“The president departed Tuesday for his longest stretch yet away from the White House, arriving at his Crawford ranch in the evening for a stretch of clearing brush, visiting with family and friends, and tending to some outside-the-Beltway politics. By historical standards, it is the longest presidential retreat in at least 36 years.

The August getaway is Bush’s 49th trip to his cherished ranch since taking office and the 319th day that Bush has spent, entirely or partially, in Crawford — nearly 20 percent of his presidency to date, according to Mark Knoller, a CBS Radio reporter known for keeping better records of the president’s travel than the White House itself. Weekends and holidays at Camp David or at his parents’ compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, bump up the proportion of Bush’s time away from Washington even further.

Bush’s long vacations are more than a curiosity: They play into diametrically opposite arguments about this leadership style. To critics and late-night comics, they symbolize a lackadaisical approach to the world’s most important day job, an impression bolstered by Bush’s two-hour midday exercise sessions and his disinclination to work nights or weekends. The more vociferous among Bush’s foes have noted that he spent a month at the ranch shortly before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when critics assert he should have been more attentive to warning signs.” (Washington Post)

“At a time of heightened national concern about the need to track sex offenders, the Catholic Church in America has begun cutting loose dozens – perhaps hundreds – of priests who have molested children.

The church had already suspended the clerics after finding the child-abuse allegations against them to be credible. Now, as it defrocks them, expelling them from the priesthood, the men are quietly reentering civilian life with only the barest notice to the public, and no ongoing oversight by the church.

Nor is law enforcement certain to be watching them.

In most instances, the statute of limitations in their cases expired years ago. This means they face no prospect of prosecution for past sex offenses.” (beliefnet via walker)

‘It is already being insinuated, by those who want this thorny question de-thorned, that there is an element of discrimination involved. Why should this question be asked only of Catholics? Well, that’s easy. The Roman Catholic Church claims the right to legislate on morals for all its members and to excommunicate them if they don’t conform. The church is also a foreign state, which has diplomatic relations with Washington. In the very recent past, this church and this state gave asylum to Cardinal Bernard Law, who should have been indicted for his role in the systematic rape and torture of thousands of American children. (Not that child abuse is condemned in the Ten Commandments, any more than slavery or genocide or rape.) More recently still, the newly installed Pope Benedict XVI (who will always be Ratzinger to me) has ruled that Catholic politicians who endorse the right to abortion should be denied the sacraments: no light matter for believers of the sincerity that Judge Roberts and his wife are said to exhibit. And just last month, one of Ratzinger’s closest allies, Cardinal Schonborn of Vienna, wrote an essay in which he announced that evolution was “ideology, not science.”‘

Verily, I sell unto you: “Increasing numbers of evangelical business owners are hanging out their shingles with the word ‘Christian’ prominently displayed. Are they bringing godliness to Main Street — or making hay on holiness?” (Salon)

“Last December, Sepracor, a company in Marlborough, Massachusetts, whose core business is concocting slight variations of the world’s best-selling drugs, got the go-ahead from the Food and Drug Administration to sell Lunesta, a new sleeping pill that could be used for months without losing its effectiveness. To prime Wall Street for the drug’s potential profitability, Sepracor’s chief executive officer, Timothy Barberich, told analysts that insomnia is “one of the most prevalent and growing medical needs in our society,” while David Southwell, the company’s chief financial officer, described insomnia to the media as “underrecognized” and “undertreated,” and estimated the U.S. market for sleep aids at $3.5 billion a year and growing. Following the industry’s modern marketing script (create a need, then a drug to fill it) Sepracor soon began selling Lunesta to the public — with the help of the press.

As with most launches of drugs, Sepracor and one of the academic medical centers involved in testing the drug (in this case, Duke University) offered journalists sources they could call, including those with financial links to Sepracor. And the company got results. For example, some of the nation’s most respected newspapers peppered their stories with quotes from Dr. Andrew Krystal, who conducted the Duke clinical trial of Lunesta and was the lead author of the study that reported the results. Krystal had designed and conducted other studies for Sepracor, and had also served on a company advisory board. Most of the news stories did not disclose his financial ties to the drugmaker.”