One place that agrees with me strongly is the Vatican. An unusual place if it were related to doctrinal agreement - but not unusual at all on the relevance of moral issues on our world today.

In an address to chaplains, Archbishop Angelo Amato said newspapers andtelevision bulletins often seemed like "a perverse film aboutevil." He denounced "evils that remain almost invisible"because the media presented them as "expression of humanprogress."

He listed these as abortion clinics, which he called"slaughterhouses of human beings," euthanasia, and "parliamentsof so-called civilized nations where laws contrary to thenature of the human being are being promulgated, such as theapproval of marriage between people of the same sex ..."

Amato spoke at a time when the Vatican and Italy's powerfulRoman Catholic Church are at loggerheads over plans for ahighly controversial law that would give unmarried heterosexualand homosexual couples some form of legal recognition.

It's not just Roman Catholics that are at loggerheads.

People of faith, conscience, and sobriety need to stand up, speak out, and not let this era of moral and sexual confusion go undefined. Everyone loses from doing nothing...

Hillary was the favorite going into campaign 2008. And she wasn't/isn't just the favorite - she's the HEAVY. She's the "return of the miraculous Clintons."

Yet Obama is proving that the world has changed since the 1990's. He's also proving that he is infinitely more friendly and likable than the ice queen strategist that Hillary has always been.

Today's New York Times is showing us one more reason (in Hillary's hometown, on her home turf, in front of her home fans, in a state which she JUST won re-election by nearly 60% for her Senate seat) why Obama is beating her in all the categories that count... money - and boots on the ground.

The officials described themselves as impressed with the strength ofMr. Obama’s campaign in recent weeks, saying it reflected a grass-rootsenthusiasm for Mr. Obama that many noticed among black voters in theirown districts. And that could signal trouble for Mrs. Clinton, forcingher to devote precious attention to her home state, where blacks madeup 20 percent of the Democratic primary vote in 2004, just as she hashad to scramble to keep black support nationwide.

Facing a potential drift of black support, the Clinton campaign has recently taken several steps: dispatching former President Bill Clinton to speak before black and Hispanic lawmakers in Albany earlier this year, and then to address the Rev. Al Sharpton’s group, the National Action Network, in New York last week; using Bill Lynch, who was a top political adviser to former Mayor David N. Dinkins,to corral black support in New York City; and enlisting heavyweightsfrom the black political establishment like Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, to help Mrs. Clinton court black leaders.

Manyblack New York officials have strongly supported Mrs. Clinton — not tomention her husband, starting with her first Senate campaign in 2000,when she was still in the White House and had only just establishedresidency in the state.

But these officials said it had becomeincreasingly clear to them that Mr. Obama, who has barely campaigned inNew York, is no mere flash in the pan, and seems to possess the publicapproval ratings and campaign war chest needed to compete in apresidential contest.

“I would have supported Hillary if it werenot for Barack Obama,” said Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV, aleading figure in Harlem who said he had yet to make an endorsement.“He can identify with my African-American community in a way that noother candidate can.” Assemblywoman Crystal D. Peoples, who representsBuffalo, and who has been contacted by one of Mrs. Clinton’s toppolitical lieutenants, said she was similarly divided. “It’s a verydifficult decision,” Ms. Peoples said. “I’ll really do a lot ofsoul-searching on this one.”

Assemblyman N. Nick Perry,Democrat of Brooklyn, said many black politicians were mindful of whathappened in 1988, when overwhelmingly large numbers of black primaryvoters in New York supported the presidential candidacy of the Rev. Jesse Jackson,to the surprise of black politicians who supported his rivals. He saidthat “there was a lot of atoning that had to be done” afterward amongthose politicians.

“This is bigger than Jesse Jackson,” Mr.Perry, who remained undecided, said of Mr. Obama’s candidacy. “When youlook at Obama, his potential seems quite explosive.”

Bigger than the Jesse candidacy - in a nutshell it says it all. In the 1980's nobody was bigger than Jesse. Al wasn't even a thought in anybody's mind. 2008 has already proven one thing... it ain't gonna be over for quite a while.

And I still say, since I saw him as a mere state legislator in Illinois - that Obama will be the one standing when the dust has finally settled.

(Just one note of important clarification. I do not support Obama, will not vote for him, have publicly and continually criticized him, and happen to think he would be a President who would single handedly set conservatism back a generation or more - smiling the whole time he was doing it.)

In head to head match-ups she still maintains leads over Obama in the primary but her margin is 10 points down from just a month ago. And in a general election match-up against Giuliani, her once sizable lead, is now 48-43%.

No doubt her clearly transparent pandering to the Al Sharpton rent-a-mob is rubbing black voters wrong, and there is the all-too-well-liked Obama waiting to pick up the disgruntled factions.

I'm not predicting its the beginning of the end for Hillary. She's obviously got a lot of time and money. But it could be the end of the beginning, and the more the layers are peeled back, the more the American voters will most likely look elsewhere.

One last note on the panderbyte (my new word - feel free to pass on in the course of the election cycle as the term fits. Definition: a soundbyte used in the art of pandering to potential voters) of the weekend:

"When I walk into the Oval Office in January of 2009, I'm afraid I'm going to lift up the rug and see so much stuff under there... (mediocre applause from less than enthused what sounds like a predominantly female audience)"

Word of advice to the former first lady:

You really, really, really, DO NOT WANT to bring up anything related to the topic of "stuff left behind on/under/near the rugs in the Oval Office!" For whatever you do find we doubt it will glow in the DNA forensic sensors of a CSI unit they your husband's "contributions" would have...

Yes... we're so ready as a nation to put the Clinton's back on center stage aren't we?

And it appears that they have been following through on their contempt...

 In the course of serving deportation warrants, the officials said,other people whom officers suspected of being illegal immigrants werequestioned and then arrested. Of at least 65 Marin County residentsarrested in March, for example, just five had been ordered deported.

My immediate response is to call for immediate suspension of ALL Homeland Security resources to San Francisco. Any city administration that takes such a blatantly reckless position in attempting to appease what he mistakenly believes his constituents want does not deserve the rather significant amounts of money, personnel, and technology that would be provided.

Perhaps instead the feds could set up perimeter checks along the roads coming in and out of the city (particularly on the most major traffic veins) and get some idea of every person coming and going.

We must NOT allow such reckless policy to threaten the welfare and security of the surrounding area, much less the rest of the nation.