It seems the formula is pretty straightforward: views that the Church has historically taught are wrong -- but which she doesn't see as wrong -- are not wrong, merely different.

Anyone who disagrees with her is not merely different, but wrong.

Simple.

It's not unlike your average 3-year-0ld's conception of the world.

PS, I've just posted most of what I wrote in #8 on Mr. O'Hare's website.

It's bad enough that universities hire hateful twits like this to instruct our students.

But it's even worse when the hateful twits feel at liberty to spew about something they have absolutely no training in.

Note to Mr. Michael O'Hare:

(1) You're a "social science" guy, not a real science guy.  

(2) A social science academic background does not qualify you to hold forth on the issue of climate change.  So shut the hell up and stop compounding people's misery.

(3) If you believe I'm wrong and that your background in social science somehow qualifies you to make venomous statements regarding people who question climate change, then you lend strong credence to a belief I've long held: that the theory of human-caused climate change leading to global catastrophe is much more deeply rooted in sociology or religion (environmentalism) than it is in hard science.

(4) Finally, in case no one's ever mentioned this to you before, you're a pathetic, hateful tool willing to compound human misery to advance your own pet causes. Go to hell.

To all the Brit comrades on Ricochet, this video is the answer to two questions you or your fellow countrymen (yes, Piers, I'm talking about you) may have asked in the past:

1. What good is the 2nd Amendment? (Thanks Barkha)

2. What good is the death penalty?

The Obama Administration has declared it a case of road rage.

The killer question in the poll would have been:

"Please provide your understanding of what it means for something to be 'morally acceptable or unacceptable."

I suspect the results would have been something along the lines of: "89% or respondents had no frikkin clue as to what the question even meant."

Hat tip to our colleges and universities for the excellent work they've done these past four decades.

So sorry I can hit the like button only once. What a wonderful way to describe the hyperventilating, hyperbolic hysterics on the "scientific left."

Ma'am Boxer's global warming rant differs from Congressman Hank Johnson's island tipping theory only in its shrillness and vitriol.  The underlying IQ is roughly equivalent.

I'm less sanguine. I fear the attack on Fox News will lead the formerly respectable media to embrace The One in their loving arms again.

It's tough, when your only previous social interaction has been with fellow leftists in the academy and other fellow leftists in the community organizing crowd, to cultivate a social game that actually works in real life.

But I, for one, will give him credit for even knowing who St. Joan of Arc is.

Well, here's hoping said political appointees left their DNA on a blue dress (oops, sorry, I meant to say "their fingerprints on a memo") somewhere.

@Basil Fawlty, so where did the idea of targeting conservative groups originate, if not with bureaucrats doing what they believed would impress a boss who relishes turning his political opponents into evil cartoon characters?

If you're arguing that it originated with the political leadership, I won't disagree with that. Proof, at this point, is lacking.

The point of KC's post, however, is that it didn't need to be a command from the top in order to be carried out as a tacit order. And that is a point I continue to agree with.

Basil, generally speaking you make a good point. However, these civil servants have never worked for a "leader" like President Obama. They have never served under anyone who spends nearly every waking moment actively demonizing his opponents. Isn't it just possible that ambitious progressives in the IRS felt finally liberated to impress a boss who seems to "get" how evil conservatives really are?

It is all about tone at the top.

The President of the United States has spent his entire political career turning people who disagree with him into evil cartoon characters. He is constantly lashing out against the straw men he makes his political opponents out to be. 

Is anyone actually surprised that industrious and ambitious employees at the IRS picked up on this tone and decided to make life more difficult for the evil people the president is constantly campaigning and complaining about?

For that matter, does anyone really believe that President Obama, in the absence of a public scandal, would have had any problem with the IRS's tactics?

Dave, you obviously haven't read The New York Times take on the IRS scandal today. Good news: it wasn't political at all. The problem was simply an "understaffed Cincinnati outpost that was alienated from the broader I.R.S. culture and given little direction." So to @Devereaux's question "where are the liberals?" they're busy directing traffic: Nothing to see here. Move along.

Pseud has certain metaphysical qualities