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Greg Borowski of the Milw. Journal Sentinel reports:

Credentials: Every day, once all the credentials for that evening have been distributed, there is a drawing for any extra passes to get on the floor and sit with the delegation. They are distributed each morning, with this sign meeting delegates: “Photo ID required.”

Of course, photos IDs should only be required for voting on the next president at the convention, they should NOT be required for voting for the next president in the primary or general elections. Puh-lease.

Emergent Church pastor Brian McClaren is under fire for appearing in an election commercial supporting Barack Obama. He should also be under fire for saying silly things, like he did recently:

“Christians, Muslims and Jews are, in some ways, the most dangerous people on the planet, and probably Christians being the most dangerous because their fingers are closer to the most nuclear weapons,” he told an audience here at Baker Book House. “If (Muslims, Christians and Jews) can find points of contact, maybe it will help us avoid pressing these buttons,” he said.

This is a silly thing to say when “the Muslim bomb,” i.e. the nukes in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, are under command-and-control transition as Musharraf leaves office.

Georgetown has hired the first director of its LGBTQ Resource Center. She is the former associate director of the University of Maryland’s Office of LGBT Equity. According to the report,

Harrison said GU Pride [the LGBTQ student group] is looking to launch efforts this year to make the campus more “trans-friendly” by working to provide bathrooms and better housing options for transgender individuals. In addition, he said he believes it is important to bring more diversity to the organization, particularly in bringing a greater variety of political views to the group. Harrison said Subbaraman’s work as the first director of the center will help to catalyze these efforts. “Having a person who can advocate for our issues is a big achievement,” he said.

Don’t think for a minute that this could not happen at Marquette - the GSA has already brought it up at a forum with Fr. Wild… While he feels the Counseling Center is currently sufficient, if pressure from the politically correct crowd mounts …

We have noted before on this blog the liberal leaning activities of certain members of Marquette’s theology department, namely Professors Dan Maguire, Fr. Simon Harak, and Fr. Bryan Massingale.

However, at the same time that these faculty members are pushing their far-left agendas, good things are also happening. This week is the annual meeting of the Catholic Theological Society of America. John Allen of the National Catholic Register reports on comments made by one panelist of the “Generations” meeting:

An up-and-coming Catholic theologian said today that the previous generation in the church, both bishops and theologians, has left behind a “negative legacy” of ideological division, and called upon theologians to recognize that “overall, the hierarchy is not our enemy.”

Perhaps most pointedly, Jozef Zalot called upon theologians to remember that bishops are the successors of the apostles, and it’s their teachings which are binding on the church, not those of the theological guild. … He described what he sees as an unfortunate split between bishops and theologians that prevents the church from addressing pressing social problems in a unified fashion.

Zalot, Allen reports, earned his Ph.D. in theology from Marquette in 2002. He now teaches at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, Ohio. Dr. Zalot’s comments, standing alone, would be worth reporting to the readers of this blog as a sign of hope in an otherwise troubling department.

But a google search leads me to more good news. Marquette’s Theo Dept. maintains a public listing of what their PhD alums are now doing. Consider these alumni, who graduated 2001 and later, and where they teach now:
Nicholas Perrin teaches at the evangelical power house Wheaton College.
Martin Mittelstadt teaches at Evangel University, an Assemblies-affiliated school where John Ashcroft’s dad used to be president.
Richard Weber teaches theology at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.
Thomas Holzen teaches at the Anglican seminary in Waukesha, Wisconsin: Nashotah House.
Jeff Barbeau teaches at charismatic Oral Roberts University.
Wolfgang Vondey teaches at Pat Robertson’s Regent University.
Jeffrey Holmes teaches at the orthodox Ave Maria University.
Pre-2000 graduates teach at conservative institutions like Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ouachita Baptist University, University of Dallas, Regent University, The King’s College and Seminary, the Pope Paul VI Institute, and Trinity International University.
While where you teach isn’t a perfect match for ideology - an occasional liberal ends up at a conservative school, and an occasional conservative ends up at a liberal or non-ideological school - it’s a close enough approximation for my point: the Theology Department, whatever its faults, is producing at least a few orthodox graduates. And that is worthy of note and praise.

From the UK:

Pretty creepy.

(H/T these guys)

This dirty dining violation bothers me the most. I’ve eaten at Papa John’s more than any other place on campus over the past year. That five dollar pizza Tuesday is something of a vice. There pizza’s are probably one of the best on campus and for $5 I’d order. But it seems as though Papa John’s hasn’t been the best when it comes to hygiene, in fact they have some of the most violations of all the places on campus.

• Working containers of chemicals or toxic materials taken from bulk containers must be clearly and individually identified with the common name of the contents. Sanitizer solution is being put into containers that once contained oven cleaner. Label bottle as sanitizer.
• The large cutting board with the can opener and slicer attached to it needs to be cleaned. Remove the attached equipment and clean under it to remove all debris. If necessary have the board sanded down to remove the gouges in board.
• There is a handwash sink next to the pizza oven where hot water is not working. Restore hot water to hand sink.
• Store wiping cloths in a sanitizing solution between use. Employee stated they use a spray bottle method for sanitizing surfaces, which is allowed if wiping cloths are single service and used only once.

This may not seem like a whole lot, but this is just a snippet of all of the code violations that they’ve had and to top it off some of the above violations come up two or three times so it shows that worse than having the violations, they are doing virtually nothing to fix it.

The second place on campus to get a pizza is really no better. I’ve been to Angelo’s once for pizza. It was pretty good to be honest, but the place was freezing. I wasn’t so keen on the general environment and neither were the health inspectors:

• There were cooked sausages and meatballs sitting in a hot hold well found at 102 degrees. All potentially hazardous foods must be hot held at 135 degrees or more.
• There is an accumulation of old food debris on the slicer. Take slicer apart, clean and sanitize all parts thoroughly.
• There was no sanitizer bucket set up at the food prep area. Set up and maintain a sanitizer bucket to sanitize food prep surfaces between use. For a bleach sanitizer, the concentration should be 100ppm.
• There is no date marking being done at restaurant. Properly mark all ready to eat potentially hazardous foods that are prepared on site or any opened commercial container with a 7 day use by date.
•
Angelo’s is another place that has had the same violations over and over again.

The worst part about this is that I am absolutely starving and writing about all these food places and are too dirty to eat at.

And vote smart on Tuesday.

My wonderful conservative friends, do the intelligent thing and vote in the Democratic primary, not the Republican primary. McCain has the GOP nomination in the bag. Voting for Ron Paul or Mike Huckabee (gag) might give you more ideological satisfaction, but having someone like Barack Obama as president could prevent a solid conservative from being in the White House for a long time. Your vote would mean a lot more by voting for the weaker of the two Democratic nominees. This is code for: VOTE FOR HILLARY.

There is method to this madness. Barack Obama is clearly a more formidable candidate and would have a greater chance, I think, to win the presidency against a Republican like McCain. Obama is a lot more liberal than Hillary and is crazy enough to think he is “above politics.”

I have become convinced that an Obama presidency would be far worse than another Clinton one. If Hillary does get the nomination and the presidency, I don’t think she would change all that much despite some of her rhetoric. She has an agenda and I think will be forced to negotiate. Of course she will stump for socialized medicine and universal health care but I do not think she could push it through if people really urged Congress to vote against her proposals. I also think this could give the GOP an opportunity to put a better conservative candidate up in 2012. And I’m sure many of you know who I have in mind!

Hillary is such an extremely divisive figure that I think she could get trounced in the general election. So many people have such a visceral reaction to her that they would never vote for her no matter who the opponent was. She would lose the women vote. In Iowa, the only women group she won was the 60+ years bracket. So for those of you who can’t stand the idea of her in the White House can maybe rest easier. McCain is more popular among moderates, independents, and Democrats and is a less polarizing figure. I think he has a great chance of being elected over Hillary, and less so than if he were put up against Obama.

Finally, as a side note, John McCain does not stand for conservative values or governance. He is on the wrong side of a few very key issues (immigration, poltiical speech, etc). I personally would rather have four years of crappy Democratic policy via Clinton than four to eight years of pseudo-crappy McCain policy and then have liberal Democratic administrations for the next four election cycles.

For several of you, I have already pitched this proposal and a few of you are already doing what I plan to do. For those I haven’t talked to, hopefully you consider this option. But of course the most important thing to do is just vote on Tuesday!

Mark Steyn had a great article on Barack on Saturday. Read it - hopefully it gives you a better idea about what Barack is about.

I’m sorry, but I just have to post this video from Youtube. Everyone by now has seen the Miss Teen South Carolina foul up an answer about maps. Here is one of the responses on Youtube:

There is no way that the Views count on this thing is accurate. It is by far the most funny response. I still can’t get over “The Iraq.” I think I’ve watched it 100 times over the last day or so.

Sorry I’ve been away from the blog for the last few days; it’s been busier than usual for whatever reason. A few quick items:

Congressman Steve Kagen, WI-One Term, is becoming quite the hit on the loony left. He’s got his own post stream on Daily Kos, the Nutroot’s number one online headquarters. Now word comes that Congressman Kagen will be speaking at YearlyKos, the annual gathering of the Netroots. He’ll be paying homage to the far left along with Howard Dean and Speaker Pelosi.

John McCain has out a very good memorandum trying to convince people there’s still hope for his presidential effort. Still, I just don’t see the “Supreme Being” playing that well in S. Carolina:

A Man of Faith:

John McCain has said that he believes his faith in a Supreme Being sustained and strengthened him for five years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. He believes that we all have a higher mission in life, and that is to live a life based on honor and integrity.

Speaking of “a Supreme Being,” now a word on Ecclesiastical Politics: We’re seeing a lot of changes at the top for Wisconsin’s Catholic community. News comes to us this week that the Roman Catholic Bishop of Green Bay, David Zubick, has been promoted by the Vatican to Bishop of Pittsburg. Zubik, who has held the Green Bay see since December 2003, is a native of Pittsburg and former auxiliary bishop there. (HT: Amy Welborn). Meanwhile, the Catholic Diocese of Superior has a new bishop. The Vatican announced at the end of June that Bishop Raphael Fliss, who has held the post for over twenty years, will be replaced by Paul Christiansen, a Minnesotan. Finally, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee awaits a second auxiliary bishop (it could be a while).