Because I am now exactly 24 hours away from needing to be outta here and starting on our long-awaited vacation (it\u2019s been three years since we went to Ireland, a trip chronicled here<\/a>, by my 15 year old son, Buster) and I\u2019ve never seen a man who needs a vacation more than my husband.<\/p>\n Buster is being difficult about it, btw. At 15, he feels he should not have to accompany his parents on a vacation, but since he is basically a sunny and bouyant sort of kid, he\u2019s acquiescing. It helps that we\u2019re traveling with several families, and there are other 15 year olds similarly trapped.<\/p>\n Anyway, time is short and there is a lot of good stuff out there, that needs linking to.<\/p>\n Lorie Byrd<\/strong>: She has a terrific, \u201coh-yeah?\u201d sort of post up at Polipundit<\/a> wherein she writes on Richard Clarke\u2019s morning appearance on GMA. Her post is link-heavy and you\u2019re going to want to go read the whole thing, but I\u2019ll give you a li\u2019l excerpt to whet the appetite:<\/p>\n The other thing that surprised me was that Richard Clarke told the story, at least part of it, of the chemicals that wer found in the possession of terrorists in Jordan last year. Clarke said that if they had not been caught that they would have killed thousands of people. I remember that story. I blogged about it. At the time, it was pretty much ignored by the American media. What Richard Clarke failed to mention today, and perhaps the reason the American media gave it scant attention last year, prior to the presidential election, was that the trucks carrying those chemical weapons were coming from Syria, where satellite evidence showed heavy truck caravan traffic travelling from Iraq just prior to the 2003 U.S. led invasion. <\/em><\/p>\n Frank Martin<\/strong>: One of my favorite writers. He is looking at Benedict XVI\u2019s brother and imagining a bit of sibling tumult<\/a> as the priest-brother of the new pope fumes:<\/p>\n It\u2019s very cute. You\u2019ll like.<\/p>\n Tracey<\/strong> at Worship Naked has a very serious post<\/a> based on a story from the BBC today about Burma\u2019s use of chemical weapons on internally displaced tribal peoples. She is trying to get the story out there. She\u2019s a good kid, that Tracey.<\/p>\n Keith Olberman<\/strong>: Back when I was live-blogging John Paul the Great\u2019s last day, I actually complimented Keith Olberman because he seemed to me to be doing a pretty good job covering things. But this video from Jackson\u2019s Junction contains one of the worst, most thoughtless seques<\/a>, ever!<\/p>\n Julie<\/strong>, the Happy Catholic: Has a neat story about a little baby just confirmed as \u201cBenedict\u201d as he goes in to surgery for his kidneys. Don\u2019t forget to offer a little prayer for Sam \u201cBenedict<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Jimmie<\/strong>, at Sundries Shack: is on one of those rolls bloggers sometimes get on, where they bang out one good thing after another; you may simply want to head over there and keep scrolling. He takes on Richard Cohen\u2019s rather simplistic<\/a> and intellectually dishonest, insert-standard-leftist-line- \u201cthis-pope-is-going-to-kill-people-because-he-won\u2019t-hand-out-condoms\u201d column here<\/a><\/p>\n Jeff,<\/strong> the Curt Jester. It\u2019s visual. Just go look<\/a>.<\/p>\n The cheapest and most effective way of preventing the spread of HIV is by having sex only inside of a monagamous marriage. The reasoning here is very simple. If you don\u2019t have sex, you won\u2019t get AIDS (absent the miniscule chance of getting it from a blood transfusion). Not having sex doesn\u2019t cost anything. Abstinence is free. Cohen is wrong and, moreso, I suspect that he knows he\u2019s wrong. But he does have a theology to push and he\u2019s behind it as far as it\u2019ll go.<\/em><\/p>\n The problem here, though, is that Cohen doesn\u2019t actually understand what the Church is doing. They\u2019re not advocating abstinence simply to slow the spread of AIDS or to control population. They\u2019re in it for much larger stakes, the immortal souls of billions of people. Cohen doesn\u2019t get that, which causes him to make statements like this:<\/p>\n well, now\u2026you just go to Jimmie\u2019s and read the rest. Also check out his posts here<\/a> and here<\/a>. Like I said, Jimmie\u2019s rollin\u2019.<\/p>\n Howie Kurtz<\/strong>: He\u2019s taking a rather longish look at the blogs and their writings re Benedict XVI. If you scroll down you see he mocks the press<\/a> for how badly they had allowed their personal desires to affect their \u201cpredictions\u201d for papal frontrunners.<\/p>\n St. Blog\u2019s Parish<\/a> has been featured on the front page of the Delaware News Journal, and blogger Rae Stabosz<\/a> (mother of 9!) Sr. Lorraine<\/strong>: She is wondering<\/a> if the press see that while JPII was in essence \u201cReagan\u2019s Pope,\u201d Benedict XVI is possibly W\u2019s Pope. They certainly to write about the two of them interchangably. Read anything some folks in the press write about W and you can change the name to Benedict and it reads the same, \u201cstubborn, ruthless, relentless\u2026\u201d except, you know, the W meme includes the \u201cmoron\u201d part while even Benedict\u2019s most vehement detractors will rather grudgingly concede his brilliance.<\/p>\n Pope Benedict, Ye Mawo Akwaaba! Africa responds to his election<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hugh Hewitt<\/strong>: Has a groovy piece in The Daily Standard wherein he looks at the new pope, \u201cIn His Own Words.\u201d <\/a> What an amazing idea.<\/p>\n Michael Prescott:<\/strong> Never heard of him? You will. Good writer who details here is journey from Atheist to Theist<\/a>.<\/p>\n Peggy Noonan<\/strong>: I like this piece<\/a> very much, and so I am linking to it again here, although I had excepted from it here<\/a>. It bears the repetition, it\u2019s that good and insightful.<\/p>\n We are living in a time of supernatural occurrences. The old pope gives us his suffering as a parting gift, says his final goodbye on Easter Sunday; dies on the vigil of Feast of the Divine Mercy, the day that marks the messages received by the Polish nun, now a saint, who had written that a spark out of Poland would light the world and lead the way to the coming of Christ. The mourning period for the old pope ends on the day that celebrates St. Stanislas, hero of Poland, whose name John Paul had thought about taking when he became pope. We learned this week from a former secretary that John Paul I, the good man who was pope just a month, had told everyone the day he was chosen that he wanted to be called John Paul I. You can\u2019t be called \u201cthe first\u201d until there is a second, he was told. There will be a second soon, he replied. <\/em><\/p>\n But of course, read it all.<\/p>\n Patrick,<\/strong> the Paragraph Farmer: spells out succinctly why he likes B16<\/a>.<\/p>\n Christian Carnival<\/a> is up. So is the Catholic Carnival<\/a>. They\u2019re both good!<\/p>\n Michelle Malkin<\/a> and LaShawn Barber<\/a>: both link to democrats moving to the right of George W. Bush on illegal immigration. A thought: is it possible Bush has been rope-a-doping the democrats all this time, taking a stand forces them to move to the RIGHT OF HIM on the issue, if they want to critique him\u2026thus FORCING them to finally DO SOMETHING about illegal immigration? Just a thought.<\/p>\n Maxed Out Mama<\/a>, who does not suffer fools gladly, and for this we bless God, highlightes George Will\u2019s excellent column on just how darn special everyone is<\/a>, or should be (longstanding gripe of mine) and if they don\u2019t know they\u2019re special, why, they must need therapy. Charlotte Hays at the IWF has thoughts along similar lines<\/a>.<\/p>\n Betsy Newmark<\/a>: wonders just why it is that snippety secularist society types like Tina Brown<\/a> feel they should have so much to say about the new pope. I wonder, too.<\/p>\n
\nOh, Why should I visit him? Its not like everytime I sit down at Starbucks to enjoy a little caffe latte I wont get someone sitting across from me reading a newspaper with a headline about \u201cPope Benedict this and Pope Benedict that\u201d. \u201cPope Benedict\u201d, Feh. You know what we called him when he was a kid? We called him \u201cStinky\u201d. Thats right \u201cPope Stinky\u201d, that doesnt work so well does it! So you go ahead and call him Pope Benedict, He\u2019ll always be \u201cPope Stinky\u201d to me. <\/em><\/p>\n
\nwas quoted extensively. (She very kindly mentions your humble anchoress, too). Rae is a little miffed that the article mistakes some negative comments as coming from St. Blog\u2019s when they came from Slate, but, you know\u2026it\u2019s the press. They lazy! :-)<\/p>\n