"Just a victim of being in Congress while black."

Cynthia "left hook" McKinney (D-GA) should be charged with being an idiot while in Congress.

The nerve.

Jill Carroll: The Baghdad Syndrome?

You know of the Stockholm Syndrome, that powerful, baffling psychological phenomenon whereby hostages begin strongly sympathizing with their captors' agenda.

Released captive Jill Carroll shows every sign of being similarly smitten.

Last month, the poor woman was on Al Zajeera, sobbing like a mental patient for her life, wearing what looked like a demin shirt and Western civvies.

This month, she sings the praises of the nice mujahedeen gentlemen who threatened her life on global TV, and sports traditional Muslim garb -- a sort of ersatz girlfriend of John Walker Lindh.

Of course I'm happy she's free, and I'm certainly not judging her. God knows she endured a life-altering trauma.

I'm just not buying the I [HEART] Mujahedeens line.

Another thing wrong with The Da Vinci Code

It may provoke a new outbreak of mulletude.

Gott im Himmel, NO!

Pope to China: love you love time

This is big news.

Let's pray that China is to Pope Benedict what the Soviet Union was to Pope John Paul.

What a spiritual/political/cultural earthquake that would be.

Chubby naked Venezuelans gross out onlookers

This is what independence hero Simon Bolivar fought for -- to win for future generations the inalienable right to repulse passers-by with their corpulent naked bodies.

Rivers o ' green

Happy St. Patrick's Day. What an honor to have a day named for me. I shall be celebrating in Hollywood at Tom Bergin's Irish Pub with good friends, including loyal Seize the Dei com box contributor Joe McCool (me? jealous of that it's his real name?)

That'll learn them stupid cops

I've heard of cutting off your nose to spite your face, but....

I'm going to be a father again

It's official (cue sound of champagne uncorking)....

My good wife Mariella is pregnant with Nino Numero Tres!

Thank you, thank you.

We ask for prayers, as Mariella is predisposed for premature delivery. As told here starting on page 20, she did serious battle during her two previous pregancies. When it comes to mothering, my wife was dubbed a prize-fighter by her OB-GYN. To which I would add marathon runner.

Our eldest daughter, Mariclare, age "thwee and a haff," is sure she's getting a baby brudder. But as with our first two babies, we're opting to wait until the day of birth to find out the sex. (Why partly unwrap a Christmas gift in July?)

Ah, a full night's sleep, we hardly knew ya!

Something I've noticed

I have noticed that bad Catholics -- those pew-sitters who dissent from certain moral teachings -- keep calling themselves good Catholics, or at least "good people." It's almost a psychological law that a bad conscience has to keep putting salve on itself to keep a sense of inner equilibrium.

Whereas, practicing Catholics -- those who accept the teachings even if they fall short of perfect daily implementation -- tend to call themselves bad Catholics. I don't mean they see themselves as literally evil, but the great majority of the orthodox Catholics I know, or have read, are very much concerned with how poorly they live their faith, not with how well.

It reminds me of Bishop Sheen's dictum that saints are like pianists who aspire to play like Rachmaninoff, not like their neighbour. The closer you approach inmitating Christ, the more your own imperfections stand out.

Stained glass windows show their flaws more at noon than at midnight.

Orwell on crack

So, in Australia, if your abortionist fails to kill your baby, and you're "forced" to raise the little bastard, you're eligible for a huge pile of cash.

I wonder how the seven-year-old feels toward dear old mom.

Media bias? What media bias?

What would happen if, say, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia dozed off in the middle of oral arguments?

Big brouhaha, right?

When Ruth Buzzi Ginsburg does it, the event gets buried deep in another story.

First Bareback Mounthim, now this

Didn't I say the very beautiful and humanly sensitive, uncommonly honest movie by Ang Lee would spawn more like it?

Check this out!

And to dust we shall return

As even bad Catholics know, today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of a 40-day journey inward. As an encouragement to dig deep this Lent, here are two rich selections:

One is from Canadian writer (and convert) David Warren, whose prose always shines like an angel. Here is a characteristically lovely meditation on the joys of Lent.

The other is from Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman. It's an unusually vivid mediation on the mental sufferings of our Lord in His passion. Brace yourself as Newman takes you inside the mind and soul of Christ, as it were.

By comparison, Mel Gibson barely scratched the surface of what Love did for us.

Hope you lose, Mr. Brown

The Da Vinci Code movie may now be delayed. Turns out, its author, Dan Brown, may well have plagiarised the central thesis of the book from two other writers.

Catholic Answers nicely skewers what's wrong with the book and why Catholics especially should get themselves educated.

I find that there is an inverse ratio here: the less you know about the historical foundations of the Church the more entrancing you'll find the book. Whereas Catholics with even a half-baked idea of how the New Testament was written and gathered find The Da Vinci Code a plodding, sloppy, dumb ass attempt at entertainment.

One more thing -- Opus Dei has no monks, Dan, as a simple phone call would verify.