(LA Times) A federal judge appeared dubious Monday about a lawsuit filed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that seeks the release of orcas from SeaWorld on anti-slavery grounds.

PETA attorney Jeffrey Kerr told U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller that invoking the anti-slavery 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in hopes of freeing the orcas is “the next frontier of civil rights.”

But Miller told Kerr that he cannot find a legal precedent for allowing a lawsuit to be filed on behalf of the orcas under the 13th Amendment. The orcas, he noted, are animals, not people.

Judge Miller said he will consider the request by Sea World to dismiss this absurd and frivilous lawsuit, but gave no timeline for his decision. Over to the BBC

Five killer whales have been named as plaintiffs in a lawsuit which argues they deserve the same constitutional protection from slavery as humans.

Jeffrey Kerr, the lawyer representing the five whales, said: “For the first time in our nation’s history, a federal court heard arguments as to whether living, breathing, feeling beings have rights and can be enslaved simply because they happen to not have been born human.

“By any definition these orcas have been enslaved here.”

No mention as to whether Judge Miller took frequent breaks to go back in his chambers and laugh his head off.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

If this was supposed to be damage control, Susan G. Komen for the Cure proved Thursday that it has a lot to learn.

On a day when the breast cancer charity’s top official made the rounds with the national media, insisting the organization’s decision to stop giving grants to Planned Parenthood wasn’t political, the firestorm only got worse. Top Democrats piled on; the head of the Komen chapter in Los Angeles quit; and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is giving a $250,000 matching gift to Planned Parenthood.

I’m not seeing what Komen did wrong; do you? I see that 22 Democrat Senators are choosing to whine about what a private corporation does with their money, without mentioning that PP is known mostly for abortions, not “breast exams”, and turning this political. Same with Bloomberg.

Brinker said there was broad consensus from Komen’s board over the new policies. Additionally, she said the charity was trying to refocus grants on providers that are able to perform mammography services rather than just breast screenings. Planned Parenthood does not have mammography equipment and refers women to providers for the service.

“We are the stewards of other people’s money, and we need to ensure that money is going to programs for women in the most impactful way,” Brinker said, echoing a statement she made on a YouTube video late Wednesday night.

I can see how that would upset liberals, who seem to expect Other People’s Money to be wasted, rather than being treated respectfully.

We also have a Memorandum pull of a story entitled “HOPE KILLS: Susan G Komen Foundation Would Rather Be Associated With A Handgun Than Planned Parenthood.” The author, Michael Brendan Dougherty, is whining about a Walther P22 that comes in pink, with part of the sales going to the Komen Foundation. Except, the gun is meant to protect the life of a woman. Liberals do not want women to have guns. Liberals want women to be raped, beaten, and die, apparently. The guns are also not performing abortions and killing unborn children, many of whom are female. Why do liberals hate women?

And then we have the whole “breast exam” thing. As Life News points out

During a conference call with reporters this afternoon, Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure CEO Nancy Brinker and President Elizabeth Thompson revealed the main reason why the Planned Parenthood abortion business lost its funding. It doesn’t do mammograms.

“It was nothing they were doing wrong,” Brinker explained. “We have decided not to fund, wherever possible, pass-through grants. We were giving them money, they were sending women out for mammograms. What we would like to have are clinics where we can directly fund mammograms.”

She added, later in the day on Twitter:, saying the money “will be invested in programs to serve low-income, uninsured and underinsured women.”

PP doesn’t offer mammograms. Let’s be honest, as Life News points out, they do do breast exams. But no mammograms. No PP abortion mills have the necessary medical devices on location. That said, the Left is not upset about Komen pulling funding to PP over breast exams, they are upset about Komen dissing the Left’s favorite abortion provider.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

Recently the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation announced that it was no longer going to be offering funds and grants to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s leading abortion mill operator. This decision has sent Planned Parenthood over the edge of both sanity and civility with a new fundraising letter that dispenses with its past staid talk about women’s healthcare and goes straight for thuggish threats of retaliation, finger pointing, and attacks on other women.

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, a well known breast cancer-fighting charity, decided to withhold further donations to the abortion provider for several reasons, one of which is that Planned Parenthood is under investigation by Congress for violating various state abortion laws.

Last month the Associated Press reported Komen’s new criteria and why it is excluding PP. “Komen spokeswoman Leslie Aun said the cutoff results from the charity’s newly adopted criteria barring grants to organizations that are under investigation by local, state or federal authorities,” the report said. “According to Komen, this applies to Planned Parenthood because it’s the focus of an inquiry launched by Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., seeking to determine whether public money was improperly spent on abortions.”

The foundation gave more than $569,000 to Planned Parenthood in 2010.

As to the charges against Planned Parenthood that are pending in the congressional investigation, you might recall the stellar work of Lila Rose whose videos brought to our attention that Planned Parenthood was violating state laws by ignoring requirements to report child abuse and rape while pushing abortions on minors.

But Planned Parenthood apparently isn’t taking this lying down. They aren’t just lamenting Komen’s decision, they are getting mad.

In a fundraising letter emailed to supporters, the abortion provider proved themselves to be less a “healthcare” organization, and more the ideologically driven advocacy group that detractors say they are. The email is blunt and asks supporters to sign onto the extremist rhetoric and send it on to others. Most interesting, the letter doesn’t just attack opponents in general but specifically attacks women that oppose Planned Parenthood.

Here is the text of that shockingly harsh letter: (CLICK HERE for a screen shot of the letter)

This is for all the anti-choice, anti-women people out there.

Listen up.

You can spend every minute of every day trying to force the rest of us to live by your ideology. You can go after federal funds for health care and pressure private organizations like the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation to stop funding breast cancer screenings for poor women. You can try to make it impossible to get birth control.

But you know what you can’t do? You can’t win. You can’t break us. Planned Parenthood isn’t just a family of organizations. It’s a movement. It’s women and men of all ages who believe that health care — including reproductive health care — is a basic human right. We are millions strong. We are everywhere. We act, we give, and we do whatever it takes to make sure that Planned Parenthood is there for the women, men, and teens who rely on them.

Know this: When you go after Planned Parenthood and the people they serve, you go after ME. I stand with Planned Parenthood. I stand with them against anyone who wants to stop women from receiving the health care they need. I stand with them today, tomorrow, and for as long as I need to.

I don’t now about you but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fundrasing letter like this supposedly emanating from a “health care” organization. Imagine if a hospital or other medical organization sent such a letter as this to its customers.

Also amazing is the bald attack on women who don’t agree with PP. This also proves that they aren’t an organization interested in women, but one only interested in women that agree with their ideologically extreme position on abortion.

In any case, what we seem to be seeing here is the last bit of a veneer of legitimacy ripped from Planned Parenthood. It is now fully embracing its ideological drive toward infanticide and has cast away any pretext that it is at all interested in mere healthcare. With this letter Planned Parenthood is admitting that it is a “movement,” not a healthcare provider.

Isn’t he cute? Don’t you just want to hug him and kiss him and take him home where you can make Seal Flipper Pie or Seal Meat Hash? Well, sucks to be you, because baby harp seals are apparently being killed off by globull warming

Climate change spares no one. Not even the adorable. Baby harp seals, for instance, can’t catch a break. After centuries of looking over their shoulders to spot folks who plan to eat them or wear them, the cute little critters now have to worry about Mother Nature. As climate change warms the Arctic, it is reducing sea ice to historically low levels. Since stretches of thicker ice are getting harder to come by, baby seals are now more frequently drowning or getting crushed by broken-up chunks of ice. Though harp seal numbers remain strong, the pace of sea ice melt has hindered the survival of pups. Canada saw a 25 percent survival rate in 2007, and virtually no pups survived there in 2010.

Bummer. I wonder how they survived during the previous warmer periods over the last 10,000 years. Unfortunately, this turns them into juvenile delinquents

One can only hope that a recent case of baby seal breaking and entering (BSB & E) will not prove to be the start of a trend: Rogue bands of thug baby seals, driven to lawlessness by the cruel dictates of global warming. Believe it or not, that premise is not as satirical as it sounds. Polar bears, like our cartoon friend Bebbo, find that global warming has decimated their opportunities to hunt, so starvation increasingly forces them into town garbage dumps for survival.

Got that? It’s not a case of an animal doing something silly and cute, but a dire cause of someone like DaTechGuy daring to drive a fossil fueled vehicle. I suggest that all Warmists everywhere disconnect their power (no more TIVOing The Daily Show and Current TV, because TV boxes are huge causes of wasted energy) and water (there’s only so much to go around, ya know), wash their clothes in rivers and streams (with expensive Gaia friendly detergents), dry them on clothes lines (hey, what’s a little bird poo when we are saving Gaia?), and walk to work. No more fossil fueled vehicle trips for you!

Washington Post – Why Komen defunded Planned Parenthood

Well, they didn’t really “defund” PP, because PP gets lots of money from other sources, including the Central Government.

The Associated Press reports that Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the nation’s leading breast-cancer charity, will cut off its funding to Planned Parenthood affiliates, where the foundation has traditionally paid for preventive screening services.

According to the AP, the move will mean “a cutoff of hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, mainly for breast exams.” Planned Parenthood confirms that Komen is the first, and only, organization to cut off funding since the Congress began debating the issue in earnest last winter.

And there we get the talking point about “breast exams”, which is apparently the only thing PP does. Why’d Komen cut support?

Komen said it could not continue to fund Planned Parenthood because it has adopted new guidelines that bar it from funding organizations under congressional investigation. The House oversight and investigations subcommittee announced in the fall an investigation into Planned Parenthood’s funding.

That’s why. And that’s all the WP article says. Providing funds would be against Komen’s guidelines. Makes sense for them to hold off. And Liberals go crazy!

• and there go my contributions to the Kormen funds. since they’d rather have poor rural women die of cancer than stand up to the anti abortion fanatics, I hope they go under to (funny, liberals are pro-abortion fanatics)
• When I read this story I was so sad. I ran in one of the first races the Kormen foundation operated in D.C. and have been in awe of its work on behalf of women over the years. Unfortunately, this will make me think twice about giving any of more of my money to it. I would rather give to Planned Parenthood, which, despite the attacks from people and groups who seem to hate women, has managed to continue to provide the health services that women need and want. What a sad day for the Kormen foundation and for Susan Kromen’s memory. (abortions are health services?)
• Komen = scum; So they won’t fund women’s preventative health services at Planned Parenthood anymore because they are being “investigated”. Right. Like the investigation is about criminal activity — political non-sense. Komen should be ashamed.

The comments at the WP keep going strong, over 550, and most are in the vein of the above.

• Feministing Ugh. What bleak news. It seems the right-wing anti-woman agenda is continuing to creep up on us in new and damaging ways. I hope there will be considerable fallout and will post more updates as they come in. (we got the “anti-woman” talking point)
• Feminist Sadly, Planned Parenthood is not unused to falling victim to politics, but it rather smarts when the middle finger has a pink ribbon around it from an organization ostensibly devoted to women’s health. If you had some money set aside for a golf visor or a t-shirt or a cup of yogurt with a pink ribbon on it, Planned Parenthood is establishing a Breast Health Emergency Fund to try and regain some of the lost funds. (so, Komen is mean and partisan, so let’s stop giving to an organization that is all about dealing with women’s health regarding breast cancer because we support women’s health)
• Tbogg puts this under the sexist tag “shut up dumb lady, Pink is the new yellow” and recommends not giving to Komen anymore.
• The always loony Balloon Juice starts out with “Komen for the Cure is abandoning women in need” and then recommends not giving to Komen, an organization which helps women in need.

It continues like that across the left-o-sphere, at the DU, and in the comments at the blogs and Old Media articles. Liberals always say they are against war and strife, want to solve “climate change”, and want the world to have a Coke and sing kumbaya because killing is bad, yet, stand up for abortions at the drop of a hat, wrapping it in all sorts of disingenuous language, even though 91% of pregnant women who visit Planned Parenthood have abortions.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

(Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) It is five minutes to midnight. Two years ago, it appeared that world leaders might address the truly global threats that we face. In many cases, that trend has not continued or been reversed. For that reason, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is moving the clock hand one minute closer to midnight, back to its time in 2007.

And what are those global threats? Surprisingly, Progressivism/fascism is not mentioned. Instead, we have Nuclear disarmament, Nuclear energy (outdated power plants can be a danger), and….Climate change!

In fact, the global community may be near a point of no return in efforts to prevent catastrophe from changes in Earth’s atmosphere. The International Energy Agency projects that, unless societies begin building alternatives to carbon-emitting energy technologies over the next five years, the world is doomed to a warmer climate, harsher weather, droughts, famine, water scarcity, rising sea levels, loss of island nations, and increasing ocean acidification. Since fossil-fuel burning power plants and infrastructure built in 2012-2020 will produce energy — and emissions — for 40 to 50 years, the actions taken in the next few years will set us on a path that will be impossible to redirect. Even if policy leaders decide in the future to reduce reliance on carbon-emitting technologies, it will be too late.

They forgot to mention that unicorns may become extinct.

The challenges to rid the world of nuclear weapons, harness nuclear power, and meet the nearly inexorable climate disruptions from global warming are complex and interconnected. In the face of such complex problems, it is difficult to see where the capacity lies to address these challenges. The political processes in place seem wholly inadequate to meet the challenges to human existence that we confront.

Inadequate, eh? Obviously, the Atomic Scientists will recommend that every believer live the carbon neutral life, and they themselves will abide by that lifestyle..so, they recommend

• Adopting and fulfilling climate change agreements to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through tax incentives, harmonized domestic regulation and practice;
• Vastly increasing public and private investments in alternatives to carbon emitting energy sources, such as solar and wind, and in technologies for energy storage, and sharing the results worldwide.

Well, damn, I thought they might recommend that every Warmist stop driving in fossil fueled vehicles, give up charging their iPhones, and disconnect their homes from the power grid in order to save Gaia from becoming a quarter as warm as the Earth has been for the entire time life has been present on the Earth. So, I blame the Atomic Scientists for the ticking of the Clock.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

(Washington Post) Before there was the Tea Party to define the phrase “far-right fringe,” there was Rick Santorum. He’s a nice-guy zealot who should never be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office.

So, calling for the reduction of power and spending in the Central Government is “fringe”? Responsible spending levels is “fringe”? Stopping wasteful spending is “fringe”? Well, fine, then I proudly take up the banner of “far-right fringer”.

The problem is that his views are genuinely extreme and, in some instances, patently offensive. He is a cultural warrior who has equated same-sex marriage with polygamy, pedophilia and bestiality — and who has argued that gay men and lesbians should not serve openly in the military because “they’re in close quarters, they live with people, they obviously shower with people.”

Santorum is implacably opposed to Obama’s health care reforms. Among other objections, he has said that insurance companies should continue to have the right to deny coverage — or charge more — for individuals who have preexisting conditions. “I’m okay with that,” he said last month.

Eugene also mentions Santorum’s tough stance on Iran, and…..that’s pretty much it. The above is what makes Santorum “extreme and should never be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office.” Hmmph. Say, Eugene, what do you think about allowing a guy who palls around with domestic terrorists, listens to racist, unhinged, bigoted, conspiracy minded, and anti-American preachers in church, was partly raised by a Marxist mother and grandmother, does business with a shady land dealer who raised money for Obama and eventually became a convicted felon, appoints tax cheats and communists, and surrounds himself with people well outside the mainstream. Not too mention all the golf, basketball, parties, and vacations. Who’s the extremist, Eugene?

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

On Monday morning a story whipped through the liberal blogosphere (and unfortunately one generally conservative news source) that had the left gleefully attacking the Tea Party Movement. They were thrilled, you see, to find a Tea Partier advocating for the assassination of President Obama and his entire family. Only they didn’t. Find such a Tea Partier, I mean.

Keith DeHavelle outlined this great example of how the left wing blogs glommed onto this story of an idiot that wrote on his Facebook page that Obama and his family should be assassinated and then assigned it to a “Tea Party darling” when in truth neither the nut in question nor any part of the story itself is connected in any way to a Tea Party group or Tea Party sentiment.

The story began when unsuccessful candidate for the Carson, California City Council, Jules Manson, decided it would be a great idea to post on his Facebook Page all about his hope that Obama and his family would be assassinated.

.

In an acute example of how erudite this Jules Manson is, he wrote, “Assassinate the f—ing n—er and his monkey children.”

I hope this ignoramus realizes he just committed a federal crime.

Anyway, it wasn’t long before this guy’s Facebook account was canceled and pulled off the web for its hate-speak. Rightly so, too.

But as the morning rolled on the left-wing blogs went nuts defining this guy variously as a “Tea Party Darling,” a libertarian supporter of Ron Paul, along with other labels. Unfortunately, they seemed to have a little trouble taking the time to find out about the real facts about this guy before posting.

Worse was the incorrect description by the New York Daily News — usually a conservative news source — that called Manson “A rabid Tea Party wannabe politician.”

The truth of what Manson “is,” however, is a bit different.

It turns out that Manson explained quite clearly on his own webpage that he does not identify with either of the two main national parties.

I am a mechanical engineer working usually within aerospace and defense industry. For a long time I switched between the two parties but found they were not representing the best interest of the general public. I believe honoring the constitution, a contract between the government and the governed, is key in a free democracy. I recently became a member of the Libertarian Party because they mirror many of my views. Such views include smaller government, less taxation, representation for the people, a free market system which allows small business to prosper, and individual liberties and rights. This means I am a constitutional conservative for reforms to return representation back to the public where it belongs. At the city level, such as Carson, this can be done by banning all campaign financing and requiring each candidate to fund their own campaign. This is key to restoring democracy. I believe this can and must be done.

There is also nothing on any of his various webpages and blog posts that identified him as a Tea Partier.

The best coverage of this seems to come from a left-winger blog called Angry Black Lady Chronicles. Left-wing or no, the poster there did a good job tracking down all the particulars of the story and comes to the proper conclusion that this nutcase, Manson, has no connection whatever with the Tea Party movement. As DeHavelle notes, Manson has statements showing him to be anti-Tea Party, even. Not only that but Manson was the editor of SupportAtheism.com. So, he’s not religious, either. This guy seems to be quite far from the Tea Party movement.

Sadly, what we see here are all sorts of bloggers and news sources leaping to a story, labeling a kook, but not taking the time to get down to the truth before hitting that post now button. We saw this when that criminal, mental case shot Gabrielle Giffords, as well. That shooter was labeled a Tea Partier even before anyone even knew his name. How one can claim they know a person’s entire history before they even know a name… well, that one was never explained to me.

While this particular bad actor’s name was known ahead of time, too many leapt to their keyboards to lay claims as to what he “was” and was not before any of them bothered to learn anything about him. That is bad form no matter who does it.

Did you know that the only reason those famed “Reagan Democrats” voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 was because they were… uh… racists? Well on the little watched Ed Show on MSNBC, Salon’s Joan Walsh assured the nation — or at least the 20 people watching — that this was the truth.

Sometimes a talking head on TV will say something so stupid that jaws drop nationwide as a result. Often that stupidity becomes the talk of the news cycle, too. But usually that only happens when there are actually viewers for the show upon which the stupidity is uttered. In this case, Joan Walsh of Salon uttered the stupidity, but since no one watches MSNBC — most especially the Ed Show — I thought I’d help pass around her comments to make her stupidity the talk of the day. It’s just a service from us here to you in the Internet tubes.

The rotund Ed Schultz was disparaging the Reagan Democrats as “dead” (both figuratively and literally) and was saying that Reagan Democrats could not possibly be a factor in 2012. Whatever merits of that claim, when Schultz turned to Salon’s Joan Walsh he got one of the most absurd comments about Reagan Democrats evah!

Walsh said:

You and I both know that a segment of the white working class did go over to Ronald Reagan, did abandon the Democratic party. Some of it was race, and some it was just believing that government was out of control and some people were getting something for nothing.

What, you may gasp? Reagan Democrats were all racists and that is why they voted Republican in the millions?

You may be confused by the comment. What was the big racial issue of 1980? Was Jimmy Carter really an African American and only the Reagan Democrats knew it? Was Reagan running on a repeal the Civil Rights bill platform and we just didn’t know it? I know, maybe Carter’s VP candidate, Walter Mondale, was the African American… hmmm, no he’s as white-bread as one can humanly get. Couldn’t have been MonDull!

Yes, you got it. There was no racial component to either the 1980 or 1984 elections. The fact is Joan Walsh is simply — and clumsily at that — trying to warp the past with her racebaiting as a way to win for Obama in the present. If Democrats crossed over in 1980 to vote Reagan, Walsh is saying, then they were raaaacists just like they will be if they do so today. THAT is her message. This is nothing more than Walsh’s attempt to throw the race card at anyone that is sick and tired of Obama’s destructive regime.

Walsh revealed a desperate ploy to staunch the bleeding of this destructive and self-destructive president. Nothing more. Nothing less.

**UPDATED** Hammerman removes paragraph from story
**UPDATE 2** Rabbi scrubs offensive post

In the category of bigotry and hatred spares no religion, we find such hatred hiding behind religion in one “Rabbi” Joshua Hammerman of New York City. Hammerman has indulged his inner Father-Coughlin-in-reverse by proclaiming that if Tim Tebow wins the Super Bowl, why, Christians will go on a rampage that will result in the burning of mosques and the bashing of gays. Now, are you ready for some football?

Hammerman disgorged his absurd claims at his New York Jewish Week blog posted on December 12 titled, “My Tim Tebow Problem.” It is instead Hammerman’s civility problem. Tim Tebow has nothing to do with this neer do well’s extreme hatred of Christians.

Calling Tebow the “poster boy of the Christian right,” Hammerman is disgusted by the fact that the footballer — oh the horrors — “thanks Jesus after every game.” It all makes the “rabbi” expound upon his “fear” about “what will happen if the hulky Denver Bronco quarterback wins the Super Bowl.”

And what will happen you might ask? Let’s let this so-called rabbi take it from here:

If Tebow wins the Super Bowl, against all odds, it will buoy his faithful, and emboldened faithful can do insane things, like burning mosques, bashing gays and indiscriminately banishing immigrants. While America has become more inclusive since Jerry Falwell’s first political forays, a Tebow triumph could set those efforts back considerably.

Rabbi Coughlin is serious, here. He really thinks that Christians will riot in the street because Tim Tebow is part of a Superbowl winning team. Yeah, because there is such a long contemporary history of Christians taking to the streets and rioting because they are jubilant over football.

He goes on to hyperbolically wonder if “legions of Southern Baptist missionaries” will “hit the college campuses the very next day, spreading this new gospel of Tim?” And he laments that already there is a “Jews for Tebow” Facebook page. This nut will even hate fellow Jews just for admiring the inoffensive Tebow.

But it shouldn’t surprise that this anti-Christian bigot might come to these conclusions. The key to this is in how he mischaracterizes Tebow’s belief in his God and in himself. Hammerman claims that Tebow is, “absolutely confident that God is on his side.” I can see why he might be worried that Tim Tebow might be a new, destructive sort of charismatic leader if he thinks that.

But this is not what Tebow has ever said or even intimated. Tebow has said that God has guided his career but he has not placed himself as equal to God’s interests. Only a supremely arrogant man would think God has taken sides with him as opposed to simply being there for him. The arrogance to assume God reveres the man and his goals enough to “side” with him is not what Tebow has displayed. Tebow simply has never exhibited this kind of arrogance. In fact, just the opposite. Hammerman is just wrong in his characterization of Tebow’s Christian character.

This yutz winds up his anti-Christian screed claiming that he doesn’t fear Christians — a claim hard to square with the other ten paragraphs of his piece so chock full of loathing, mistrust, and hatred. Instead he claims he “fears people of certainty.”

This is probably the most ignorant part of Rabbi Hammerman’s muddled thinking. It isn’t “certainty” that causes the problem, rabbi. It is what people do with that certainty that causes the problem. Thomas Aquinas was probably one of the most certain Christians in history yet he is responsible for some of the most loving and peaceful explications of Christian belief in human history. No one is rioting after football games because of Thomas Aquinas!

In this, though, Hammerman proves that he employs a prosaic modernist’s lack of critical thinking. He displays the sort of empty, nihilistic, modernist’s blather that assumes that there can be no right or wrong, that everything is relative and anyone who believes in something with anything approaching certainty, then they must be dangerous, unstable, and prone to violence.

But, the problem with this sort of modernist’s “thinking” is that it is logically untenable. Hammerman is sure “certainty” is dangerous… yet he is certain that this is a fact! By his empty thinking, then, he is just as dangerous as those rampaging Christians that infests his fevered imagination because, well, he’s certain of something, isn’t he?

He is hoisted on his own petard with his lack of critical thinking. But his is a perfect example of why most universities and modern liberalism is both dumbing down our nation and growing hatred everywhere its baneful influence appears.

I don’t fear Tim Tebow winning the Super Bowl. I do fear morally deficient cretins like this rabbi infesting in others his rabid hatred of others.

**UPDATE**

Since my criticism of Hammerman’s Tebow anti-Christian screed, he’s gone into his post and edited out the paragraph I reported here. Hammerman did not note on the story that he edited the piece to remove offensive material. So, down the memory hole goes the truth once again.

I have a screen shot of the original, though. CLICK HERE to see it.

**UPDATE 2**
Hammerman’s edited piece has now been completely removed from The Jewish Week website. Hammerman has also removed the piece from his own blog and replaced by a message that reads: “The piece has been taken down and I apologize to all those whom it has offended. Some additional reflections will be forthcoming. Thank you.”

One hopes that the rabbi will reflect on his personal animus against both Tim Tebow and Christians and that a more acceptable apology is forthcoming.

**UPDATE 3**

Now “rabbi” Hammerman has deleted his entire blog. Talk about memory hole, now he’s trying to deep six everything he’s ever written! Driven out of the gates and into the wilderness!

**UPDATE 4**

The Jewish Week Has Issued the following statement:

We apologize for posting an Opinion column on Dec. 14 by Rabbi Joshua Hammerman entitled “My Problem With Tim Tebow,” the Denver Broncos quarterback who is an Evangelical Christian. The column, in fact, violated our own standards calling for civility in posting comments on our website. The policy statement notes that “name calling in any form will not be tolerated, and comments that denigrate any religion or Jewish religious stream will always be rejected.”

The column was removed from our website later that day.

Rabbi Hammerman is a respected spiritual leader and longtime Jewish Week columnist whose writing over the years has been exemplary. This column, however, was more inciting than insightful, and we erred in posting it, which we deeply regret.

Repentance and forgiveness are cornerstones of all major faiths, as is the recognition that we all make mistakes. We trust that the sincerity of our remorse, as expressed by the rabbi as well, will be taken into account by those whom we offended.

Hammerman has made his blog publicly visible again and has posted this statement:

This week I wrote an article for the Jewish Week in which I attempted to explore the phenomenon of Denver quarterback Tim Tebow to make broad points about society and extremism. I now realize that some of my statements had the reverse effect of what I had intended and for this I deeply and sincerely apologize.

As many of you know, I have spent my entire career engaged in dialogue with people of all faiths while speaking out passionately against all forms of bigotry. I have the deepest respect for those who are committed to their faith, including Mr. Tebow. I realize the way in which I attempted to make my points was clumsy and inappropriate, inadvertently suggesting the kind of intolerance and extremism my article was intended to disparage. I sincerely apologize to Mr. Tebow, his family, the Broncos and Patriots and all those whom I may have offended.

(H/T All American Blogger)