Quote of the Day – Who Hates Who?

“Nobody in the conservative base hates Rick. Newt is hated by many and Mitt by some. Mr. Santorum is liked. He has real indignation about what’s happened to America, and he brings passion to his ideas about reform. He’s got little money, little organization — there’s no broad assumption he can pull it off. And by the time the Romney campaign is done dismantling him, he may have some people who hate him. But this will only underscore the Romney campaign’s reputation for destroying, not creating. And nobody loves a Death Star.”

– Peggy Noonan

Monsanto Hooks Up With WalMart… where do you shop?

From sumofus.org:

Do you or anyone you know buy food at Wal-Mart? If you do, you could soon be eating Monsanto GMO corn — unmarked, unlabeled, and untested on humans — with toxins built right into the plant’s DNA.

Monsanto has released their first direct-to-consumer product, a genetically-modified (GM) sweet corn containing Bt toxin, designed to protect the plant by rupturing the stomach of any insect that feeds on it. Monsanto claims the toxin will break down before the corn makes it to your dinner table, but rats fed with the GM corn showed organ failure, and the toxin has been detected in the bodies of pregnant women.

Want to avoid this toxic product?  Too bad – it will arrive on shelves unlabeled and untested on humans, starting with this years’ corn crop.

Consumers are fighting back.  Thanks to consumer pressure, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and General Mills have all agreed to not use Monsanto’s GM sweet corn in any of their products.  But Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest organic retailer, is holding out.

Join the Campaign and sign the petition HERE. I did.

Related articles

• Monsanto’s Resistant Super Bugs by Ripple Effect Films (socialactions.net)
• More U.S. Farmers Violate Genetically-Modified Corn Requirements (businessweek.com)
• Tell Walmart to Stop Selling GM Corn (tasteofwonderland.wordpress.com)
• Cynics Agree: Wal-Mart’s Slogan For Health Foods, “Good For You,” is Extremely Sarcastic (holytaco.com)
• Keep Monsanto’s Pesticide-Ridden GMO Sweet Corn Off Your Dinner Plate (truefoodnow.org)
• New Thinking About What We’re Eating (liberationwellnessblog.com)

The Power of Catholicism

We’re waiting this morning for President Obama to come out and report any modifications to the birth control requirements in health insurance that has raised an alarm with Catholics.

Some background from the NY Times:

The ruling issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, said that only religious organizations that primarily employ and serve their co-religionists would be exempt from the requirement to provide insurance that covers birth control. Churches are therefore exempt, but Catholic hospitals, service agencies and colleges are not. The White House said that 28 states already had such mandates, so this federal rule, which is part of the health care overhaul, just applies the mandate uniformly.

—

NY Archbishop Timothy Dolan

The bishops have found allies among conservative evangelicals, who do not share the Catholic Church’s doctrinal prohibition on contraception but are delighted to see the bishops adopt the right’s longstanding grievance that government has declared a war on religion. They have been joined by the bishops of Eastern Orthodox churches (like Greek, Russian and Ukrainian) and two Orthodox Jewish groups — small constituencies but ones that lend the cause a touch of diversity.

On the other side are religious Americans and clergy members who are unmoved by the religious liberty theme, and who regard the administration’s ruling as sensible health care policy.

Here’s what I think. The Catholic Bishops are thrilled to have this conflict broadcast on all the news stations… thrilled that it is taking up so much space in C-PAC speeches… thrilled that it takes up space in newspapers (as Craig Ferguson said: “A newspaper is a thing that people used to read. It’s like a website, but all the information is from yesterday.”)… and certainly thrilled that they have something to shout out from the pulpit.

Why? Because as long as everyone is discussing this sham Constitutional complaint, no one is talking about the relationship of the Catholic Church to child molesting priests. That is quite a relief after months of revelations and and complaints about Bishops who hid information for years.

When the Birth Control/Insurance issue is all gone, we’ll get back to pederasty by priests. I’ll bet the Bishops are looking forward to that.

Related articles

• Roman Catholic Church battle over birth control coverage was well planned (mercurynews.com)
• Bishops’ Hypocrisy on Religious Freedom and Contraception. (queeringthechurch.com)
• A lay parable for Catholic Bishops to consider: The Scorpion and the Frog (erickbrockway.com)
• Enough Of The Fake Outrage Over Contraception (angrydd.wordpress.com)
• Catholic Church silent on child rape, taking to the streets over ‘intrinsically evil’ birth control (dailykos.com)

Getting ready for more snow…

According to the weather rep;ort, we’re going to have snow tonight and into the early morning hours (before the sun comes out and melts it all off again.) That’s been the routine once or twice in this Spring-like Winter… not like the snow drifted Winters I grew up with in New England.

In a way, I feel sorry for kids who don’t get to experience the snow-fort building, snow angel making opportunities of February. Too bad.

The snow we’ve been getting here is half rain and very squishy… makes your shoes all wet. It’s very unpleasant to walk the dogs in (they don’t seem to like it either.)

Oh well, groundhog or not, Spring isn’t far away.