New action flick!

Via Jesus' General:

Gonzales v. Carhart misunderstood

In a blog post at The Big Question, Eric Black is sadly misinformed about the consequential nature of the so-called partial birth abortion decision this week:

For those who like to see what I write when I'm writing for the paper paper (and who don't read it in the paper paper), my piece in the Thursday editions analyzing Wednesday's abortion ruling reinforced the view – expressed in a quick blogpost of Wednesday but now buttressed by interviews with two constitutional law professors whose personal politics place them on opposite sides of the abortion issue — that you should not believe the hype about how the court's approval of a federal law banning one particular abortion procedure means, prefigures or even hints that the court, as currently constituted, is ready to reverse the 1973 decision that a pregnant woman has the right to choose an abortion, especially in the early stages of a pregnancy, but that the government's right to regulate abortion increases in the later stages.

Spot doesn't know who your con law buddies are, Eric, but they have perhaps not been paying attention all these years. Here's Jack Balkin, a law professor at Yale on the ruling:

This consequence of Gonzales v. Carhart is hardly accidental. It is the result of a long and sustained strategy by pro-life advocates that has now borne fruit in Supreme Court doctrine. In his discussion of informed choice and in his purple prose about the natural bonds of love between mothers and children-- call it Kennedy's "mother and child reunion" speech-- Justice Kennedy adopts some of the rhetoric of Operation Outcry-- an anti-abortion group which has honed the new style of pro-life rhetoric. The basic goal of this new rhetoric is to undermine the notion that women exercise any kind of choice when they decide to have abortions. It seeks to turn the rhetoric of the pro-choice movement on its head. Women, the new rhetoric argues, don't really understand what they are doing when they decide to have abortions; as a result, they often regret having them later on.

The amicus brief that Justice Kennedy cites for these propositions was written on behalf of Sandra Cano, who was the original Mary Doe in Doe v. Bolton, the companion case to Roe. Cano regrets her association with Doe v. Bolton (she did not in fact have an abortion), and she sees in her experience the experience of all women. Anti-abortion activist Harold Cassidy has been instrumental in refining this style of argument over the past decade, even coming up with an invented medical syndrome, post-abortion syndrome (or PAS) that women suffer as a result of making the immoral and unnatural decision to have an abortion. As Justice Ginsburg's dissent explains, the medical evidence for PAS is flimsy; there is no evidence that women suffer more stress from having abortions than from having to bear and raise children that they aren't prepared to mother. PAS is junk science that has been championed by a new generation of anti-abortion advocates to explain why almost any woman would be out of her mind to undergo an abortion.

Let Spot lay it out for you, Eric. The import of Carhart is not the banning of a rarely-performed abortion procedure. It is that a new form of "junk science" as Professor Balkin calls it has now found its way into constitutional doctrine, and that women are not capable of making an abortion decision without the "help" of the state. Carhart strikes at the very heart of Roe v. Wade, which is that women have sovereignty over their own bodies.

We can now look forward to all sorts of legislation to "help" women make this decision: lectures, looking at ultrasounds, gruesome pictures chosen by legislators, not doctors, etc. and etc. Abortion foes are already licking their chops:

Elated and emboldened, abortion-rights opponents in state after state are planning to push for stringent new limits on second- and third-trimester abortions in the hopes of building on their victory Wednesday at the Supreme Court.

By a 5-4 vote, the justices upheld a federal ban on a procedure critics call "partial-birth" abortion, which involves partially delivering the fetus, then crushing its skull. The ruling included strong language asserting the state's "legitimate, substantial interest in preserving and promoting fetal life."

Advocates on both sides of the abortion debate predicted the ruling would spur a flood of legislation.

"We're moving beyond putting roadblocks in front of abortions to actually prohibiting them," said Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, a national abortion-rights opponent group based in Wichita, Kan. "This swings the door wide open."

Here's Troy Newman and others have in mind:

He and other strategists said they hope to introduce legislation in a number of states that would:

•Ban all abortion of viable fetuses, unless the mother's life is endangered.

•Ban mid- and late-term abortion for fetal abnormality, such as Down syndrome or a malformed brain.

•Require doctors to tell patients in explicit detail what the abortion will involve, show them ultrasound images of the fetus and warn them that they might become suicidal after the procedure.

•Lengthen waiting periods so women must reflect on such counseling for several days before obtaining the abortion.

And Leslee Unruh, the sweetheart from South Dakota that MNO introduced us to last week, said:

"I'm ecstatic," said Leslee Unruh, an abortion-rights opponent in South Dakota. "It's like someone gave me $1 million and told me, 'Leslee, go shopping.' That's how I feel."

She spent the day conferring with attorneys on how to leverage the ruling to maximum effect in the states: "We're brainstorming and we're having fun."

So Eric, Spot recommends that you take another look at this and perhaps your reporting won't be quite so sanguine on the effects of Carhart. You owe it to your readers.

Tags: Gonzales v. Carhart, abortion

The quality of empathy

Is in short supply. For example, here are the opening paragraphs of a Judith Warner opinion piece in her online NYT column called Domestic Disturbances. It is regrettably subscriber only:

There's an absolutely horrifying article in the current issue of Child Magazine about the food fight now raging between parents of children with life-threatening food allergies and parents of the allergy-free. The latter, apparently, have started to push back against "peanut-free" school regulations to assert their children's natural right to eat whatever they darn well please.

The stories are downright chilling: One parent joked on a message board about having his daughter dress as "the Death Peanut" on Halloween. A North Carolina father at a parent-teacher organization meeting said he'd continue to send his child to school with peanut butter sandwiches and "tell his child to 'smear' the peanut butter along the hallway walls." Another father sent his child to school with a "disguised" sandwich that had peanut butter hidden in the middle of the bread.

What's with these wacko parents? According to Judith:

[E]mpathy appears to me now, in much of what I read, to be in particularly short supply, not only among different groups of parents (all those "wars," Mommy and otherwise) but in the increasingly punitive attitudes of school systems and legislators toward parents and, by extension, their kids. Frequently, I find, there seems to be a kind of studied harshness in the air, an in-your-face obtuseness that tries to pass itself off as some sort of virtue or push for justice.

A studied harshness in the air. That seems right to Spot. Piety and virtue, and sometimes even justice, are the biggest empathy killers around. Here's a comment to Warner's article by a reader:

My experience has been that self-righteous parents also raise children without empathy - children without any sense of the good-natured tolerance that makes society a more civil place. I am continually amazed at the inability of older school children to make the smallest accommodations for anyone else. It seems as if to do so would sacrifice their natural right to…whatever it is. We act as if we are the most liberty-deprived people on the planet, instead of the most self-centered.

Spotty says that the comment is spot on. Piety and the code of "personal virtue" make self-absorption masquerade as moral rectitude.

You know where this is going, don't you, boys and girls?

Yeah, you're going to talk about Katie again.

Bingo. Let's take Katie's recent hat trick screed against Muslims. Katie is a member of the group that holds the overwhelming wealth, power, and influence in the United States.

Hack writers?

No grasshopper: Christian white people. People like Katie are the ones who ought to have a little of the "sense of the good-natured tolerance that makes society a more civil place." But in order to have tolerance, you first have to possess a modicum of empathy. Empathy is among the attributes sorely lacking in conservative Christians. Think of them as a large mutual-admiration society, brimming with self-regard, convinced of the correctness of their beliefs and their place in the firmament.

What need have they of empathy? What the world needs is the propagation of their grasp of Ultimate Truth: evangelism. You can understand then Katie's concern about some other religion having the same idea. Here's how she ends her latest column (link above):

The Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada is heavily involved in the Canadian Federation of Students' new report and lobbying. Its president is a member of the task force, and has been a spokesman for its recommendations. The association is the organization that Minneapolis Community and Technical College has looked to for guidance on the ritual washing issue.

Its main goal, it says, is "Dawah": spreading Islam.

Oh, the horror!

Tags: Katherine Kersten, Islam, empathy

The Blacksburg Unit

First of all, boys and girls, who knows what a Friedman Unit is?

I know! I know! Pick me Spotty!

All right, grasshopper, what's a Friedman Unit?

A Friedman unit is the amount of time that columnist Tom Friedman predicts will be required before we can determine whether a decent outcome is possible in Iraq. He's been saying that the next six months will tell the tale for years. The blogger Atrios, who is much better known than you, Spot, came up with the term. A Friedman unit is therefore six months.

Thank you, precocious grasshopper. See me after class; I have a special project for you. That's right; a Friedman Unit is six months.

In a similar vein, Spot thought it would be useful to measure the violence in Iraq from time to time in terms of comparison to the recent horror at Blacksburg, Virginia. In round numbers, a Blacksburg Unit is therefore 30; Spot thinks that is sufficiently precise for our purposes. So for example, there were nearly three hundred people killed or found dead in Iraq on Wednesday: that would be how many Blacksburg Units?

Ten Blacksburg Units, Spotty.

Right. There have been more that 3,300 US service persons killed in Iraq since the invasion. How many BUs is that?

Wow. That's 110 Blacksburg Units.

Right again. Final question, a harder one. Ready? It is estimated in a study in the British medical journal that as of last fall, 655,000 people have died in Iraq as a result of violence or illness directly attributable to the war. How many BUs is that?

That's 21,833 Blacksburg Units.

Very good. By the way, do you know where we got the numbers that permit us to do long division?

Well, it's called the Arabic number system, so I'm guessing the Arabs, Spot.

Yes, that's right. Can you imagine doing long division with Roman numerals? That's what the western civilization that people like Katie and Victor Davis Hanson are so fond of would have given us. Spot thinks that sometimes a little more cultural humility is in order, at least in some circles.

Class is over for the present. Don't think, boys and girls, that today's exercise was to minimize the tragedy of the loss of life at Virginia Tech. Quite the reverse. Spot wants you to take all the horror and grief experienced on that one campus in America and multiply it by the thousands and thousands of people who have died in Iraq.

Tags: Iraq war, Friedman Unit, Blacksburg Unit

James Clay Fuller wins Spotty!

Mark at Norwegianity nominated James Clay Fuller for a Spotty™ for Fuller's blog post yesterday. When Mark told Spot about it at DL last night, and mentioned that it was a great take down of Katherine Kersten a/k/a Katie, Spot was intrigued.

Well, boys and girls, it's everything Wege said it was. Fuller is an experienced, experienced journalist with years at the Strib. It is obvious that his case of revulsion for Katie has been building for quite a while. As an aside, Jim, Spotty says to just let it out a little more often; it seems easier to Spot that way.

The post does indeed win a Spotty™. Here are just a few excerpts from the post, but be sure and go read Fuller for a more comprehensive treatment of Katie's bigotry than Spot usually gives it.

Even as the worst talk show jerks and hate-spewing columnists – and those who employ them -- finally are starting to draw the fire they deserve from decent people, Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten has mounted a virulent anti-Muslim campaign.

She focuses mainly on Muslims in Minnesota.

[ . . . ]

For the most part, until the anti-Islamic campaign began to overwhelm all other subjects in her columns, rational people either dismissed Kersten as being irredeemably silly – an accurate assessment – or regarded her with annoyance as the Star Tribune's bad joke on Minnesota.

You could say she did some good by bringing liberals and conservatives together, since many people on both sides of that fence freely share their contempt for the woman.

Some readers found amusement in the fact the Star Tribune apparently pays
her what undoubtedly are substantial bucks to publish the output of her former employer and other right-wing propaganda mills. They could get the press releases and position papers for nothing.

There's not a damned thing amusing about the attacks on U.S. and, especially,
Minnesota Muslims, however. While much of what she says on the subject is silly, it comes with too much hate and danger to be dismissed.

[ . . . ]

[While castigating Muslims for refusing to handle pork products s]he has never said a thing about several instances of people in other jobs refusing to serve someone on religious grounds – as, for example, the number of proved complaints about pharmacists who have refused to fill prescriptions for birth control pills because birth control offends their Christian beliefs.

[ . . . ]

As usual with those who practice Kersten's version of what politely is called conservative Christianity, she complains over and over that no comparable accommodation is madefor Christians.

Yeah, right. [Fuller then goes on to identify many such accommodations]

Remember, boys and girls, a Spotty is awarded to the author of a letter to the editor, an op-ed piece, or a blog post or comment that Spot wishes that he has written.

Technorati Tags: Katherine Kersten, Muslim bigotry, Spotty award

She shoots! She scores!

Katie scores her third consecutive column in a row (as Bob Kostas might say) as an anti-Muslim rant. Spotty wondered if she could score the hat trick. Katie has had columns on the same subject twice in a row at least a few times, but rarely if ever does she have the attention span to go for three.

Muslims obviously bother Katie a lot. Well, you can sure see why! Washing their feet in the restroom sinks before the mid-day prayers when attending Minneapolis Community and Technical College, eating a restricted diet in the cafeteria at the school when it's not even Lent! And Katie doesn't want to scare you, boys and girl, but Katie says to be worried about many more accommodations that you will have to put up with in the future.

Spot made that part up about Katie not wanting to scare you. That's obviously the object of the whole exercise. Today, the object lesson comes from Canada, which we learn, is well down the road to perdition in accommodating Muslims.

Last week [and Monday of this week], I wrote about Minneapolis Community and Technical College's proposal to install ritual washing facilities to facilitate Muslim prayer. Is this a tempest in a teapot, as some have suggested?

Canada, our neighbor to the north, is farther down the "accommodations" road. A glance north can shed light on whether prayer spaces and ritual washing facilities are likely to satisfy activists for long.

Katie goes on to describe some of the recommendations (the key word here) of an Ontario student organization:

Some recommended changes could affect all students. For example, the report criticizes Canada's loan-based system of financing higher education and calls for outright grants to students. "Education related government loans should not accumulate interest," it says, since Islam "opposes usury and involvement with interest-bearing loans." Other changes would be more focused. The report endorses "women-only" time at athletic facilities, and urges colleges to "provide curtains or screens over the observation windows" when women are using the pool.

The report calls not just for Muslim-only prayer space but for "multiple prayer spaces" with "easy access" from all over campus. All new building plans should include prayer space and ritual washing facilities if necessary, it adds.

Food service workers must learn to prepare halal food, which is ritually slaughtered and otherwise permissible under Sharia law. After preparing non-halal food, staff must "change sanitary gloves and wash cutlery and surfaces" to avoid contaminating halal food.

Have you read Leviticus recently, Katie?

Katie says that according to the Ontario Human Rights Commission,

Islamophobia includes more than clearly inappropriate behavior such as violence against Muslims or unreasonable suspicion of them.

Reasonable suspicion, now that's fine, right? Of course, Katie thinks about "reasonable suspicion" the way that Mr. and Mrs. Bigot do, meaning "breathing while Muslim."

And our little emotion arsonist Katie stirred up quite a controversy with her jeremiad against the installation of what the president of the school, Phil Davis, calls a "plumbing fixture":

The proposal was the subject of a column by the Star Tribune's Katherine Kersten, which was picked up by conservative bloggers across the country. It became the subject of a nationwide "action alert" by the American Family Association, which urged its Minnesota readers to contact their legislators regarding the MCTC proposal. Davis, bombarded with 3,000 e-mails, in turn sent letters to every Minnesota legislator and Gov. Tim Pawlenty this week.

That Katie knows how to tweak the base, doesn't she, boys and girls?

One of the funniest responses to Katie's column came from a defender of the faith in the Minnesota House:

And today Rep. Jim Abeler, R-Anoka, said he planned to introduce an amendment to the House Higher Education bill that would allow MnSCU workers to display religious symbols at their desks and cubicles.

Abeler is quoted as saying:

Abeler said his amendment would clarify what can be permitted in MnSCU workplaces, in light of the Muslim foot-washing issue.

"The foot-washing thing is absolutely a religious accommodations [sic] which they should do," Abeler said. "My point is that as we accommodate one faith, we shouldn't suppress the rights of people of other faiths."

Abeler said he is likely to offer an amendment on the House floor today to send a legislative letter to college officials urging them to remember that as they might accommodate one group, they should accommodate others as well.

Just as Katie and Captain Fishsticks did, Rep. Abeler turns First Amendment law on its head, arguing in effect that Establishment Clause considerations are irrelevant, and that all religions should just be treated equally generously. This is what happens you start to drag religion, any religion, into the public square. Everybody wants a place at the trough.

Katie probably understands that she cannot argue against Muslim foot baths on Establishment Clause grounds because of her position on things like public support of sectarian schools. However, the Establishment Clause is where it ought to be argued.

So instead, Katie falls back on comfortable grounds: religious and racial bigotry.

Tags: Katherine Kersten, Establishment Clause, Free Exercise Clause, Islam, Christianity, flying imams

Geoff Michel is shocked!

Shocked at the prospect of increasing the cost of pool boys, gardeners, and other retainers out here in Cakeville. The Minnesota Senate has passed a measure to raise the minimum wage from $6.15 to $7.75 per hour. Can you believe that, boys and girls? Let's see, that's $15,566 a year for full time work. Outrageous. Why, that would leave maybe six or seven thousand dollars a year left over after you buy health insurance for a family! Who couldn't get by on that?

Geoff took a dim view of the Senate action:

"It's bad policy, bad timing and another punch in the gut of Minnesota businesses," said Sen. Geoff Michel, R-Edina.

You're right Geoff; we want to be the region's low-cost labor supplier, just like Mississippi. Maybe we can attract more call center business like India. (Can I get that delivered tomorrow? Fer sure.) We're on the way, according to the linked article:

[Sen. Ellen] Anderson [a sponsor of the bill] said that 25 states already have higher minimum wages than Minnesota's, including Wisconsin ($.6.50), Iowa ($6.20, going to $7.25 next year) and Illinois ($6.50, going to $7.50 in July). "Even Arkansas ($6.25) is higher," she said.

Makes you really proud, doesn't it boys and girls?

Actually, for small businesses in Minnesota, the minimum wage is even lower:

For large firms, the rate would rise to $6.75 an hour on Aug. 1 and $7.75 a year later. For small firms, which now have a minimum of $5.25 an hour, the steps would be to $5.75 on Aug. 1 and $6.75 a year later.

Spot called Geoff Michel the "Great Pretender" during the campaign last year for trying to fool voters into thinking he was a moderate.

Geoff sounds like Michele Bachmann, who opposes an increase in the federal minimum wage. If Spot remembers correctly—and he is pretty sure that he does—both Michel and Michele opposed the last increase in the minimum wage when Bachmann was still in the Minnesota Legislature. Great company Geoff.

Tags: Geoff Michel, Michele Bachmann, minimum wage

Not much more to say

Spot has nothing to add to MNObserver's post over at Norwegianity about today's Supreme Court ruling curtailing abortion rights. Go read it, boys and girls.

What’s the difference?

In Katie's last two columns (Spot can't wait to see if she goes for the hat trick tomorrow), she rails and wails against what she regards as public institutional support of Islamic religious practice. She has also shrieked about Muslim taxi drivers and the flying imams.

Spot is pleased that Katie is foursquare against dragging religion into the public square. Spot just wonders when Katie will pen a column criticizing the putative Christian pharmacists who won't fill a prescription for emergency contraception.

You can’t prevent something like this

That's the ironic title of Professor Stephen Griffin's post about the Virginia Tech shooting yesterday. Professor Griffin notes bitterly:

I've heard something like [you can't prevent something like this] after every mass slaying or, rather, every mass slaying committed by someone with a gun. After mass slayings committed by terrorists, presidential assassinations, or killings in areas supposedly secure like courts, we commit ourselves to the actions necessary to prevent such killings in the future, whether through better security, use of intelligence, confiscation of weapons, and the like. But with mass killings committed in country with a gun, we are encouraged to believe, by people who should know better, that they are akin to natural disasters or freak occurrences like an asteroid strike in your backyard.

Griffin's post drew the usual howls of protest from the gun nuts. Spotty has been thinking lately about all the Catch-22s in life: Want to be the president? You're clearly too much of a megalomaniac for the job. Want to carry a gun around all the time? Then you're probably such a paranoid psychopath that you're too damn dangerous to be trusted with one.

Where was Spotty? Oh yes. Virginia does very little to control guns. There is no background check, nor any waiting period before purchasing a handgun. According to reports, the shooter at Virginia Tech had just recently acquired the handguns used in the killings. Might a waiting period have stopped him? Maybe, or maybe not. But one thing is certain now: thirty-three more people are dead from gun violence in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Tag: Cho Seung-Hui, gun control

Reassuring news

Spot heard a couple of commentators refer to the shootings at Virginia Tech yesterday as the "largest mass murder in American history." You'll be relieved to know, boys and girls, that it's not true. We've been much better than that at slaughtering Indians. Spot's favorite historian, Howard Zinn, describes a blood fest that perhaps established the tradition:

In reality, we have never been just a city on a hill [describing Winthrop and later Ronald Reagan's use of the term]. A few years after Governor Winthrop uttered his famous words, the people in the city on a hill moved out to massacre the Pequot Indians. Here's a description by William Bradford, an early settler, of Captain John Mason's attack on a Pequot village.

Those that escaped the fire were slain with the sword, some hewed to pieces, others run through with their rapiers, so as they were quickly dispatched and very few escaped. It was conceived that they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the praise thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to enclose their enemies in their hands and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enemy.

Ah, the smell of roasted Indians! But this was hardly the last time:

The kind of massacre described by Bradford occurs again and again as Americans march west to the Pacific and south to the Gulf of Mexico. (In fact our celebrated war of liberation, the American Revolution, was disastrous for the Indians. Colonists had been restrained from encroaching on the Indian territory by the British and the boundary set up in their Proclamation of 1763. American independence wiped out that boundary.)

Spotty, I think maybe the commentators meant it was the worst mass murder in U.S. history when most or all of the victims were white and where guns were used. Captain Mason's guys used fire and swords.

Do you think so, grasshopper? Well then, never mind.

Tags: Virginia Tech shootings, city on a hill, slaughtering Indians

Monica calls Rachel

Ring. Ring.

Hello, this is Rachel Paulose, your United States Attorney.

Omigod, they want to talk to you, too!

I'm sorry. Who is this?

Monica.

Monica? Monica who?

You know very well who this is. Monica Goodling.

Oh, of course. Monica. What can I do for you?

That's a little abrupt, Rachel.

Whatever do you mean? It's nice to talk to you. What do you want?

Gee, I thought we could have a friendly conversation like we used to. Visit about the Christian life. Stuff like that.

I'd love to Monica, but I'm a little busy right now. I know you have some time on your hands, but some of us are still employed and would like to stay that way.

That was catty, Rachel.

Sorry. I am just stressed out, I guess.

I know. That's partly why I called. Maybe we can pray about it. What do you think?

Maybe another time. Right now I need to summon more temporal powers.

That's the other reason I called. Do you need a referral to a good lawyer? Mine's just the best! He stopped Conyers and the rest of those yahoos on the House Judiciary Committee cold!

Actually, Monica, I think he just slowed "Conyers and the rest of those yahoos" down a little.

Whatever do you mean? He told the Committee that I wouldn't testify.

Sigh. He told the Committee that you were invoking your Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. You remember that from law school, don't you Monica?

There you go again! Of course I do! Just because you went to Yale and I went to that crackpot Pat Robertson's law school.

I hear that Conyers is talking about granting you immunity for your testimony before the Committee. If he does that, you'll have to testify.

Really? I mean yeah, I suppose. But that'll be great, because then I can just go up to the Hill and just say some things, yada yada yada, and protect like, everybody!

Did you ever use the DOJ email system Monica?

You know I did.

As the DOJ liaison with the White House, you either sent, received, or were copied on lots of emails, weren't you?

Well, sure.

You know who has those emails now, don't you Monica?

John Conyers?

Right.

Ooh, that's bad. But I'll be immunized, right?

You'll have immunity for any deeds you participated in, but not for any perjury you commit before the Committee. And if they have all your emails, you'll be on a pretty short leash. Not a good time to get creative, Monica.

But Paul and Kyle and even Alberto, I mean Mr. Gonzales, will be counting on me! Maybe even you!

But in the end, you'll save you own skin.

I suppose. Goodness! Can Conyers ask about whether I ever talked to you, like now?

Yes.

I'm starting to see why you don't want to talk. Should I hang up now?

Yes, Monica. Please. Goodbye. [click]

Rachel, I would still like to end with a little prayer, just for old time's sake. Rachel? Rachel? Darn, I wanted to ask her if she was still sore that I missed her coronation.

Tags: Monica Goodling, Rachel Paulose, United States Attorneys

Listen to the Mockingbird!

Remember boys and girls, when Katie took another shot at Muslim religious observance last week? Spot urges you read his post, but in summary, Katie was upset that Minneapolis Community and Technical College was considering adding some kind of facility for Muslim students who want to ritually bathe their feet before prayer to do so more easily. Spot said that Katie was upset because the religion that was being "established" was Islam, not Christianity.

Today, Katie expands on the theme with Ritual-washing area for Muslims at MCTC may be only the beginning. (The Muslims have been a godsend to Katie; they have permitted a conflation of racial and religious bigotry, a two-fer so to speak.)

Katie has learned about a stealthy and subversive organization called the Muslim Accommodation Task Force, an instrument of the Muslim Student Association, has plans to turn U.S. colleges into mosques! Foot baths! Food lines! Housing! Ed al Fitr! Where will it end?

How did Katie find out about this stealthy and subversive organization and it nefarious plans, Spotty?

Well, she read about it on the 'net. And the nerve of these people! They offer advice to Muslim student activists like this:

Activists should also frame their objectives in language that Americans embrace. "Most Americans identify with concepts such as 'justice,' 'self-determination,' 'human rights' and 'democracy,' "the guide explains. "These terms will be constructive when delivering your message, regardless of the issue."

For example, if you want to bring a speaker to campus to discuss the importance of hijab (Muslim women's headwear or covering), you will be "more effective" if you broaden the topic to "women's rights."

It seems quite ironic to Spot that Katie would complain about somebody else adopting the same flag-waving rhetoric that Katie's crew does.

The funny thing is, Spot agrees with much of what Katie says in her last two columns, but from an entirely different perspective. As is especially evident in Katie's last column, she isn't so much worried about the establishment of religion as she is in a grudge match between Christianity and Islam. Public support of religion is fine, so long as it's my religion.

Be careful what you wish for, Katie. Conservatives have been trying to break down the wall of separation of church and state by casting Establishment Clause situations in Free Exercise terms. The Muslim Accommodation Task Force is what you get when you do that. These two clauses of the First Amendment exist in a tension, a healthy tension, Spot says. When you try to say that failure to support religion in public institutions is a violation of the Free Exercise Clause, however, you are destroying the Establishment Clause.

One of Katie's fellow travelers, Captain Fishsticks, attended a meeting of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State back in February of 2006. Here's a little of what Sticks said about his participation in the meeting:

That strange historical scenario [19^th century constitutional amendments that rose in several states to prevent the funding of sectarian schools] came up in response to a question about school vouchers, which Didier [a presenter at the meeting] opposed as government support for religion comparable to colonial taxation for support of ministers of state-sponsored religions. "That's my opinion," he said. "I don't know if anyone thinks differently."

There was about ten seconds or so of silence. It being clear that no one in the room did think differently, valor taking the better part of discretion, I said "Okay, I'll take that one."

Well, I can only say I am glad no one dropped dead from shock. Nonetheless, I made the argument that under voucher and tax credit systems, education funds (the state guaranteeing free education to all children) go to parents that decide whether to use them at private religious or secular schools and if a religious school, what type of religious school. Vouchers violate neither the establishment clause of the first amendment, nor the free exercise clause. They do not violate Blaine Amendments, in that those apply to direct state aid to specific "sectarian" schools. There is no breach of separation of church and state.

Didier's response was as puzzling to me as was the look on his face brought on by my argument. He asked me if my explanation meant that vouchers would be distributed universally. I replied that under the Hann/Buesgens bill in Minnesota [which did not make it out of committee last year], vouchers targeted only low-income students.

"Well," replied Didier, "Then it's a fairness issue. Unless vouchers are universal they are not fair."

Now that's a puzzling answer because it's not relevant to his main objection that state money would be funneled to religious schools. I didn't (and don't) see how sending more state money to more religious schools is philosophically different than sending some state money to some religious schools, but heck, I'd be all for it. I explained that universal vouchers would be great, but public schools objected to even a small implementation of vouchers, let alone universal vouchers, out of fear of too many students leaving failing public schools.

This is a good example of trying to turn an Establishment issue into a Free Exercise one. Here, Sticks argues that the state's obligation to provide K-12 education means that it should support all schools, including sectarian ones. If we support sectarian schools with tax money, what's a foot bath among friends?

Here's more from Sticks about the meeting:

Having already felt like I pissed on the carpet a little, I didn't question some of the later comments during the Q&A, but the "confirmation bias" was rampant. One woman asked if the influx of Muslims, "who don't believe in the separation of church and state," would contribute to breaking down the wall of separation. "It could" was the essence of a long answer, without considering that her premise is false. At one point, Southern Baptists were mentioned and a knowing "Hmmmmmm" went through the crowd indicating a general agreement as to what those people were like. [italics are Spot's]

The premise of her question, Spot presumes, is that there is a wall of separation between church and state in the U.S. Sticks is obviously a doubter on the subject. In fact, Sticks says that vouchers used to support sectarian schools do not violate the Establishment Clause, the Free Exercise Clause, or the Blaine amendment (the 19^th century state constitutional initiatives Sticks mentioned).

Spot says that the woman with the question about Muslims telegraphed the issue at the Minneapolis Community and Technical College that now has Katie in such a dither. Conservatives are so eager to feed at the public trough for their religion that they fail to see the implications for other religions, too.

Spot will conclude by saying, boys and girls, that you shouldn't rely on the First Amendment advice Sticks gives above!

Tags: Katherine Kersten, First Amendment

The lady doth protest too much, methinks

Your friend Spotty really has a way with words, doesn't he, boys and girls?

Spotty, you know darn well that's a famous line from Shakespeare's Hamlet.

As you wish grasshopper, but the line certainly applies to our own Queen Gertrude, Rachel Paulose. Dan Brown from the Strib interviewed her recently and wrote about in today in an article that appeared page A-1, above the fold. Here's the lede paragraphs:

Rachel Paulose, the embattled 34-year-old U.S. attorney for Minnesota, cannot fathom how she came to be portrayed in some recent news reports and blogs as a mean-spirited, autocratic climber who may have gotten her job as part of a scheme in Washington to replace independent prosecutors with GOP foot soldiers.

"These wild conspiracy theories are just that -- totally off base," Paulose said in her first interview on the subject. "No one communicated to me -- in any form -- about any plan to remove any U.S. attorney."

Paulose was shocked to be appointed—out of the blue—as the U.S. Attorney for Minnesota:

Six weeks after starting her job in Washington, Minnesota U.S. Attorney Thomas Heffelfinger resigned, and Paulose was quickly appointed as his interim replacement. A lifelong Republican [she wrote impassioned op-eds in support of Ronald Reagan during study hall in middle school; okay, Spot made that up], she said she was as surprised by the appointment as anyone, noting that she had signed a year's lease for an apartment in Chevy Chase, Md.

According to Paulose, Paul McNulty, or somebody anyway, just walked into her office six weeks into her new job and said, "Pack your bags, kiddo, you're moving to Minneapolis!" This came as a complete surprise to Rachel! She was just ordered to go, and like a good soldier, she went! She still doesn't know how it happened.

Is that the Queen Gertrude moment, Spotty?

What do you think grasshopper?

There were, of course, rumblings when Paulose was appointed:

Paulose's appointment in March 2006 as interim U.S. attorney raised eyebrows among some former colleagues in that office and the cloistered world of Minnesota's federal bar.

Publicly, no one objected to the choice, but privately some wondered how a young woman with virtually no management experience had bested more seasoned candidates for one of the most coveted legal jobs in Minnesota.

Those questions grew in the aftermath of revelations on the replacement of eight U.S. attorneys since August, allegedly because at least some wouldn't bend to political pressures. U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is scheduled to testify Tuesday before a Senate committee investigating the matter.

Paulose got swept into the controversy April 5 when three top attorneys resigned their administrative posts because of her management style. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., cited the tumult as an example of Gonzales having planted unprepared "cronies" in U.S. attorney jobs.

The resignations stung, Paulose said. But she rejects any suggestion that they indicate she is unqualified.

"I'm a strong-willed person," she acknowledged Thursday. "I think that I'm also a generous and loyal and kind person."

You know, Rachel, it sounds to Spot that you're not so much strong willed as you are a stiff-necked crank who isn't old enough to have had some of the rough edges sanded off. Boys and girls, when Spot was much younger, he thought the value of experience was highly overrated. But experience, of all things, taught him he was wrong.

Even if it turns out that Paulose was not involved in the skullduggery at the Justice Department, her appointment does stand as ample evidence of the cronyism that Senator Schumer described. It's just another example of the de-professionalization of the federal bureaucracy by the Bush Administration.

Spot believes this is going to be a blot on her escutcheon that Rachel Paulose is going to have to wear her whole career.

Tags: Rachel Paulose, Purgegate, Queen Gertrude

Methodists up to no good again!

From last Thursday's Edina Sun Current:

Sami Rasouli, founder of Muslim Peacemaker Teams in Iraq, will host two Edina speaking engagements about his experiences in the war-torn country this week.

At 9:30 a.m. Saturday, April 14, Rasouli, who is an Iraqi-American, will speak in the second-floor meeting room at the Southdale Library, 7001 York Ave. S. He will give a presentation at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 17, at Good Samaritan Methodist Church, 5730 Grove St.

Rasouli owned a Minneapolis eatery for more than two decades but left to create Muslim Peacekeepers in his native Iraq. He will speak on his experiences over the past eight months as a witness to the struggles in Iraq, and will also touch on other issues in the Middle East.

The Middle East Peace Now group sponsors Saturday's event, while Tuesday night's session is sponsored by Northwest Edina Democrats.

Actually, Spotty, it is a group called the "Northwest Edina Democrats" that is sponsoring the event at Good Samaritan.

Maybe, but Spotty bets there are Methodists in that crowd.

History lessons

Boys and girls, if Spotty and MNO's little offerings about the law ever leave you thirsting for more—well, it could happen—Spot has just the place for you. There is a blog authored by several law professors that —

[hysterical laughter] What are we gonna read about, Spotty? The rule against perpetuities? The modern exceptions to the hearsay rule? Or maybe learn how to plead a case in replevin, so that we can get the lawn mower back from the neighbor? Be serious.

You're so smart, aren't you grasshopper. Well, here's part of a post from Scott Horton at Balkinization, the blog that Spot was trying to tell you about:

So much of what has happened over the last six years seems a repetition of events drawn from English history, from the turbulent years from the Civil War to the Glorious Revolution - this could be said of the struggle over habeas corpus, which was right at the center of the conflict between Parliament and king, as seen in the Five Knights case of 1627 or the Shipmaster's tax case of 1637. But the notion of secret legal proceedings, closed courts and the use of secret evidence also characterize that period of history. Before the English Civil War, court proceedings were frequently closed, and one of the principles of fair process introduced in the Commonwealth - it seems to have been an initiative of the solicitor general, John Cooke - was the notion that no court should conduct its hearings behind closed doors, and neither should any evidence be taken which could not be shared with the public and presented to the defendant and the jury.

The key case for this notion involved a man commonly called "Freeborn John," or John Lilburne. He was a person of little formal education who became a firebrand pamphleteer among the Puritans in the years of the Civil War. He had republican sentiments, but more to the point he was a sharp critic of the king's justice - writing constantly of the aspects which were, well, unjust. He was particularly outraged by the use of the king's courts to persecute dissenters, as the Anglicans called them – though at the time this would be a changing blend of Puritans, Calvinists, Baptists and Quakers; not to mention the "terrorists" of the day, the Catholics. Lilburne had been convicted in the Star Chamber in 1638 on a charge of importation and dissemination of unregistered religious tracts. He wrote a compelling account of his treatment – he had been imprisoned for refusing to answer questions and then flogged, pilloried and gagged – but he also described the use of coercive interrogation techniques to extract a confession, the denial of rights of confrontation, the fact that his judges were all political figures placed there to do their king's bidding – the Star Chamber, you see, was to Lilburne's age what the Military Commission is to ours.

His account was an instant bestseller and provided much of the impetus for the abolition of the Star Chamber by the Long Parliament in 1641. As Uncle Tom's Cabin was to abolition, Liburne's book was to habeas corpus and the Star Chamber. Lilburne served with distinction as an officer during the Civil War, and afterwards his advocacy of Republican virtues caused Oliver Cromwell a bit of discomfort, and at length Cromwell decided to silence Lilburne by charging him with treason. The trial convened in October 1649, which is to say just months after the second Civil War had been successfully concluded for the Parliamentary forces.

Here's what Professor Horton says about that treason trial:

This was in effect the second significant trial for the Commonwealth after the trial of King Charles himself in January. Lilburne was a popular figure in London and was well aware of that fact. When the court proceedings commenced behind closed doors in the Painted Chamber of Westminster, Lilburne opened his answer to the charges read in court with these famous words: "The first fundamental liberty of an Englishman is that all courts of justice always ought to be free and open for all sorts of peaceable people to see, behold and hear, and have free access unto; and no man whatsoever ought to be tried in holes or corners, or in any place where the gates are shut and barred." Lilburne was raising a direct challenge to the reputation of the Commonwealth courts – asking whether one of the most abusive of the practices of justice under the Stuart monarchs would be continued. The court fully understood this and directed that the doors be opened, in order that "all the world may know with what candour and justice the court does proceed against you." [italics are Spot's]

In the balance of that remarkable case, Lilburne established a number of other principles. The prisoner in the dock was to be treated with dignity and respect, not dragged before the court in manacles and an orange jumpsuit. There were to be no ex parte communications between the counsel and the court. He was to have a right to confront all evidence against him (that is, there could be no secret evidence), and the public also was to be allowed to hear it, to form its own opinion of the quality of justice dispensed by the court. He was guaranteed the right of counsel, and for the first time, counsel were permitted to participate in the presentation of evidence for the defense as well.

Liburne was acquitted, in spite of some genuinely unhelpful instructions from the judge.

Professor Horton goes on to say that secrecy and torture go hand in hand. He then produces excerpts from transcripts of hearings involving Guantanamo detainees to illustrate his point. It's well worth your attention, boys and girls.

But not only does torture go with secrecy, boys and girls, so does more prosaic knavery, which brings us back to the installation of political operative Rachel Paulose as U.S. Attorney in Minneapolis. You all remember the trial and conviction of Dean Zimmerman, a former Minneapolis Councilman, for bribery, don't you? There were some videotapes shown at the trial, tapes that were critical in Zimmerman's conviction. Ken Avidor, who saw the tapes at the trial, wants them released, but the government doesn't want to give them up. Why? Ken will tell us:

I tried to get information about the release of the FBI tapes from the Gary Dean Zimmermann bribery trial, but my most recent phone call was not returned.

I saw the FBI tapes at the trial. I believe that the portions of those tapes shown at the trial should be released to the media. There are still quite a few people who believe the FBI "persecuted" Zimmermann and that Zimmermann was somehow "entrapped" by the FBI.

The tapes would also reveal a side of Zimmermann that few people could imagine.... Zimmermann's comfortable relationship with a Hummer-driving Republican who raised considerable cash for Senator Norm Coleman.

Zimmermann was caught on tape accepting and receiving bribes from Republican Gary Carlson who raised thousands of dollars for Senator Norm Coleman. At one point in the tapes, Zimmermann told Gary Carlson that he would have like to have been invited to Carlson's fundraiser for Norm Coleman:

In May 2005 Azzam invited Carlson to a Shriner's function for African-American businesses (Azzam had told him it was the Sierra Club on Park Avenue). Carlson had a private conversation with Zimmermann outside when Carlson took a cigarette break. Carlson mentioned he had recently had a fundraiser for Norm Coleman at his house; Zimmermann chided Carlson for not inviting him. Carlson replied by saying he didn't think Zimmermann [as a Green] would want to attend a Republican fundraiser.

Zimmermann responded by saying, "Liberals, Greens, Democrats, Republicans…it's all money." [italics are Spot's]

There have been questions raised for years about the extent to which Republicans were funneling money to Green Party candidates to siphon off votes from the DFL. Distribution of this evidence—produced in open court—on, say, YouTube might be expected to shine an unfavorable light not only on Zimmerman, but also the Coleman fundraiser. The videotapes are clearly subject to production under the FOIA, but don't you think that Rachel Paulose has a motive for sequestering them?

Tags: Military Commissions Act, torture, Star Chamber, Dean Zimmerman, Rachel Paulose

Couldn’t resist, could you Scott?

You know Scott Johnson, don't you boys and girls? A/K/A Big Trunk? The guy who recently described Atlas Rugs proprietor, the bigoted wretch who sounds to be from Longe Guyland as the beautiful heart-on-sleeve blogger Pamela Geller? The guy whose principal contribution to the art of letters is to demonstrate the over-use of the word "execrable?" Yep, that Scott Johnson.

Well Scotty couldn't let the death of Kurt Vonnegut pass without penning his own snarky little obit (no link):

The novelist Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday at age 84. Back in the day when I took my lessons in political thought from John Lennon, Kurt Vonnegut was one of my favorite writers. I read every one of the novels he had published through 1970, beginning with Player Piano, continuing with The Sirens of Titan, Cat's Cradle, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, and Mother Night, and culminating in Slaughterhouse-Five. The man met the moment with Slauhghterhouse-[sic] Five in 1969 and Vonnegut became a countercultural celebrity without any discernible discomfort. Indeed, he encouraged acolytes like me in our fatuity, our grandiosity, our irresponsibility.

From an adult perspective, one can see that the novels are full of cheap irony, insufferable sentimentality, paper thin characters, and forgettable plots. If Vonnegut's novels have made it into the high school curriculum, as Dinitia Smith states in today's New York Times obituary, pity the poor high school student who thinks that this is what literature is all about.

Just before Vonnegut became a celebrity he collected his shorter fiction in Welcome to the Monkey House. Vonnegut included his early dystopian story "Harrison Bergeron" in the collection. In it he envisioned a nightmare future in which "everyone was finally equal." It's a story that runs against the grain of the kind of leftist political orthodoxy that Vonnegut came to embody. RIP. [italics are Spot's]

Scott no doubt prefers the prose of a Power Line favorite, Victor Davis Hanson, who tells us this is the beginning of a new book he is writing, titled No Man a Slave:

Melon woke. He was off the battlefield. Four Theban hoplites had carried the two wounded on biers up to Skopê, among the tamarisks and scrub oak of the lookout mountain, high above the battlefield. Yes, he was now high above the killing. On the crest, in a strong Etesian breeze, they put down Melon near his general, on thick fleece with felt covers. He was growing cold even in this Dog-star heat.

For just a moment he was clear again. The Thespian had enough strength to raise his head. Look, look down at the chaos far below, around the great walled city of the Mantineians. The Thebans were filing out the valley. The defeated Spartans did the same. So all were chanting "Antikrates," chanting as they marched behind their killer out through the other vale.

Then Melon thought he heard music. At least something like a Boiotian single piper, likewise far off in the distance, maybe even from the other side of the hill. He could hear from below still the music, and a goat song of Thisbe at that, its melody straining its way up the hill, just to him.

Boy, no fatuity or grandiosity there! Not a trace of insufferable sentimentality, either!

Vonnegut was the best gallows humorist this side of Mark Twain. You couldn't shine Kurt Vonnegut's shoes, Scotty, but don't feel too bad; Victor Davis Hanson can't either.

Tags: Kurt Vonnegut, Power Line

Fish and guests

First, it was the Focus on the Family rally, complete with the patriotic music, all-white audience, and “Libberuls are treasonous scum” message.

Then the announcement that the Republican National Convention was coming to town, and St. Paul’s Democrats have already been warned about daring to express any thoughts that might be considered disrespectful of Our Glorious Leader.

But now St. Paul has gone too far with the welcome mat. Not quite satisfied with these two obvious bows to the American Taliban, my fair city somehow feels the need to welcome the creepiest of right-wing causes to town. The Abstinence Clearinghouse – the people who brought you Purity Balls, purity rings (a steal at $189.95!), “condoms kill” campaigns, and public condemnation of masturbation are coming to St. Paul!

The condom bashing, contraceptive-loathing, pro-cervical cancer snake oil road show hits St. Paul’s Crowne Plaza Riverfront from July 9-11, 2007.

Let’s take a look at the people who will be visiting us.

The group's founder and leader, Leslee Unruh, needs almost no introduction. Having exercised her right to an abortion in her younger years, she now spends her life in the dual roles of fighting abortion on every front, while at the same time doing all she can to stop contraception, thereby assuring that there will be more unwanted pregnancies that result in - you guessed it! - more abortions. (Talk about your full employment act for zealots!)

Follow that first abortion with a multiple felony indictment and plea bargain for violations of law while running an “adoption” agency in South Dakota that mainly pressured pregnant teenagers to give up their babies in exchange for monetary help (known in some circles as “buying babies”).

These days, when she’s not drafting the draconian South Dakota abortion ban that voters overturned in November, Unruh is busy:

Railing against masturbation, the “first step toward sexual addiction.”

Discouraging the use of the cancer-preventing HPV vaccine and proclaiming to legislators her "personal objection" to the vaccine.

Playing coy about the Abstinence Clearinghouse’s ultimate goal of banning all contraception.

Calling homosexual practices “dangerous.”

Doing her best to stop fact-based sex education and using your tax dollars to do so.

Discouraging the use of condoms in AIDS stricken Africa.

Her actions in the battle last fall to overturn the no-exceptions South Dakota abortion ban has resulted in one of her colleagues facing criminal charges.

I mean, really – do you want this woman walking the streets of St. Paul, possibly meeting up with your daughters, providing them with brochures proclaiming that AIDS is spread by sweat, that condoms don't prevent disease, and that she doesn't need a 100% effective cancer vaccine?

Of course she does have her own parody site, but I still don't think that St. Paul shares very many of her values.

(Image courtesy of Abstinence Clearinghouse demonstrating the joy of waving a blood-stained sheet the morning after your wedding night.)


Tags: Leslee Unruh, Abstinence Clearing House

Chocolate who?

Spot is late to this party, but that is often true, isn't it boys and girls? Apparently, some days ago, a blogger by the name of Kathy Sierra received some death threats because of her writing:

And yet a group of people hate her so much that they would trip over the line into a vile, sexually depraved attacks and threats. And what brngs about this rage? Honestly? I would have to guess its a personality disorder of some kind. Because, again, Ms. Sierra writes about the software industry! How far down the rabbit hole do you have to be that disagreements about OO send you flying right off the edge of sanity into Hannibal Lector territory? It’s insane and I hope the cops catch the SOB responsible. No one should be afraid because they have an opinion — especially an opinion on how to write code.

So, Ms. Sierra writes about software, and some drooling beetle brows send her death threats? Sweet chocolate Jesus! But then Kos, yes that Kos, says to Kathy: get over it. It goes with the territory.

And then Wege says--which is how Spotty learned about the whole thing--wait just a damn minute. Having an opinion about something doesn't mean that you sign up for violent threats against you. And Wege is right, of course.

The wilds of blogistan and cyberia should be free wheeling, but there is no room for threats of physical violence. None. So to Kathy Sierra's tormenters, Spot says piss off, be gone, and spend some time considering the defects in your character. And to Kos, Spot says for God's sake, don't encourage them.


Technorati Tags: Kathy Sierra, Daily KOS

St. Katie the Martyr

St. Katie the Martyr, the patron saint of the over-privileged yet jealous, pictured below, delivered another jeremiad today.

St. Katie focuses her laser eye of affliction on the suffering of Christian students at Minneapolis Community and Technical College:

Where Christianity is concerned, the college goes to great lengths to
avoid any hint of what the courts call "entanglement" or support of the
church. Yet the college is planning to install facilities for Muslims
to use in preparing for daily prayers, an apparent first at a public
institution in Minnesota.

Oh, how so, St. Katie?

Last year, college authorities caught one rule-breaker [the rule of shunning Christmas] red-handed. A coffee cart that sells drinks and snacks played holiday music "tied to Christmas," and "complaints and concerns" were raised, according to a
faculty e-mail. College authorities quickly quashed the practice.

They appear to take a very different attitude toward Islam. Welcome and
accommodation are the order of the day for the college's more than 500
Muslim students. The college has worked with local Muslim leaders to
ensure that these students' prayer needs and concerns are adequately
addressed, Davis told me.

Do you feel St. Katie's pain, boys and girls? Neither does Spot. And 500 Muslim students? Shocking! Where do we live? Minneapolis, or Baghdad? Or maybe Mogadishu? Perhaps there are so many Muslims at the school because they can't afford to go to, say, St. Thomas or St. John's and go to chapel every day with the Christian kids!

St. Katie tells us that Muslim prayer is "increasing controversial":

Muslim prayer is an increasingly controversial issue. Many Muslim
students use restroom sinks to wash their feet before prayer. Other
students have complained, and one Muslim student fell and injured
herself while lifting her foot out of a sink.

This is clearly a subversive and dangerous religious practice! But rather than trying to stamp out Islam, the college apparently wants to provide some accommodation. Tut, tut, says St. Katie: this will never do!

Boys and girls, Spot actually shares St. Katie's concern about building religious facilities in a public school. But St. Katie's perspective is distorted, as usual. She isn't concerned about dragging religion into the public square; she's just miffed because the religion being dragged isn't Christianity! If the college had decided to install confessionals, three lines no waiting, do you think Katie would have a problem? Of course not.

The thinking behind today's lamentation is a thread in St. Katie's, er, writing. Whether it is affirmative action, Muslim cabbies, or gay marriage, there isn't a vulnerable minority that St. Katie won't pick on. The breadth of her white whine is breathtaking.

St. Katie is like the mother who, in order to prevent squabbling among her kids as to who got the biggest piece of cake, takes the demonstrably biggest piece for herself.

Technorati Tags: Katherine Kersten, separation of church and state, Islam