H/T, Fr. Z.  Thank you to our faithful Vatican for responding so quickly to Obama’s first act of evil as President:

Monsignor Rino Fisichella, who heads the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life, urged Obama to listen to all voices in America without “the arrogance of those who, being in power, believe they can decide of life and death.”

“This deals a harsh blow not only to us Catholics but to all the people across the world who fight against the slaughter of innocents that is carried out with the abortion,” another top official with the Academy for Life, Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, told the ANSA news agency.

“Among the many good things that he could have done, Barack Obama instead chose the worst,” he was quoted as saying Saturday.

That about sums it up.  If you are Catholic and you voted Obama in spite of knowledge of his plans, here’s your first example of how that vote was indeed cooperation with abortion at least at some level.  How many days did that take?  If you voted Obama out of ignorance, please don’t vote again, because this was so blatantly obvious that if you missed it you aren’t qualified to vote.  Either way, it seems maybe it’d be a good idea to clear your conscience about this…

Oh, and Doug Kmiec, I think there’s something in the Bible about millstones.  How many did you lead astray?

Something that’s been getting more airplay on pro-life websites today has been this Mexico City policy thing.  Apparently, boiled down, it’s this policy that the groups receiving tax money to provide family planning services in other countries must not use that tax money to fund abortions.  Predictably, this policy was expected to be ended with the new presidential administration; our friend  the Curt Jester, in fact, mentions that it has already ended – and this was expected to happen today.  But LifeNews.com is reporting that it didn’t.  It probably will by the end of the week, but for now, it’s still in effect.

Just to be clear what we’re talking about here, let’s elaborate.  My money, which I earn by the sweat of my brow and the pain of my carpal tunnels, taken from me at the point of a gun by the government (as in, pay your taxes under pain of prosecution) and used to pay to rip foreign babies into tiny pieces.

Which brings us to the question: Does Obama not realize that by the standards of the eugenics he advocates, he should have been aborted?  CatholicVote.org figured this out and aired a PSA during the coronation yesterday, right on BET.  Check it out.

Here’s a piece sure to be buried.

In a personal commentary published in the Austrian newspaper Der Standard, Mr. Djerassi, 85, said that in most of Europe there was now “no connection at all between sexuality and reproduction.” He said: “This divide in Catholic Austria, a country which has on average 1.4 children per family, is now complete.”

He described families who decided to use the pill rather than reproduce as “wanting to enjoy their schnitzels while leaving the rest of the world to get on with it.”

Mr. Djerassi called the subsequent declining birth rate an “epidemic” far worse, but given much less attention, than obesity. He said young Austrians were committing “national suicide” if they failed to procreate.

Could we be headed the same way?  Cardinal Schonborn weighs in also:

Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, the head of Austrian Catholics, reminded the press that the much maligned encyclical forbidding the use of artificial contraception, Humanae Vitae, warned the world 40 years ago that the pill would lead to a dramatic fall in the birth rate in the West.

“Somebody above suspicion  … is saying that each family has to produce three children to maintain population levels, but we’re far away from that,” he said.

Cardinal Schonborn said when he first read Humanae Vitae he viewed it negatively as a “cold shower.” However, his views were altered over time as the document  proved to be “prophetic.”

Full article

It’s a new year and it’s time for California to regulate something new!  The newest offender to the state’s sensibilities?  Plasma and LCD television sets, which use substantially more power than CRT televisions.

State regulators are getting ready to curb the growing power gluttony of TV sets by drafting the nation’s first rules requiring retailers to sell only the most energy-efficient models, starting in 2011.
The consumer electronics industry opposes the regulations, expected to pass in mid-2009, and claims that they could remove some TVs from store shelves and slightly boost sticker prices.

But the California Energy Commission is looking for ways to relieve the strain on the power grid. Officials say the standards, once fully in place, would reduce the state’s annual energy needs by an amount equivalent to the power consumed by 86,400 homes.

During a peak viewing time when most sets are on, such as the Super Bowl, TVs in the state collectively suck up the equivalent of 40% of the power generated by the San Onofre nuclear power station running at full capacity. Televisions account for about 10% of the average Californian’s monthly household electricity bill.

More