Are gangs becoming a national security threat to the US?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-01-29-ms13_N.htm

Liberals' Lack of class

 

From a recent WSJ Opinion piece: 

We left on time and as we taxied onto the runway the pilot came on. "This is the USAir 4 p.m. shuttle to Washington, D.C.," he said in the old-fashioned Chuck Yeager style, and from the back of the plane came a roar of cheers and applause. When the sound reached the cockpit, the pilot came on again. "Hope has come to America," he said. The plane went wild.    Now, see.  This shows how self-righteous and lacking in class liberals are.  If a conservative were being elected President, it would not occur to a conservative pilot to rub it in like this.  And a plane with a bunch of conservatives on board would not roar and cheer, because they would be polite enough to realize that not everyone agrees with them.  Shame on these people.

Obama avoids divisive issues, unlike Bush

 

No, seriously.  That was the headline of this AP article about Obama's first week.  The week in which he changed the law to allow funding of overseas abortion clinics.  No bias here. 

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090125/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_first_week

The Seven Deadly Sins - paired off one by one with the Seven Virtues

http://www.angelfire.com/hi3/catholichomeschool/sins.html

Child Taken From Grandparents for Gay Adoption

http://www.creativeminorityreport.com/2009/01/child-taken-from-grandparents-for-gay.html

Interesting short story

This is kind of a "realistic fiction" short story.

 

A bit vulgar, but good writing.

 

http://www.fairfieldreview.org/fairfield/fairrevw.nsf/35b12ad902f011168525667b004855b6/ca73500d1fd0089b8525665c0077d94a!OpenDocument

Demographic winter - the fruits of contraception and abortion

http://patrickmadrid.blogspot.com/2009/01/demographic-winter-schools-will-be.html

10 things Obama just had to accomplish in week one

http://aragoweb.blogspot.com/2009/01/ten-things-obama-just-had-to-accomplish.html

You know that when Rockwell finished this painting he was all like "BOO-YA, Pollock!"

Scroll down to see it:
http://redcardigan.blogspot.com/2009/01/google.html

Mainstream Media Can't Stop Hating Palin

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Blog/Default.aspx?id=398644

 

Chris Mathews comment on Palin writing her memoirs, "if she can read, if she can write."  He goes on to say that the only politician he knows that can write is Obama. 

Black Genocide and Abortion

Between 1882 and 1968, 3,446 Blacks were lynched in the U.S. That number is surpassed in less than 3 days by abortion.

3 out of 5 pregnant African-American women will abort their child.

In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King said, "The early church brought an end to such things as INFANTICIDE." What would Martin Luther King say to the church today?

The Rev. Jesse Jackson once said:
"That is why the Constitution called us three-fifths human and then whites further dehumanized us by calling us 'niggers'. It was part of the dehumanizing process. The first step was to distort the image of us as human beings in order to justify that which they wanted to do and not even feel like they had done anything wrong. Those advocates of taking life prior to birth do not call it killing or murder, they call it abortion. They further never talk about aborting a baby because that would imply something human. Rather they talk about aborting the fetus. Fetus sounds less than human and therefore abortion can be justified".

With 1/3 of all abortions performed on Black women, the abortion industry has received over 4,000,000,000 (yes, billion) dollars from the Black community.

http://mommylife.net/archives/2009/01/pastor_luke_rob.html

Saintly Sayings

Smile at each other, smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other. It doesn't matter who it is, it will help you to grow in greater love for each other.

Bl. Teresa of Calcutta, 20th century

 

Doing little things with a strong desire to please God makes them really great.

St. Francis de Sales, 16th century

Quite a sobering chart

 

http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2009/01/20/milestone/

We now have more people employed in government than in manufacturing and construction.

From St. Francis de Sales - his feast day was a couple of days ago

Prayer of Dedication by St. Francis de Sales

Lord, I am yours, and I must belong to no one but you. My soul is yours, and must live only by you. My will is yours, and must love only for you. I must love you as my first cause, since I am from you. I must love you as my end and rest, since I am for you. I must love you more than my own being, since my being subsists by you. I must love you more than myself, since I am all yours and all in you. Amen.

If this dude got this done BEFORE the election, I'd actually have an odd respect for him

http://www.lenzism.com/2008/05/barack-obama-tatoo.html

Mentoring - gay, Democrat style

http://rightwingsparkle.blogspot.com/2009/01/you-just-cant-make-this-stuff-up.html

Chilling Prediction from an article about abortion

Boomers are Next

I predict that the next American genocide will be the elderly, large swaths of the 79,000,000 Boomer generation.  By sheer numbers, and in an economy that threatens long-term scarcity, these Boomers stand to be the next big losers in our increasingly utilitarian morality.

As any student of genocide can predict, once the innate and inviolable value of any group of human beings is rendered less than the value of others, then extermination (once all utility has been garnered from the group) is the natural inclination of human beings.  And as long as we continue in the state of denial, then any group can become a target.

 

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/01/roe_is_only_the_beginning.html

If the womb is sacrosanct property of the mother, then abortion really is akin to slavery

It seems to go unnoticed that a great many others are also completely dependent upon other human beings to continue living, all infants and young children, severely handicapped persons, many infirm elderly, etc. 

Thinking of individual persons as property is certainly not new, not by any means.  Yet even modern atheists recoil at the notion of slavery, as a barbaric practice among less-enlightened people.  However, as Alveda King, niece of MLK passionately explains, abortion is quite akin to slavery:

Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother.  In the hands of the mother is the fate of that child - whether that child lives or dies.

As the slave was legally considered the property of the slave-owner, giving legal authority over the life or death of the slave, so does the Roe decision grant this right to the owner of the womb, in which an equal-in-all-manner, merely smaller, human being resides.  The very Latin word, fetus, translates simply to "little person." 

 

In the end, atheists fall back on the woman's womb as sacrosanct property of the mother, not to be interfered with by the state.  It's a hard argument to refute.  Abolitionists faced the same resistance from slave owners, who regarded their plantations as private property, absolutely sacrosanct in the eyes of American jurisprudence.  This argument, too, proved difficult to refute and required a Civil War to finally decide.

 

 

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/01/roe_is_only_the_beginning.html

 

 

Don't miss the stages of genocide.  Scroll down.

Zayed - Interesting Guy - Founder of the United Arab Emirates

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zayed_bin_Sultan_Al_Nahyan

 

 

 

The complexity of a cell

 

http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/things-that-arent-science/

The Murders Committed by T. Cullen Davis are still staggering, even after all these years

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/not_guilty/t_cullen_dav
is/index.html

Obama's stimulus plan

 

"We expressed our concerns about some of the spending that's being proposed in the House bill," House Minority Leader John Boehner said after meeting with Obama.

"How can you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives?" Boehner asked. "How does that stimulate the economy?"

Great point about the questions asked by liberals and the mainstream media (but I repeat myself)

It is a liberal trope to insult conservatives by asking them meaningless questions, such as the one repeatedly asked of Bush throughout his presidency about whether he had made any mistakes. All humans make mistakes -- what is the point of that question other than to give insult?

When will the first reporter ask President Obama to admit that he has made mistakes? Try: Never.

No, that question will disappear for the next four years. It will be replaced by the new question for conservatives on every liberal's lips these days: Do you want Obama to succeed as president?

Answer: Of course we do. We live here, too.

But merely to ask the question is to imply that the 60 million Americans who did not vote for Obama are being unpatriotic if they do not wholeheartedly endorse his liberal agenda.

 

http://www.anncoulter.org/

A nice tribute to President Bush - I miss him already

By KARL ROVE

Its call sign has always been Air Force One. But on Tuesday, it was Special Air Mission 28000, as former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura returned home to Texas on a plane full of family, friends, former staff and memories of eight years in the White House.

The former president and his wife thanked each passenger, showing the thoughtfulness and grace so characteristic of this wonderful American family.

A video tribute produced warm laughter and inevitable tears. There was no bitterness, but rather a sense of gratitude -- gratitude for the opportunity to serve, for able and loyal colleagues, and above all for our country and its people.

Yet, as Mr. Bush left Washington, in a last angry frenzy his critics again distorted his record, maligned his character and repeated untruths about his years in the Oval Office. Nothing they wrote or said changes the essential facts.

To start with, Mr. Bush was right about Iraq. The world is safer without Saddam Hussein in power. And the former president was right to change strategy and surge more U.S. troops.

A legion of critics (including President Barack Obama) claimed it couldn't work. They were wrong. Iraq is now on the mend, the war is on the path to victory, al Qaeda has been dealt a humiliating defeat, and a democracy in the heart of the Arab world is emerging. The success of Mr. Bush's surge made it possible for President Obama to warn terrorists on Tuesday "you cannot outlast us."

Mr. Bush was right to establish a doctrine that holds those who harbor, train and support terrorists as responsible as the terrorists themselves. He was right to take the war on terror abroad instead of waiting until dangers fully materialize here at home. He was right to strengthen the military and intelligence and to create the new tools to monitor the communications of terrorists, freeze their assets, foil their plots, and kill and capture their operators.

These tough decisions -- which became unpopular in certain quarters only when memories of 9/11 began to fade -- kept America safe for seven years and made it possible for Mr. Obama to tell the terrorists on Tuesday "we will defeat you."

Mr. Bush was right to be a unilateralist when it came to combating AIDS in Africa. While world leaders dithered, his President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief initiative brought lifesaving antiretroviral drugs to millions of Africans.

At home, Mr. Bush cut income taxes for every American who pays taxes. He also cut taxes on capital, investment and savings. The result was 52 months of growth and the strongest economy of any developed country.

He was right to have modernized Medicare with prescription drug benefits provided through competition, not delivered by government. The program is costing 40% less than projected because market forces dominate and people -- not government -- are making the decisions.

Mr. Bush was right to pass No Child Left Behind (NCLB), requiring states to set up tough accountability systems that measure every child's progress at school. As a result, reading and math scores have risen more in the last five years since NCLB than in the prior 28 years.

He was right to stand for a culture of life. And he was right to appoint conservative judges who strictly interpret the Constitution.

And Mr. Bush, a man of core decency and integrity, was right not to reply in kind when Democratic leaders called him a liar and a loser. The price of trying to change the tone in Washington was to be often pummeled by lesser men.

Few presidents had as many challenges arise during their eight years, had as many tough calls to make in such a partisan-charged environment, or had to act in the face of such hostile media and elite opinion.

On board Special Air Mission 28000, I remembered the picture I carried in my pocket on my first Air Force One flight eight years ago. It was an old black-and-white snapshot with scalloped edges. It showed Lyndon Johnson in the Cabinet Room, head in hand, weeping over a Vietnam casualty report. George Christian, LBJ's press secretary, gave it to me as a reminder that the job could break anyone, no matter how big and tough.

But despite facing challenges and crises few others have, the job did not break George W. Bush. Though older and grayer, his brows more furrowed, he is the same man he was, a person of integrity who did what he believed was right. And he exits knowing he summoned all of his energy and talents to defend America and advance its ideals at home and abroad. He didn't get everything right -- no president does -- but he got the most important things right. And that is enough.

Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.

 

How Will Young People View Abortion?

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Blog/Default.aspx?id=395874

Issues with Big Bang and First Living Self-Reproducing Cell

http://www.awakengeneration.com/thoughts/befueled/151

First, naturalistic evolution claims that in the beginning there was nothing, just a vast, empty void of darkness.  And then suddenly, miraculously (oops… there’s that tricky faith), there was a huge explosion, which evolutionists call the “big bang”.  Out of this “big bang”, where nothingness exploded, sprang all of the elements, all of the matter, all of the physical stuff that would eventually lead to the entire cosmos and even to life on Earth. 

Now, this idea of the “big bang” raises some legitimate questions:  How does nothing explode?  How does nothing produce all of the elements and physical material in the universe?  How does nothing lead to something, anything, let alone the immense complexity that we see displayed in our universe?  The naturalistic evolutionists have no answers for these questions.  They simply assume, by faith, that somehow the “big bang” took place.

A second example of the faith of naturalistic evolutionists is found in regards to the origin of life on Earth.  The theory of naturalistic evolution states that sometime around 4 billion years ago there was a primordial, inorganic soup of nauseous chemicals bubbling away here on planet Earth.  While this primordial stew was simmering, suddenly these non-living chemicals combined to miraculously (oops… faith again) form the first living single cell.  This original living single cell eventually multiplied, grew fins, crawled out of the sea, swung through the trees, started walking upright, and is now reading this article. 

However, once again, this claim that non-living matter spontaneously generated life raises some serious questions:  How does non-living matter ever turn into living matter?  How do inorganic chemicals turn into life?  Didn’t Louis Pasteur and others disprove the notion of spontaneous generation roughly 150 years ago?  The naturalistic evolutionists have no answers for these questions.  They simply assume, by faith, that somehow, contrary to all known laws of science that spontaneous generation occurred to create the first living single cell. 

A third example of the faith of naturalistic evolutionists is found in regards to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, also known as the problem of Entropy.  The theory of naturalistic evolution declares that life has progressively evolved to greater and greater levels of organization and complexity.  However, the problem with this idea is that it runs totally contrary to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, a proven law of science, which says that all things run down from a state of organization and complexity to states of disorganization and chaos.

Here again, the naturalistic evolutionist must face some important questions:  How can evolution defy this basic law of science?  Why is it that evolution is the one exception to the rule of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics?  Where else have we ever seen any proof of natural processes defying the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics?  The naturalistic evolutionists have no satisfactory answers for these questions.  They simply assume, by faith, that somehow evolution was able to overcome the problem of Entropy and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. 

Homosexual Portland Mayor Under Pressure to Resign Over Sex With Boy

http://www.onenewsnow.com/vidPlayer.aspx?videoId=10551

Obama doesn't want to pit Red America versus Blue America. He just wants Blue America to win.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=395872

Chris Rock on Hair

Making a documentary film about hair was an unusual choice for Chris Rock, the performer best known for his stand-up comedy, hit television series "Everybody Hates Chris" and big-screen acting roles in films such as "Lethal Weapon 4."

"A hair documentary, especially for a guy, is a hard sell -- no, it's a weird sell," says the 43-year-old comedian, who both produced and wrote "Good Hair." The low-budget documentary traces the growth of the $9 billion industry rooted in the maintenance of African-American hair and its place in ethnic community and culture.

"With no disrespect to my agents or managers, every time I brought up the idea of a hair documentary, someone changed the conversation," says Mr. Rock, who came up with the idea for "Hair" more than a decade ago. "They'd say, 'That's nice, but what about this cop movie instead?' "

But for two years Mr. Rock pursued the project with the team behind his critically acclaimed HBO series "The Chris Rock Show." (HBO owns "Good Hair," but is open to selling the theatrical rights.) Inspired by what he calls his young daughter's "hair envy," or uneasiness with her naturally curly hair, Mr. Rock set out to investigate the nexus of power and politics related to how African-Americans style their hair. Traveling to beauty salons and barbershops across the country, from Harlem to Dallas to Beverly Hills, he interviewed ordinary people about how the choices they make about what's on their heads affects their lives. He documented an intense hair competition between top stylists at the Bronner Bros. Hair Show and Battle and queried black celebrities such as actress Nia Long, the Rev. Al Sharpton and poet Maya Angelou about the political implications of their own hair habits.

Mr. Rock spoke with The Wall Street Journal from Park City, Utah, where he was premiering the film at the Sundance Film Festival this week.

WSJ: The documentary includes so many different aspects of the black hair industry, from Hindu temples in India where hair is collected and exported to the U.S., to hair salons that specialize in relaxing hair, to the Bronner Bros. Hair Show. How did you decide what to include?

Mr. Rock: Doing a documentary is kind of like being a cop -- you don't know where it is going, and you just keep digging deeper. I had no idea I would be going to India for the film when we started. And Mr. Dudley -- the guy who owns one of the few African-American-owned hair-product companies -- I met him at an Obama campaign function. I was wondering who these old dudes were, and I thought they must be rich, and the next thing you know, we got the idea of going to the Dudley [headquarters] in North Carolina, where they make the hair relaxer.

The film stays relatively neutral on whether people should alter their hair, relax it, or not. But it explores the political implications of relaxing one's hair. Do you have an opinion one way or another?

When I initially got the idea about doing a hair movie, I was a younger guy and I was dating and I was a little judgmental about weaves and all that. I was more of a Public Enemy and "Fight the Power" kind of guy -- all about natural hair and all that. I'm older now, and a lot less judgmental.

Do you relax your hair?

When I was younger, I had a Jheri curl, I had relaxer. I was about 14 when I got my first Jheri curl -- it was wet and disgusting. It stains the collar of your shirts. And I definitely went through a phase when I was trying to look like the Jacksons. But then, after I did "Lethal Weapon" and got my first million bucks, I thought, "I am never putting another chemical in my hair again." I don't really know what that means about me, but I just thought, "I am not burning my scalp again. I'm done."

That reminds me of a scene in Malcolm X's autobiography, where he describes in detail the process of relaxing his hair.

Yeah, I love that scene in Spike Lee's "Malcom X," when Denzel [Washington] is getting his hair relaxed. We thought about putting it in the film -- but we didn't have money to buy the clip. Or there's "Coming to America," with Eddie Murphy, when the family is going to get a Jheri curl. But this was a low-budget movie, and despite the trip to India, we only spent about $1 million on it.

The film really focuses on black women's hair. Did you intend it for a mostly female audience?

Not at all. Women really love the film, and I can't imagine men volunteering to go see it, but maybe they will. I make art for every audience. I'm a black guy, so whatever I do is black, but I think that if what you do is good enough, it appeals to everybody. I mean, Chinese food -- it's Chinese, it doesn't include French fries -- but it appeals to everyone, it's the most popular food in America. I think art can be the same way.

You interview a lot of women for the film about their hair, mostly hairdressers, actresses or performers. Why did you decide to interview Al Sharpton?

Al Sharpton was perfect for the film because of his hair. I didn't choose him because he was Al Sharpton or an activist or anything, I chose him because he's got this hair! I mean, the guy obviously puts a relaxer in his hair, so you knew he would have a perspective on this.

Speaking of public figures and their hair, what do you think of Michelle Obama's hair? Does she relax it?

Please, I'm not playing hair police. I think it's beautiful, but I'm not going to speculate. Michelle Obama is not getting a hair critique from me. I can just see the press conference now -- it would be a disaster. There's no way I am ruining my invite to the White House.

Cool story about a German soccer team making the big time

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123266995130108219.html?mod=todays_us_weekend_journal

Soccer for Rational People

How tiny Hoffenheim engineered its conquest of Germany's top league

In international soccer this year, the story to beat all stories is the overnight success of TSG 1899 Hoffenheim. This once-obscure soccer club from a tiny village in southwest Germany is in first place in that country's premier professional league, the Bundesliga. The team has scored more goals than any other and shot down famed clubs from Hamburg, Hanover and Munich. Its style of play, which draws on the speed and energy of a group of players whose average age is 23, can leave its opponents befuddled.

"I don't know what these guys ate," said Joris Mathijsen, a defender for HSV Hamburg, whose team fell behind Hoffenheim 3-0 after just 36 minutes during a match in October and never recovered. "They were so much better than us."

The story has been widely hailed as the stuff of miracles: a group of nobodies from a town with one stoplight taking on soccer's established powers. But Hoffenheim's success is almost solely the result of the unusual devotion of one benefactor -- Dietmar Hopp, the 68-year old billionaire who co-founded and built SAP AG into a global technology powerhouse.

Mr. Hopp, who is Hoffenheim's principal backer, has spent €150 million ($195 million) on the team in the past 18 years, including building them a futuristic €60 million stadium that seats 30,000. But for all the money he's spent, Mr. Hopp has also shown two qualities rare among billionaires with sports teams: patience and a genuine connection to the team. Mr. Hopp not only grew up in Hoffenheim, he played striker for the team himself as a teenager. "I could never play for them now," he says. "They're too good."

In 1990, Mr. Hopp started to support the team by buying soccer balls. At the outset, his aims were modest: to give kids in the sleepy town something to do. He built a youth training facility and a 5,000-seat stadium in the hills above the village. As the team began to improve, Mr. Hopp continued to treat it like a startup venture. While other soccer moguls aimed their funds at signing star players, he took a more conservative approach. In the last 18 years, 80% of his investments have gone to infrastructure.

In Europe, soccer leagues are organized into multiple divisions. Teams are promoted each year to higher tiers if they play well, or relegated to lower ones if they don't. Hoffenheim slowly advanced from the fifth division in 2000 all the way to the second in 2006. Only then did Mr. Hopp make the final move to complete the journey. He contacted one of Germany's best soccer tacticians, Ralf Rangnick, about becoming coach.

Nicknamed "the Professor" for the diagrams he used to sketch during his time as a TV commentator, Mr. Rangnick had coached top-level teams. He'd recently been fired from FC Schalke 04 after the team's management grew frustrated by his purist style and disregard for traditional hierarchies. "At a big club, you have a lot of money and specialists for everything," he says. "But when things start to go wrong on the field, you realize you are actually kind of powerless."

Mr. Ragnick and Mr. Hopp realized they had much in common. the coach believed in nurturing young players, which fit the philosophy of Mr. Hopp, who was known as "Papa Hopp" at SAP for the way he took care of his software engineers. "I convinced him that I would provide him with every conceivable freedom to create a soccer model that would never be possible in the mature structures of existing clubs," said Mr. Hopp. "That excited him."

Mr. Rangnick wanted Hoffenheim to play a flowing and attacking style with players taking only one or two touches as they drive the ball up the field. On defense, he was a disciple of "pressing," a technique pioneered in Dutch soccer in the 1960s. He ordered his scouts to fan out across the world looking for fast and powerful players aged 16 to 22. To force them to attack quickly, he put them through a drill where players play nine on nine in a long, narrow corridor on one side of the field. "The first few sessions, it was absolute chaos," Mr. Rangnick says.

Nonetheless, the team made it to the Bundesliga in 2008 and won 11 games in the first half of the season. it enters its next game on January 31 in first place.

Write to Leila Abboud at leila.abboud@wsj.com and Max Colchester at max.colchester@wsj.com

Great quote

 

"The question is not whether the Church could survive persecution in the US but whether the US could survive persecuting the Church."

--Fr. Michael Sweeney

Among Voters' Concerns, Global Warming is Dead Last

http://people-press.org/report/485/economy-top-policy-priority

I note that abortion is not even on the list.

Anniversary of Roe v. Wade is a Day of Pennance

I'll have to remember that for next year.  Glad to see the Church getting serious about this holocaust, finally. 

 

http://amywelborn.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/day-of-penance/

Obama pressuring Israel to open borders with Gaza

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7cf745dc-e8ce-11dd-a4d0-0000779fd2ac.html

These are the same borders that were closed because suicide bombers, truck
bombers, etc. kept using them to attack and kill Israeli citizens. But now,
somehow, Israel is at least partially at fault and needs to stop being so
mean and open up the borders.

Obama not keen on tough questions - stares reporter in the eye

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/17831.html

President Obama made a surprise visit to the White House press corps
Thursday night, but got agitated when he was faced with a substantive
question.

Asked how he could reconcile a strict ban on lobbyists in his administration
with a Deputy Defense Secretary nominee who lobbied for Raytheon, Obama
interrupted with a knowing smile on his face.

"Ahh, see," he said, "I came down here to visit. See this is what happens. I
can't end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I'm going to get
grilled every time I come down here."

Pressed further by the Politico reporter about his Pentagon nominee, William
J. Lynn III, Obama turned more serious, putting his hand on the reporter's
shoulder and staring him in the eye.

"Alright, come on" he said, with obvious irritation in his voice. "We will
be having a press conference at which time you can feel free to [ask]
questions. Right now, I just wanted to say hello and introduce myself to you
guys - that's all I was trying to do."

The president was quickly saved by a cameraman in the room who called
out: "I'd like to say it one more time: 'Mr. President.' "

Hundreds of Thousands turn out for March For Life - Media doesn't cover it

http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/01/23/top_stories/doc497975d96bac9331623411.txt

New Movie About Abortion

 

http://www.creativeminorityreport.com/2009/01/new-movie-about-abortion.html

An Excellent (if slightly long) post about the Inauguration

The University of Virginia is giving its students the day off to watch the inauguration.  It has been noted that they didn’t do this when Bush was elected, and, one suspects, they wouldn’t be doing it if the black president elect was named Alan Keyes, Clarence Thomas, or Michael Steele (who are all conservatives and, therefore, don’t really count as minorities somehow).

 

...

What good is the dream if there is nobody to pass it to?

...

Anyone who enthusiastically embraces the genocide of his own people for political gain is not fit to lead anything, much less a country.

 

 

http://politicalhousewyf.wordpress.com/2009/01/20/the-night-before-the-inauguration/

Weird that this wasn't widely reported

The Dalai Lama loves Bush.

 

http://www.creativeminorityreport.com/2009/01/dalai-lama-i-bush.html  

 

Updated Monopoly cards to represent the new economy

(Scroll down for the new cards):
http://freenj.blogspot.com/2009/01/keynesian-monopoly.html

Is This Change? (Hilarious)

 

http://www.creativeminorityreport.com/2009/01/is-this-what-you-call-change.html

Why I'm homeschooling...

Even Catholic schools can't help themselves.  Gag.

 

http://www.creativeminorityreport.com/2009/01/applauding-obama.html

The fruits of the culture of death

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,474454,00.html#

Mother Teresa on Abortion

          “Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.

Many people are very, very concerned with the children of India, with the children of Africa where quite a few die of hunger, and so on. Many people are also concerned about all the violence in this great country of the United States. These concerns are very good. But often these same people are not concerned with the millions who are being killed by the deliberate decision of their own mothers. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today - abortion which brings people to such blindness.”

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

National Prayer Breakfast, Washington D.C.

February 3, 1994

The best thing I've read about the inauguration

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/gerald_warner/blog/2009/01/20/barack_obama_inauguration_this_emperor_has_no_clothes_it_will_all_end_in_tears

Obama Inauguration to Top $150 Million - Bush's reported as "excessive" at $42 million in '05

http://thecapitalist.newsvine.com/_news/2009/01/14/2313096-obama-inauguration-to-top-150-million-bushs-reported-as-excessive-at-42-million-in-05?commentId=4826738

Economic Stimulus Payment Q&A - Droll

 

Economic Stimulus Payment

This year, taxpayers will receive an Economic Stimulus Payment. This is
a very exciting new program that I will explain using the Q and A format:

Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

Q. Where will the government get this money?
A. From taxpayers.

Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
A. Only a smidgen.

Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set or a new computer, thus stimulating the economy.

Q. But isn't that stimulating the economy of China?
A. Shut up.

 

 

 

 

 

A good point about Bush

But gaming history is more difficult than, say, putting a few newspaper columnists on the government payroll. A president aiming for "Great" or "Near Great" status must do more. He must give lots of interviews, make records accessible, and heap the flattery on academia -- each of which Mr. Bush has signally failed to do.

I can enroll my kids in S Chip for free health insurance - Uh Oh

I'm not even poor.  Why is the government giving my kids free health care?  I guess we are officially socialist now.

 

------------------------------- 

 

 The House made its first down payment on President Obama's health-care plans last week, passing 289-139 a major expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The Senate is scheduled to take it up soon and pass it easily as well. These days tens of billions in new spending is a mere pittance, but Schip is also the Democratic model for a quantum jump in government health care down the line.

The bill became a liberal Pequot after President Bush repeatedly vetoed it in 2007 (while supporting a modest expansion). The GOP has no hope of stopping it now, so Schip will more than double in size with $73.3 billion in new spending over the next decade -- not counting a budget gimmick that hides the true cost. The program is supposed to help children from working-poor families who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but since it was created in 1997 Democrats have used it as a ratchet to grow the federal taxpayer share of health-care coverage.

With the new bill, Schip will be open to everyone up to 300% of the federal poverty level, or $63,081 for a family of four. In other words, a program supposedly targeted at low-income families has an eligibility ceiling higher than the U.S. median household income, which according to the Census Bureau is $50,233. Even the 300% figure isn't really a ceiling, given that states can get a government waiver to go even higher. Tom Daschle's folks at Health and Human Services will barely read the state paperwork before rubberstamping these expansions.

 

 

The Raving Theist

I was just about to vomit on my keyboard from all the fawning Christian and Catholic coverage of the inauguration. (Hey, Christians.  Remember.  This guy is all for tearing babies limb from limb.  Remember?)  And then I read this:

http://ravingatheist.com/2009/01/happy-inauguration-day/
http://ravingatheist.com/2009/01/a-prayer-for-justice/

So Much for "Governing From the Middle"

 

Obama now owns the www.whitehouse.gov website, and he has put up his agenda.  And guess what?  It's really liberal.  Lots of gay rights activism, and strongly pro-abortion.

 

I'm amazed that he was allowed to run as a moderate.  Shame on the media for not pressing him on these issues.  I watched every one of the Presidential debates, and I did not see one question on gay marriage.  There was only one question (towards the end of the last debate) on abortion.  My feeling is that the American people are about to get something they didn't really expect.

 

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=392648

 

What a sweet post

http://thoughtsfromtheothersideofthemountain.blogspot.com/2009/01/meet-our-miriam.html

Audio of Obama Arguning Against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypDwNpgIUQc

Video of Bush being booed at today's inauguration

http://www.wjno.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=244038&art
icle=4878923

You can hear Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews saying "bad form" and "this
was not what we expected."

Really? They thought the rabid Bush haters had enough class to keep their
opinions to themselves on an august occasion? Why would they have thought
that? There's certainly precious little prior evidence of any such
self-restraint on their part. You stay classy, liberals!

Students warned not to make "Inappropriate Comments" about Obama's inauguration

http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2009/01/15/pjm011509inaugletter.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=16

Will the O's Be Missing from White House Keyboards?

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Blog/Default.aspx?id=390264

This is rather frightening - What is Obama doing with this "Organizing for America" group?

 

As President, Obama already runs an organization.  It's called the government of the United States.  And he is already de facto head of the Democratic Party.  He is bypassing those organizations and building a third organization that is directly loyal to him personally.  The expressed goal of this new organization is to "build grass roots support" for his "agenda for change."  In other words, this organization is being formed for the specific purpose of exerting political pressure throughout the country, on all levels of government, to carry out the goals of Mr. Obama.  I don't want to be a crazy conspiracy theorist or anything, but that's kind of odd.  http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2009/01/obama_announces_organizing_for.html?hpid=topnews

Chapel veils and Yarmulkes

Veils have been around for 2000 years.  What happened? 

 

And does anyone know whether men in the early Church wore yarmulkes?  The Pope and Bishops wear them, so I'm guessing there is some old tradition of wearing them to show obedience and humility before God.  How did that get dropped?

http://totustuusfamily.blogspot.com/2009/01/chapel-veil-signal.html

The pro-evolution text book that Clarence Darrow defended in the Scopes Monkey Trial was also pro-racism

 

Summer for the Gods By Edward J. Larson Basic Books, 1997 This book about the Scopes trial is an excellent counterweight to the distortion -- made famous by the play and movie "Inherit the Wind" -- that the case was a simple clash between good and evil. The reality was more complex. Yes, schoolteacher John Scopes was prosecuted in the 1920s by the state of Tennessee for teaching evolution, but the textbook he used was filled with racist pseudo-science. "Civic Biology" assured white, segregated high-school students that, among the "five races" of man, "the highest type of all, the Caucasians, [are] represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America." The book also proposed involuntary sterilizations of the "unfit." No surprise, then, that William Jennings Bryan, an egalitarian, would be outraged at this attack on the morality and religion that had formed the basis of his political career. Nor was Bryan the know-nothing Biblical literalist of "Inherit the Wind." For the most part, he got the better of Clarence Darrow in the arguments over the Bible, though not in the argument over banning evolution.

Great quote from Merton

If we know how great is the love of Jesus for us we will never be afraid to go to Him in all our poverty, all our weakness, all our spiritual wretchedness and infirmity. Indeed, when we understand the true nature of His love for us, we will prefer to come to Him poor and helpless. We will never be ashamed of our distress. Distress is to our advantage whe we have nothing to seek but mercy. We can be glad of our helplessness when we really believe that His power is made perfect in our infirmity.

- Thomas Merton

Former Chiefs of Staff Get Together, Talk Shop

A few weeks ago, outgoing White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten gathered nearly a dozen former chiefs of staff around the table in his corner West Wing office and held a little courtesy orientation session for Rahm Emanuel, the next man to assume the second hardest job in Washington.

The idea was for each previous chief to give the Emanuel some practical advice about how to function as chief of staff. And so around the table they went: Don Rumsfeld reminded Emanuel that no one is indispensable. Sam Skinner talked about the importance of taking Sundays off. Former Reagan chief Ken Duberstein urged Obama's incoming chief to remember that the President was always the chief and everyone else, by contrast, merely staff.

Then it came time for Dick Cheney, who like Rumsfeld had served more than three decades ago as Gerald Ford's chief of staff, to offer his thoughts. Sitting at the end of the table, the 67-year old Wyoming native looked around at the august group and said in his usually dry style, "Above all else, control of your Vice President." (See America's worst vice presidents.)

Cheney played the line for laughs — and the room understandably collapsed in howls when he delivered it.

Pepsi, the Liberal Soda

Dear Pepsi Marketing,

Why would you intentionally alienate a large chunk of American consumers?  I'm lost here.

 

-----------------------------

Pepsi is running a new advertising campaign that keys into the upcoming inauguration – one that features a re-designed corporate logo that mimics the distinctive Obama ''O'' campaign logo, and refers to the president-elect as ''the man who is about to refresh our nation.'' (Snip) The corporate giant is running ads in multiple cities and locations, including in New York City’s Times Square and in Washington, D.C

Diversity causes soldiers to desert

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123181066383175917.html?mod=todays_us_opinion

Why Soldiers Fight -- or Flee

The greatest predictor of desertion in the Unino army was socioeconomic and demographic diversity.

In 1861 my ancestor Richard Courtwright heeded Abraham Lincoln's call for troops and joined the 32nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He and his comrades slept on frozen ground in winter and marched through man-high horse weeds in summer. The mosquitoes, wrote his company historian, "took sides with the Confederates."

Dora Costa and Matthew Kahn, husband-and-wife economics professors, want to know why men like Richard Courtwright stuck it out while 200,000 others, roughly 10% of the Union army, chose to desert. To answer this question they analyzed 41,000 digitized life histories of Union troops (35,000 white and 6,000 black) collected under the leadership of the economic historian Robert Fogel. Southern armies had their share of deserters, particularly late in the war, but no comparable Confederate records are available.

The main finding of "Heroes and Cowards" is that companies composed of volunteers of similar age and occupation who were born in the same areas were the least likely to suffer desertion. (I checked and, sure enough, most of the volunteers in Richard Courtwright's company were farm boys from the same Ohio county.) Factors like age, marital status, pro-Lincoln support back home and whether the army was on a winning streak also made a measurable difference, but the most important predictor of desertion was socioeconomic and demographic diversity. Ms. Costa and Mr. Kahn approvingly quote Ardant du Picq, a 19th- century French colonel and military theorist. "Four brave men who do not know each other will not dare to attack a lion. Four less brave, but knowing each other well, sure of their reliability and consequently of mutual aid, will attack resolutely."

Planned Parenthood hit by Madoff scandal - has to cut staff

At least one good thing came out of that fiasco.

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090109/FREE/901099982/0/information

Gay Episcopal Bishop to say prayer for inauguration - Obama to appease gay activists

http://mommylife.net/archives/2009/01/obama_bends_to.html

 

 

Release Gitmo detainees go right back to working to kill Americans

So, when we close Gitmo, to where do we send them?

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE50C5JX20090113?feedType=RSS&fe
edName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true

Clinton in conflict of interest

If she were a lawyer on a case, she'd have to withdraw. Should she quit as
Secy of State? Looks like a grey area. Not a good way to start your new
job. Just another unfortunate instance of Bill's activities making her life
uncomfortable.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090113/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/clinton_letters___doll
ars

These people practice tough love

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D95LPKCO2&show_article=1

If you get a job at a hospital - could you be forced to dismember babies?

Depends on the hospital

 

http://onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=378002

 

Force abortions - in America

http://onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=378732

Fr. Neuhaus, who recently died, on death

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=1282

Credit card charges 46% interest - highway robbers blush

British Airways credit card is UK's most expensive - after   hiking interest charge to 46%

Jet set prices: American Express's British Airways Premium Plus card's charges were branded ‘ridiculous'

American Expess has increased the cost of borrowing on one of its credit cards to 46 per cent — more than 30 times the Bank of England base rate.

The company now charges 46 per cent APR on the British Airways Premium Plus card, making it Britain’s most expensive credit card.

Consumer groups said the cost of borrowing on some credit cards had now lost all touch with the base rate.

A series of other cards also have APR over 35 per cent — despite interest rates now being at the lowest level since the Bank of England was set up in 1694.

Other cards include Virgin Money American Express at 37 per cent and Citi MasterCard at 41 per cent.

Consumer group Which!’s credit card expert Martyn Saville said the Amex rate was ‘ridiculous’.

He said: ‘This is over 30 times base rate.

'Credit card interest rates now bear no resemblance to Bank rates — it is just about what companies think they can get away with.

Ok, Let Me Get This Straight

Parents should be consulted before anyone performs a strip search on their
daughters, but it's ok for those same parents' grandchild to be dismembered
in their same daughter's womb without notification?

Our society makes no sense to me.

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/teens.strip.searched.2.903141.html

The parents were even more angered by the fact that they were never called,
never notified and never gave permission for the strip search to take place.

"These are minor children and you don't strip search minor children without
first talking to the parents, getting consent, and letting the parents
decide if they're going to allow that strip search to happen,"
Attorney Jim Finnerty said.

Sneaky Cat

http://tinyurl.com/825met

Blessed John Henry Newman quote

Heaven, at present is out of sight, but in due time, as snow melts and discovers what it lay upon, so will this visible creation fade away before those greater splendors which are behind it.

Bl. John Henry Newman, 19th century

Sarah Palin rocks - finally speaks out about campaign

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jziegler/2009/01/07/my-interview-with-sarah-palin/#comment-10793

Booming noise from far corners of galaxy - source unknown

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090107-aas-loud-cosmic-noise.html

I didn't realize Lauer was such a tool

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikTcXy0wAxw

Thinking about taking your kids to see Shakespeare?

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=377060

The Chicago Shakespeare Theater's production of Macbeth left one audience member outraged over some surprising content.

 

Laurie Higgins, the director of the division of school advocacy at the Illinois Family Institute (IFI), is a fan of Shakespeare and the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. But while attending a recent production of Macbeth, she was shocked when the actress portraying Lady Macbeth performed scenes topless.
 
Higgins says she was not warned of the partial nudity when purchasing tickets. "We purchased our tickets for this in August. Subscribers could have purchased them a year ago, and they [didn't] even know that there's going to be this kind of content," she points out. "I asked that question the evening we went, and they said they [didn't] even know that there was going to be this kind of content until about a month before opening night."
 
The play also included simulated sex scenes -- with one of the actors fondling Lady Macbeth's bare breasts -- and one scene was set in a strip bar with scantily clad actresses in leather thongs. In addition, the theater features special performances of Macbeth for students.

 

Massachusetts pro-gay funding for education initiatives in public schools

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Education/Default.aspx?id=376924

 

Brian Camenker of MassResistance says more than 1,000 state jobs as well as public school funding have been cut, while mental health facilities have also been closed. However, pro-homosexual programs in Massachusetts' public schools have remained.
 
According to Camenker, the governor and the legislature are "very tight" with the homosexual lobby. "Very publicly, I might add, as anyone I've ever seen. The governor marches in the gay pride parades," he points out. "Anything they want, they get."
 
A large sum of money -- $850,000 -- that is allotted for these pro-homosexual school programs is being questioned. "And that has been untouchable," Camenker contends. "I have spoken with [the] Senate president's office; I've spoken with the governor's office. I've spoken with the governor's budget office -- and you know, they all support it, and that's that."

 

 

Write a Letter to Cover Yourself - Annoying Tendency of Senators and Congressmen

I think Dems and Republicans both do this sort of thing.  Highly annoying. 

--------------------------------------

Your editorial "What Congress Knew About 'Torture,' " (Jan. 6) does a service in showing the hypocrisy of the Democrats in Congress when it comes to issues of national importance. The trend now is for Democrats to actively partcipate in policy making and then write a letter for cover in case the policy should backfire. Sen. Barack Obama famously trotted out such a letter during the campaign so he could state that he had "warned" the Bush administration about the dangers of subprime mortgages and the possibility that the market might implode under its own weight -- all while he was taking copious campaign donations from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and resisting real efforts (some by his opponent, John McCain) to provide stricter lending requirements and greater regulation over Fannie and Freddie. In Congress, it's what you say, not what you do, that matters most. Which is precisely the problem for George W. Bush -- a man who said little but did much to protect our nation from our enemies.

Kenneth Davenport
Fort Collins, Colo.

Federal judge orders Sheriff arrested

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D95IKNO80&show_article=1

How to Intubate Yourself

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2009/01/how-to-intubate-yourself.html

A nice little thought about detachment

http://www.historicalchristian.com/my_weblog/2009/01/why-does-god-choose-the-little-ones-of-this-world-to-do-his-work.html

The Press Are Proselytizers for Teen Sex

The Press Take On Teenage Sex

Yes, attitudes do make a difference in behavior

By WILLIAM MCGURN

The chain reaction was something out of central casting. A medical journal starts it off by announcing a study comparing teens who take a pledge of virginity until marriage with those who don't. Lo and behold, when they crunch the numbers, they find not much difference between pledgers and nonpledgers: most do not make it to the marriage bed as virgins.

Like a pack of randy 15-year-old boys, the press dives right in.

"Virginity Pledges Don't Stop Teen Sex," screams CBS News. "Virginity pledges don't mean much," adds CNN. "Study questions virginity pledges," says the Chicago Tribune. "Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds," heralds the Washington Post. "Virginity Pledges Fail to Trump Teen Lust in Look at Older Data," reports Bloomberg. And on it goes.

In other words, teens will be teens, and moms or dads who believe that concepts such as restraint or morality have any application today are living in a dream world. Typical was the lead for the CBS News story: "Teenagers who take virginity pledges are no less sexually active than other teens, according to a new study."

Here's the rub: It just isn't true.

In fact, the only way the study's author, Janet Elise Rosenbaum of Johns Hopkins University, could reach such results was by comparing teens who take a virginity pledge with a very small subset of other teens: those who are just as religious and conservative as the pledge-takers. The study is called "Patient Teenagers? A Comparison of the Sexual Behavior of Virginity Pledgers and Matched Nonpledgers," and it was published in the Jan. 1 edition of Pediatrics.

The first to notice something lost in the translation was Dr. Bernadine Healy, the former head of both the Red Cross and the National Institutes of Health. Today she serves as health editor for U.S. News & World Report. And in her dispatch on this study, Dr. Healy pointed out that "virginity pledging teens were considerably more conservative in their overall sexual behaviors than teens in general -- a fact that many media reports have missed cold."

What Dr. Healy was getting at is that the pledge itself is not what distinguishes these kids from most other teenagers. The real difference is their more conservative and religious home and social environment. As she notes, when you compare both groups in this study with teens at large, the behavioral differences are striking. Here are just a few:

- These teens generally have less risky sex, i.e., fewer sexual partners.

- These teens are less likely to have a teenage pregnancy, or to have friends who use drugs.

- These teens have less premarital vaginal sex.

- When these teens lose their virginity they tend to do so at age 21 -- compared to 17 for the typical American teen.

- And very much overlooked, one out of four of these teens do in fact keep the pledge to remain chaste -- amid much cheap ridicule and just about zero support outside their homes or churches.

Let's put this another way. The real headline from this study is this: "Religious Teens Differ Little in Sexual Behavior Whether or Not They Take a Pledge."

Now, whatever the shock that might occasion at CBS or the Washington Post, it comes as no surprise to parents. Most parents appreciate that a pledge of virginity -- a one-time event that might be made at an emotional moment in a teen's life -- is not some talisman that will magically shield their sons and daughters from the strong and normal desires that grow as they discover their sexuality. What these parents hope to do is direct these desires in a way that recognizes sex as a great gift, which in the right circumstances fosters genuine intimacy between a man and a woman and at its freest offers the possibility of new life.

This is not the prevailing view, of course. And these parents know it. Far from conformists living in a comfortable world where their beliefs are never challenged, these families live in an environment where most everything that is popular -- television, the movies, the Internet -- encourages children to grow up as quickly as possible while adults remain locked in perpetual adolescence.

T.S. Eliot's poem about the journey of the Magi - written after his baptism

http://gkupsidedown.blogspot.com/2009/01/journey-of-magi.html

Anti-Population means anti-humans. This video makes it pretty clear.

http://www.creativeminorityreport.com/2008/12/miracle-of-life-or-population-bomb.html

Maryland's Big Brother Department of Homeschooling - Wow

Did you know Maryland requires you to get permission to homeschool your children?  They have all kinds of red tape and regulations you must follow.  And they visit your house and test your children to determine if you will be allowed to continue home schooling.  Do we live in Russia?  WTF?

 

http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/divisions/studentschoolsvcs/student_services_alt/home_schooling/docs/homeschool_factsheet.htm

 

And of course there is litigation over silly bureaucratic rules designed to disfavor home schooling and subtly push everyone to use the public schools.

 

http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/md/200507270.asp

 

 

 

Are Student Loans the next Mortgage Meltdown waiting to happen?

I was pleased to see your editorial "'Shovel-Ready' on Campus" (Dec. 18) as I don't believe the cost of college has garnered enough attention. I theorize that, much like the subprime mortgage mess, the availability of easy funding from government and, until recently, private financial institutions, has driven up the price of our educational institutions (tuition) to such an extent that the fundamentals no longer make sense.

With mortgage loans, the suggested guideline is that mortgage payments should not take up more than 30% of a borrower's income or else the borrower is overextended and likely to default.

What about school loans? Shouldn't the amount a borrower takes out to pay for school be correlated to the ability to pay the funds back, more specifically to post-graduation income? I hear of young graduates being forced to move back in with their parents and of professionals forced to seek deferment of their loans because their jobs don't pay them enough to make their school loan payments and meet living expenses. Does it really need to cost $140,000 (four times $35,000 tuition, excluding living expenses) or more to educate someone, especially if he or she is not going to be a doctor? This doesn't seem efficient or sustainable to me.

Alan Scott
Portland, Ore.

How "Catholic" Politicians Lie About And Justify Their Pro-Abortion Policies

Archbishop Egan, are you listening?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How Support for Abortion Became Kennedy Dogma

• By ANNE HENDERSHOTT

For faithful Roman Catholics, the thought of yet another pro-choice Kennedy positioned to campaign for the unlimited right to abortion is discouraging. Yet if Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of Catholics John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, is appointed to fill the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton, abortion-rights advocates will have just such a champion.

Ms. Kennedy was so concerned to assure pro-abortion leaders in New York, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported on Dec. 18, that on the same day Ms. Kennedy telephoned New York Gov. David Patterson to declare interest in the Senate seat, "one of her first calls was to an abortion rights group, indicating she will be strongly pro-choice."

Within the first week of her candidacy, Ms. Kennedy promised to work for several causes, including same-sex marriage and abortion rights. In responding to a series of 15 questions posed by the New York Times on Dec. 21, Ms. Kennedy said that, while she believes "young women facing unwanted pregnancies should have the advice of caring adults," she would oppose legislation that would require minors to notify a parent before obtaining an abortion. On the crucial question of whether she supports any state or federal restrictions on late-term abortions, Ms. Kennedy chose to say only that she "supports Roe v. Wade, which prohibits third trimester abortions except when the life or health of the mother is at risk." Presumably Ms. Kennedy knows that this effectively means an unlimited right to abortion -- including late-stage abortion -- because the "health of the mother" can be so broadly defined that it includes the psychological distress that can accompany an unintended pregnancy.

Ms. Kennedy's commitment to abortion rights is shared by other prominent family members, including Kerry Kennedy Cuomo and Maryland's former Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. Some may recall the 2000 Democratic Convention when Caroline and her uncle, Sen. Ted Kennedy, addressed the convention to reassure all those gathered that the Democratic Party would continue to provide women with the right to choose abortion -- even into the ninth month. At that convention, the party's nominee, Al Gore, formerly a pro-life advocate, pledged his opposition to parental notification and embraced partial-birth abortion. Several of those in attendance, including former President Bill Clinton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, had been pro-life at one time. But by 2000 nearly every delegate in the convention hall was on the pro-choice side -- and those who weren't simply kept quiet about it.

Caroline Kennedy knows that any Kennedy desiring higher office in the Democratic Party must now carry the torch of abortion rights throughout any race. But this was not always the case. Despite Ms. Kennedy's description of Barack Obama, in a New York Times op-ed, as a "man like my father," there is no evidence that JFK was pro-choice like Mr. Obama. Abortion-rights issues were in the fledgling stage at the state level in New York and California in the early 1960s. They were not a national concern.

Even Ted Kennedy, who gets a 100% pro-choice rating from the abortion-rights group Naral, was at one time pro-life. In fact, in 1971, a full year after New York had legalized abortion, the Massachusetts senator was still championing the rights of the unborn. In a letter to a constituent dated Aug. 3, 1971, he wrote: "When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family, and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception."

But that all changed in the early '70s, when Democratic politicians first figured out that the powerful abortion lobby could fill their campaign coffers (and attract new liberal voters). Politicians also began to realize that, despite the Catholic Church's teachings to the contrary, its bishops and priests had ended their public role of responding negatively to those who promoted a pro-choice agenda.

In some cases, church leaders actually started providing "cover" for Catholic pro-choice politicians who wanted to vote in favor of abortion rights. At a meeting at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, Mass., on a hot summer day in 1964, the Kennedy family and its advisers and allies were coached by leading theologians and Catholic college professors on how to accept and promote abortion with a "clear conscience."

The former Jesuit priest Albert Jonsen, emeritus professor of ethics at the University of Washington, recalls the meeting in his book "The Birth of Bioethics" (Oxford, 2003). He writes about how he joined with the Rev. Joseph Fuchs, a Catholic moral theologian; the Rev. Robert Drinan, then dean of Boston College Law School; and three academic theologians, the Revs. Giles Milhaven, Richard McCormick and Charles Curran, to enable the Kennedy family to redefine support for abortion.

Mr. Jonsen writes that the Hyannisport colloquium was influenced by the position of another Jesuit, the Rev. John Courtney Murray, a position that "distinguished between the moral aspects of an issue and the feasibility of enacting legislation about that issue." It was the consensus at the Hyannisport conclave that Catholic politicians "might tolerate legislation that would permit abortion under certain circumstances if political efforts to repress this moral error led to greater perils to social peace and order."

Father Milhaven later recalled the Hyannisport meeting during a 1984 breakfast briefing of Catholics for a Free Choice: "The theologians worked for a day and a half among ourselves at a nearby hotel. In the evening we answered questions from the Kennedys and the Shrivers. Though the theologians disagreed on many a point, they all concurred on certain basics . . . and that was that a Catholic politician could in good conscience vote in favor of abortion."

But can they now? There are signs today that some of the bishops are beginning to confront the Catholic politicians who consistently vote in favor of legislation to support abortion. Charles J. Chaput, the archbishop of Denver, has been on the front lines in encouraging Catholics to live their faith without compromise in the public square. Most recently in his book "Render Unto Caesar," Archbishop Chaput has reminded Catholic politicians of their obligation to protect life.

The archbishop is not alone. The agenda at November's assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops included a public discussion of abortion and politics. The bishops' final statement focused on concern about the possible passage of the "Freedom of Choice Act," and referred to it as "an evil law that would further divide our country." The bishops referenced their 2007 document, "Faithful Citizenship," which maintains that the right to life is the foundation of every other human right. In it, they promised to "persist in the duty to counsel, in the hope that the scandal of their [Catholic congregants'] cooperating in evil can be resolved by the proper formation of their consciences."

Whether the bishops truly will persist remains to be seen. New York's Cardinal Edward Egan, for instance, has not publicly challenged Ms. Kennedy's pro-choice promises. This is unfortunate. Until the clerics begin to counter the pro-choice claims made by high-profile Catholics such as Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and, now, Caroline Kennedy, faithful Catholics will continue to be bewildered by their pastoral silence.

Ms. Hendershott is a professor of urban studies at The King's College in New York. She is the author of "The Politics of Abortion" (Encounter Books, 2007).

A great answer to "where is that in the Bible?"

http://www.historicalchristian.com/my_weblog/2007/08/where-is-that-i.html

Interesting Take on Monetary Policy

I'm not sure I agree with this (esp. the claim that low interest rates don't help lower income groups), but it is interesting. 

 

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From a WSJ Letter to the Editor:

 

Regarding your editorial "Bernanke Goes All In" (Dec. 17): Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke assumes that monetary policy works today as it did in Andrew Jackson's time. In Jackson's day the majority of Americans were farmers who were in debt to finance their crops. Easy money benefited these farmers. Today easy money does not benefit the majority of Americans. Easy money does not lower consumer rates significantly. Easy money actually hurts the consumer by lowering the rates on the savings vehicles available to the unsophisticated. Today easy money benefits the financial class (the "rich"). They have access to the large amounts of cheap money not available to the consumer. Because easy money benefits the financially sophisticated, it has caused, in part, the increasing income disparity in America. Sustainable increases in consumer spending will not be forthcoming until the financial health of the consumer is improved. There are various ways to improve the financial health of the consumer. Raising interest rates is one of them. High interest rates make it less profitable for consumer credit companies to induce consumers to take on debt, while giving the consumer a real rate of return on his savings. The government could improve the marketplace for wage earners by mitigating labor regulations. Corporate taxes could be lowered to increase the demand for labor. Generals usually fight this war's battles with the last war's tactics. Central bankers are like generals. We need new leadership quickly. Paul Merrithew Amherst, N.H.

Paris Syndrome - Japanese Tourists in Paris suffer from this mysterious malady

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6197921.stm

Smoking Ban Reduces Hospitilizations for Heart Disease

http://www.newsmax.com/health/med_smoking_ban_heart/2008/12/31/166760.html

Religion of Senate and House Members

        
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/religion_capitol_hill/2008/12/31/166676.html