Abortion Industry's Hypocrisy

Abortion takes the lives of thousands of unborn babies every day. Advanced science and medicinal studies make it clear that unborn babies are alive and complete early in the pregnancy and that at an early stage they begin to feel pain. Yet abortionists still think they can hide the evidence that abortion stops beating hearts.

Abortion is cruel and I think this clinic's reaction to this ordeal is telling. The abortion doctor is worried about the pain of the women being reminded of killing their unborn baby. What about the pain of a baby sucked out of its mommy's womb?

"If we had not buried these ashes, they would have been thrown away in the trash," she said. "Why would they be upset that we are treating the remains of unborn children with dignity?"
--Susan Lavelle, Sacred Heart of Mary burial volunteer

Pet Peeve #465: Going in Public when you are Sick

I apologize for my absence. Some inconsiderate human-being (you know who you are) shared his/her rhinovirus with me and I have had a horrible cold since Wednesday with a pleasant secondary infection following it. I stayed home during my illness so as not to infect others.

I wish that others would do the same. I'm tired and still fighting this thing, so I'm going to rest now.

To those who have shared their cold or flu with others this year: shame on you.

Use Some Common Sense

I just heard on NPR some numbskull soldier telling the reporter that U.S. convoy vehicles in Iraq do not have armor underneath the vehicle, only on the sides. Such idiocy should be treated as treason. This soldier just broadcasted to the world, probably to many of our enemies, where U.S. soldiers' are most vulnerable.

Why would a reporter want to air such secrets? These people want nothing more than the U.S. troop death rate to rise so they can start screaming, "Told you so! Told you so!"

Stickers Unconstitutional

It gets more ridiculous every day, folks. A Cobb County judge has ruled that disclaimer stickers inside of textbooks are unconstitutional if religious people helped place them there. It doesn't matter what the stickers say, as long as right-wing Christians didn't have anything to do with putting them in the books.

Evolution is just a theory, like it or not. Placing a sticker inside of textbooks is a wise compromise for folks who feel strongly on both sides of the issue. I'm all for giving kids both sides of a position and gently guiding them to the truth.

I'm just absolutely sick of people not knowing what the Constitution really says or just not caring, as is the case with this judge. I mean, it is impossible to become a judge if you haven't read the Constitution, right? Right? The first amendment guarantees free expression of religion and free speech. It says nothing about separation of church and state. The ACLU has way too much power in this country. They may seem high and mighty now, but I'd like to see their 'religion' lose a case in court once in awhile.

Conservative Christians need to wake up and look around. This country is not encouraging your children to grow up to be Christians. The government has control of the public school system, which seems fine until you realize that the ACLU has the government on a leash.

I can't wait to be a home-schooling mom.

Two Men Charged for Using Their First Amendment Rights

This is just absurd. Telling lawyer jokes doesn't hurt anybody. When did people get so sensitive in this country?

Armstrong Williams Apologizes

Armstrong Williams apologizes for a conflict of interest in which his small company accepted advertising money from the U.S. Department of Education's No Child Left Behind Act, an issue Williams has long championed. It was nice to read a humble apology from a journalist, especially after reading Marvin Olasky's exegesis on journalistic humility. Journalistic integrity is a topic often tackled by Olasky. For a humorous hypothetical conversation between a New York Times executive and a NYT editor, read Olasky's article, "Hard Times".

I'm glad that conservative journalists and columnists take the initiative to be the example for others in the media. It would be nice to read an apology similar to Armstrong William's from the lot of liberal journalists at the New York Times for their overt favoritism for leftist causes. Don't hold your breath.

China Barring Gender-Based Abortions

It is with mixed emotion that I refer you to a story in which China has announced it will make sex-selective abortions illegal. I'm glad that perhaps some baby girls will be allowed to live who would otherwise be thrown out with the garbage. However, China's reasoning is that it fears the consequences of an overly-male populated state. The men well outnumber women and this poses several problems for China. The most troublesome being disgruntled men leading an uprising against the Communist state. Companionship between the two sexes through the institution of marriage is a design of God and being denied this joy could make a man pretty angry.

Sadly, China did not stop this horrible assault on baby girls because it realized that abortion and gender selection are wrong. China's (both the government and its people) lack of respect for life is sickening. Unfortunately, too, China's new law will have little effect, given that the communist-state still regulates the number of children a Chinese family may have: one. And most parents want a male to carry on the family name.

Where have the feminists been on this issue? No, they don't really care about women. They just love murdering unborn babies. For them, as well as the communist government of China, it's all about power. If China really cared about the vast destruction of human life, it would have reversed its family-control policies years ago. Likewise, if feminists really cared about women, they would have denounced China long ago. Their silence on this issue is telling.

A Leftist Scares Retirees

Here's a chart from Washington Monthly that predicts a steep drop in Social Security benefits if we enact Bush's plan to privatize a small portion of retirement accounts. The author, Kevin Drum, argues that doing nothing to Social Security will pay out more benefits than if we adopted private accounts. I laugh out loud.

I don't know how these figures came about, but every other prediction I've seen is nothing but sour. Social security is a train wreck waiting to happen. Simple facts support this. Old people (ahem, I mean 'mature retirees') are living longer. Since the days of FDR, the government has been robbing Peter to pay Paul. This is not a bank account that one pays into. This is a government-sanctioned Ponzi scheme. Social security money is collected tax money from young worker's hard-earned paychecks. There are not enough young hard-workers to continue to support the "mature retirees" and the government will be forced to choose one of several options: substantially raise taxes, drastically decrease Social Security benefits, significantly cut spending in some other area (yeah, right), begin Private Spending Accounts, or a mixture of these options.

The charts Drum uses cannot accurately predict the future of Social Security benefits. The chart cannot take into account the variety of factors (population growth/decline, economic growth/decline, policy change, etc) that form such a prediction.

Andrea Yates' Conviction Overturned

It's unfortunate that this depraved woman's sentence has been overturned. What she did to her family is inexcusable. However, the prosecutors were wrong in using false evidence against Yates and the defense had a reasonable appeal that jurors might have handed Yates a different ruling if the false evidence had not been submitted. (Although, it shouldn't matter how long someone plots a murder: murder is wrong, plotted or not!)

The point: I say it all the time. Don't lie! Look where lying got Nixon and Bill Clinton. Ok, so O.J. walked free, but for most people, most of the time, lying will come back to bite you in the keister. So if you're a prosecutor, don't add false testimony. If your case is strong, the ruling will become apparent to the jurors without extra fluff. The prosecution isn't accused of knowingly lying about Yates having watched a Law and Order episode similar to her crime, but if they weren't sure, they shouldn't have used such testimony. Lawyers are supposed to pursue the truth.

Yates may have plotted to kill her children by drowning them, but the prosecution had no evidence that she got the idea from a television show. They should have been more intent on prosecuting the woman for her heinous crimes because they are heinous...not because she got the idea from the television.

No Treaty with al Qaeda, Please

Andrew McCarthy has a great article for NRO in support of attorney general-elect, Alberto Gonzales. In essence, McCarthy argues that terrorist groups like al Qaeda do not deserve nation status and thus do not deserve the protection against torture that nation-states at war have traditionally observed. McCarthy says that to treat al Qaeda as a nation-state is to empower it. And who wants to do that?

Gonzales is on record for supporting torture against terrorists. McCarthy says that those Democratic senators intent on skewering Gonzales over this stance should instead ask the question to themselves: Do we favor a treaty with al Qaeda? Treating terrorist groups like al Qaeda as if they are nation-states is actually forming a treaty with them and no Democrat would publicly support such a treaty (privately, yes, but any who wants to be re-elected would not say so publicly).

Excellent article. I don't know much about Gonzales, but McCarthy's article makes a sturdy conclusion that Gonzales is not a wacko for treating terrorist detainees as less than members of a nation-state. Americans in general do not want terrorists to be elevated to nation-state status.

Clifford May gets the last word:

The enemy in Iraq is brutal, ruthless and, yes, evil. There's no other word for people who murder civilians organizing elections, bomb churches and mosques, and saw the heads off innocents while screaming slogans and making home videos. But they are not stupid. They know that every time they stage a massacre, millions of people get angry --not at them, but at Don Rumsfeld and President Bush and Prime Minister Blair...." [and Gonzales]

Atheist Jumps Ship

Wow, thanks to GracEmail for this link. It appears that a life-long atheist has now decided that there must be a creator behind this wonderful, complex world called Earth. Anthony Flew, 81, or Oxford University said his increasing understanding of DNA has led him to believe in the existence of a deity, although Flew does not yet take stock in the Christian faith and instead refers to himself as a Deist.

Flew was a leader in the atheist camp and his admittance that this world has a creator is a joy. I pray that his faith may increase. Here is a quote by Flew, taken from the interview found at the link above:

"What Deists, such as the Mr. Jefferson who drafted the American Declaration of Independence, believed was that, while reason, mainly in the form of arguments to design, assures us that there is a God, there is no room either for any supernatural revelation of that God or for any transactions between that God and individual human beings."

Flew, my dear ol' chap, interaction between you and God will happen if you crack open a Bible and allow its word to penetrate your heart and mind.

Kofi Annan in Trouble

Kofi Annan is trying to draw attention away from his U.N. Oil for Food scandal, as well as recent news indicating that Annan's own son, Kojo Annan, received oil-for-food contract money until February of 2004. While Annan's troubles might be symptoms of a poor leader, not a poor institution, I make the case that the U.N. is in trouble too.

Obviously, I don't much care for the U.N., which tries to bully the world into accepting its leftist ideals without any capability of backing up its demands. I'm not a mulilateralist; I think the U.S. became a superpower for a reason and other nations are suffering for a reason. Our type of government and our free market economy combined with our nation's Christian majority have led to the U.S.' unparalleled success. Thus, we have legitimate authority to defend our own country in the way we see fit, not the way in which the U.N. decides for us. I also think our nation is the only entity capable of compelling other nations to make appropriate changes, such as ceasing human rights' abuses and persecution of religious groups. Come on, do we really think a group with Libya and China on its board is more worthy of deciding such matters?

Annan's departure hopefully would translate into an ensuing makeover of the U.N. Who would make a good replacement for Annan? Donald Rumsfield is not likely to be a popular candidate, but I think someone with backbone definitely needs to fill that seat. Doves need not apply.

And now a quote to summarize why all multilateral governances, particularily the U.N., have little success: "UN agencies are almost completely unaccountable. They don't even know how they spend their money and how programs are run," said Austin Ruse, a UN lobbyist and president of the Culture of Life Foundation (World Magazine, Dec. 18, 2004).