Ripples of Hope banquet at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center.

. . . “It would make us a more progressive, better state, I think, if the flag was removed. But I’m not going to go on any big campaign to have it removed. That’s not my position,” Spurrier said in an interview with The State. “But if anyone were to ask me, that would certainly be my position. And I think everyone in there, it was their position, too.”

Spurrier said it was “embarrassing” last year when someone waved a Confederate battle flag behind the set of ESPN’s “GameDay” before the Gamecocks’ home game against Tennessee.

Good for the former Heisman winner and legandary Ole Ball Coach. But the "best" was yet to come.

Today MLB celebrates the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's breaking of the color barrier:

On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson played in his first major league game and suceeded in breaking the color barrier that divided baseball. Over the course of Jackie Robinson's rookie year, he endured racist taunts from both fans and opposing players. On his first trip to Cincinnati, the fans cursed, taunted, threw bottles, and hurled racist epithets at Robinson. The scene became so raucous and dangerous that Brooklyn manager Burt Shotton briefly considered pulling Robinson from the game.

Today, Cinncinati outfielder Ken Griffey, Jr. will be wearing Jackie Robinson's number 42 in tribute to the man who blazed the trail. He has been joined by many other MLB stars and the entire Dodgers team will wear 42 today.

An admirable gesture from Griffey and MLB. Today is a day to remember Jackie Robinson.

"God does not play dice." -Albert Einstein

In the most recent issue of Time, Walter Isaacson publishes an excerpt of his new book "Einstein and Faith" - a very interesting piece on Einstein's thinking on faith and science. One of the most interesting aspects of Einstein's faith was his belief in predestination and an uncaring God:

Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein sen[t Einstein] a very direct telegram: "Do you believe in God? Stop. Answer paid. 50 words." Einstein used only about half his allotted number of words. It became the most famous version of an answer he gave often: "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind."

Atrios comments on E.J. Dionne's column on dogmatic atheists and brings up some interesting points while leading me to think of another.

My daughter recently celebrated her bat mitzvah and one of the readings at the service was the Red Heifer:

According to the Numbers 19:2: "Speak unto the Children of Israel that they bring thee a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke". In other words, it must not have hairs of any other color, it must be in perfect health, and it must never have been used to perform work. . . . The existence of a red heifer that conforms with all of the rigid requirements imposed by halakha is a biological anomaly. . . . The absolute rarity of the animal, combined with the mystical ritual in which it is used, have given the red heifer special status in Jewish tradition. It is cited as the prime example of a chok, or biblical law for which there is no apparent logic, and is therefore of absolute Divine origin. . . .

I have always viewed the Red Heifer writing as being a call for unquestioning faith. It means, I think, that there are matters to which only God can know the why. And that God demands, in essence, acceptance of dogma. It is this requirement of all religions that makes it impossible for me to be religious, or atheist for that matter. I do not, and believe can not, know if God exists. I can not accept the dogma of either path.