Coming Soon, A Review of Burkina Faso's Haggai Fest
Virtue Media -- Saving Lives By Changing Hearts
Recommended: Paul Johnson's "The Nonsense of Global Warming"
Blood Lust? Swiss Assisted Suicide Organizations Aren't Satisfied.
Will British Parliament Force Legal Abortion on Northern Ireland?
Today's Lucianne Latte: The Flavor is Obamamania
Louis Farrakhan: The Messiah is Speaking Through Barack Obama
The October LifeSharer letter of Vital Signs Ministries will be completed later today (I hope) and in it I review our momentous trip to Burkina Faso.
When it's up (on the official VSM website), I'll provide a link here on the blog.
But there's some of Mom's furniture to move and an overgrown lawn to mow before I get back to the desk, so give me a little space. Thanks.
Tom Peterson talks about the remarkable change of hearts that occur when people watch the astounding pro-life TV spots offered by Virtue Media. Just go here and then click on the photo at lower left of the page.
Being in Africa for a bit, I got behind in my cybersurfing and only last night came across this exceptional article published last week by Forbes and written by one of the most perceptive and distinguished historians of our era, Paul Johnson. It is entitled, "The Nonsense of Global Warming" and it is an important read.
I give you just one excerpt as a teaser but, please...you'll do yourself a favor in reading the whole article.
...The idea that human beings have changed and are changing the basic climate system of the Earth through their industrial activities and burning of fossil fuels--the essence of the Greens' theory of global warming--has about as much basis in science as Marxism and Freudianism. Global warming, like Marxism, is a political theory of actions, demanding compliance with its rules.
Those who buy in to global warming wish to drastically curb human economic and industrial activities, regardless of the consequences for people, especially the poor. If the theory's conclusions are accepted and agreed upon, the destructive results will be felt most severely in those states that adhere to the rule of law and will observe restrictions most faithfully. The global warming activists' target is the U.S. If America is driven to accept crippling restraints on its economy it will rapidly become unable to shoulder its burdens as the world's sole superpower and ultimate defender of human freedoms. We shall all suffer, however, as progress falters and then ceases and living standards decline...
Here's a frightening story out of Switzerland explaining how Exit, an aggressive assisted suicide organization, is demanding greater access to the nation's nursing homes. The euthanasia activists are already killing people in the country. And in nursing homes and hospitals too. Exit alone dispatched 245 people last year.
But apparently the culture of death wants to do away with a lot more and so the euthanasia organizations (There are 4 others operating in Switzerland.) are trying to force their way into the places that have so far kept them away.
Could there be a constitutional crisis brewing in Northern Ireland over abortion, as members of the British Parliament attempt to force legalized abortion into a culture that firmly opposes it?
Here's the story from LifeSiteNews.
Lucianne.com has a nice round-up of political stories today that you should check out. Among the most important:
* A report (from the New York Times, no less) on the fictitious donors (read illegal) being found in Barack Obama's finance lists. As the Lucianne team suggests, "How vast can this be if the New York Times has been forced to report it?" Also, here's one of the L-dotter comments on the story -- "These are only the sloppy and obvious ones. How many phony ''John Smiths'' are on the list that don't really exist? How many ''James Robertsons'' that are just names selected out of a phone book who never really gave? How many ''Vladislaw Kozlinksis'' who gave from Europe but covered up with a US name and address? How many ''Martina Soroskovas'' who were just fronts for organizations?"
* A Washington Times story about Obama's efforts to influence the Iraqi government away from U.S. policy.
* A blistering editorial from Investor's Business Daily about the unrepentant domestic terrorist (and Obama colleague and pal) Bill Ayers.
* And, finally, here's a funny yet tragic example of just how dumbed down the voting public is. You can see this kind of ignorance on Jay Leno or, for that matter, in way too many of America's university classrooms. This one comes from sidewalk interviews taped for, I apologize, the Howard Sten radio show. It's a great argument for stricter voter requirements.
Hmm...I wonder when Katie Couric and her peers will report this?
Louis Farrakhan, the racist, anti-Semitic, anti-American leader of the Nation of Islam, has equated Barack Obama's appeal to youth to that of the Messiah!
Speaking to a large audience at a Nation of Islam "Saviour's Day" event, Farrakhan cloyingly says, "You are the instruments that God is going to use to bring about universal change, and that is why Barack has captured the youth. And he has involved young people in a political process that they didn't care anything about. That's a sign. When the Messiah speaks, the youth will hear, and the Messiah is absolutely speaking."
Check it out yourself in the video clip accompanying this World Net Daily article.
Guys, if this kind of thing was shown on the evening news, the Democrats' hopes for the White House would be finished. So too if the MSM reported Obama's gaffes, the details of his horrendous economic promises, the realities behind his hyped-up biographies, or the extremism of his abortion positions. Therefore, they're going to hide these things in as deep a hole as they can dig.
So, let's do what we can (and it's a lot more than we usually realize) to get these stories out.
Eliminating the Rights of Conscience
UN "Petition War" Over Abortion
* Health Care: The Cataclysmic Difference Between the Candidates
Putin's Puppet Can Talk
8 Solid Reasons to Defend Natural Marriage
We've Come a Long Way, Sidney: Homosexuality on Network TV
Is "Mostly Dead" Enough When It Comes to Taking Organs?
This summer, Canada’s well-known doctor shortage almost got worse. A portion of doctors in Canada’s largest province started scouting for jobs elsewhere, expecting that Ontario would soon require them to violate their conscience. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, the licensing body for Ontario doctors, had drafted a policy that required doctors to refer for procedures with which they disagreed on moral or religious grounds.
The public reaction was loud and furious. Religious groups and opinion writers were quick to point out the authoritarian nature of such a policy. But the decisive blow came from within the profession itself: the Ontario Medical Association, the professional organization of Ontario’s doctors, released a scathing condemnation of the policy and openly urged the College to abandon it. The OMA said: “We believe that it should never be professional misconduct for an Ontarian physician to act in accordance with his or her religious or moral beliefs.”
In the end, the College gave in and enacted a vague and watered-down version of the original draft. The storm passed over. But in the ensuing calm, Ontario doctors still have grave reason for concern. The public debate revealed that the College of Physicians had produced the policy in response to suggestions by the Ontario Human Rights Commission. This notorious organ had indeed provided the College with two detailed submissions which asked the College to adopt the OHRC’s troubled understanding of doctors’ rights and duties.
The OHRC clearly expects doctors to inform patients about all legal treatments, and to refer for these treatments regardless of their moral or religious objections. In their view, a doctor’s “denial of services or refusal to provide a woman with information relating to contraception or abortion… would be discriminatory”. In fact, the OHRC has entirely reconstructed the doctor’s role. It says: “It is the Commission’s position that doctors, as providers of services that are not religious in nature, must essentially ‘check their personal views at the door’ in providing medical care.” So much for conscientious objection.
Any citizen can bring a human rights complaint against any doctor in Ontario, at public expense – and the doctor, who must pay out of pocket for his own defense, can brace for judgment by the OHRC’s new standard. Ontario doctors are not out of the woods. And the fire is spreading. The doctors’ college of Manitoba has indicated plans to model its own policy after the Ontario College’s first draft, and the doctors’ college of Alberta is circulating a new draft policy that may indicate a duty to refer.
Things aren’t heating up only in Canada...
The rest of this Mercator article, written ably by Lea Singh, is here.
Need a little good news today? Here's an item from Samantha Singson over at C-FAM about the dismal showing of a United Nations abortion petition and a wildly successful counterpart led by pro-life heroes.
A month after the campaign was first reported in the Friday Fax, pro-abortion group Marie Stopes International has removed the ticker keeping track of names for their web-campaign calling for “Global Safe Abortion.”
The Friday Fax reported last month that after a year of campaigning the Marie Stopes abortion petition had garnered fewer than 600 signers. A month later, a count of campaign signatures reveals that only 50 more people have added their signatures to the Marie Stopes petition.
Conversely, a pro-life initiative that began less than two weeks ago as a counterpoint to the Marie Stopes campaign has yielded more than 26,000 signatures. The “International Call for the Rights and Dignity of the Human Person and the Family,” launched by the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), has generated a massive response from concerned pro-lifers from around the globe...
The C-FAM petition urges UN member states to interpret the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to give proper consideration to the right to life and the family.
The petition stresses that “the right to life of every human being, from conception to natural death, each child having the right to be conceived, born and educated within the family, based on marriage between a woman and a man, the family being the natural and fundamental group unit of society.” The petition also stresses the right of parents to choose how their children should be educated...
Both Marie Stopes and C-FAM plan to present their petitions to the UN community on December 10, when the UN commemorates the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the foundational international human rights document.
C-FAM President Austin Ruse said, "We have known all along that support for radical abortion rights is supported mostly by elites. Ask everyday citizens around the world about abortion, and they are against it."
By the way, if you haven't signed the C-FAM petition yet, just slide right over here to do so.
Please don't miss this crucial item from the Heritage Foundation.
And then don't miss the opportunity to forward this post to your email list. With the MSM so deeply in the tank for the socialist candidate, Barack Obama, we can't simply rely on Rush, Sean and Lucianne to turn this thing around. You and I must serve as the alternative media too!
This morning, The Lewin Group, a non-partisan health care econometrics firm, released its long-awaited report on the presidential candidates’ health plans. Lewin is “the gold standard of independent health-care analysis.” Its report revealed profound differences in the candidates’ directions for health reform.
Barack Obama clearly favors an expansion of government programs (and the creation of new ones); more regulation handed down from Washington; new mandates, rules, and penalties; and restrictions on individual choice. John McCain advocates empowering consumers; reigning in government programs; freeing up insurance markets; and enabling individuals and families to make personal health care decisions. America is at a crossroads.
Lewin found that both plans would make major gains in reducing the number of uninsured. By 2010, the McCain plan would cover 21.1 million new people, and the Obama plan would cover 26.6 million new people. What is most significant, however, is how the plans actually go about expanding coverage.
As shown in the graph below, the Obama plan would result in millions of Americans losing private coverage and even more becoming dependent on government programs. In other words, Obama would prescribe a massive expansion of government coverage. The McCain plan would work in the opposite direction by expanding access to private coverage, bringing new people into the private markets...
Here's more.
From the "New Cold War Watch" comes this report about a call from Russia's new president (Vladimir Putin's puppet man, Dmitry Medvedev) for the creation of a modern trans-Atlantic security organization, one which would trump NATO and leave the United States without the reins of power.
Medvedev's call came with harsh criticism of the USA's invasion of Iraq, its expansion of NATO, and the "economic egotism" that he claimed was behind the recent calamities in worldwide stock markets. more that led markets to collapse worldwide.
Would you like a concise yet compelling overview of just why the defense of marriage is critical to the health of our culture? Then this 4-page document (six counting the detailed footnotes) from Family Watch International is for you.
It's called Eight Reasons to Defend Man/Woman Marriage.
It's quite good. It's very helpful. And it's right here.
Back in 1981, a NBC sitcom was unveiled that was supposed to feature the first openly homosexual lead character on TV. The show was entitled Love, Sidney and the star was Tony Randall.
However, as news leaked out about the show's premise, an uproar of opposition began and NBC ended up playing down the homosexual element completely. In fact, Sidney's homosexuality (if it actually even remained a part of his character) was never depicted in the program.
Still, the initial design of the series was never forgotten. Therefore, homosexual activists still remember it fondly as a milestone. But the general public never found it likeable. It had poor ratings and limped through just two seasons.
I wonder what Sidney would think about the pink-hued TV lineup just 25 years later, one in which 35 openly homosexual characters star in 22 network series?
Here's Robert Knight with more info and comments.
In a unusually forthright article in the New England Journal of Medicine dealing with organ donation, Dr. Robert D. Truog (Harvard Medical Center and Children’s Hospital in Boston) and Dr. Franklin G. Miller (National Institutes of Health) confess that many organ "donors" are, in fact, not dead when their organs are removed.
Actually, it's been happening for decades. And, with various new definitions of death being used to hide the grim truth that doctors are indeed killing one patient for the sake of another, it's getting worse.
But, despite the rare confession made in the NEJM article, Drs. Truog and Miller aren't terribly bothered about this situation. In fact, they argue that whatever liberal definitions of death are now in place need to be disregarded. Why? Simply to keep up with the demand for organs.
The American public, including Christians who are otherwise dedicated pro-lifers, remain almost completely unaware of this situation.
And that's why I pass on the link to the NEJM article AND to this excellent Anita Kuhn commentary on it from Touchstone magazine to you. (And the Kuhn article certainly deserves to be passed on to others.)
Since its very beginning, Vital Signs Ministries has sought to inform people about how "brain death" and other scientifically untenable manipulations were being used to excuse premature organ procurement and promote other euthanasia purposes. VSM's standards were largely due to the fact that pro-life champion Dr. Paul Byrne, one of the West's foremost experts on "brain death," practiced in Omaha in the 1980s and thereby enlightened the pro-life community here on what was really happening behind the closed doors of American surgery rooms.
We are ever in his debt.
But most American pro-life advocates remain completely unaware that organs are being taken from live donors...and, yes, it is the removal of those organs that is the cause of the donor's death.
No, my friends; this isn't the plot of a Robin Cook novel. Nor is it a replay of Billy Crystal's wizard in the Princess Bride film. ("He's not dead; he's just mostly dead.")
It is business (and I choose that word deliberately) as usual in Western hospitals. Spread the word.
With my absence from Omaha for the last 11 days, there's a lot to be done to catch up with Vital Signs Ministries business. As always, Claire was busy and efficient taking care of things stateside but a health crisis with my Mom took a great deal of her time too.
And since that situation is ongoing, we're actually both working to catch up.
So, will you please indulge my tardiness in reporting on the momentous trip to Ougadougou, Burkina Faso? I'm going to try and set some time aside this afternoon to collect my thoughts about what was certainly a soul-stirring experience (as well as collecting some of the dramatic pictures taken by Kristen, Amy and other team members) and write up at least a survey account of the Haggai Fest, the visit to "The Lord Saves" Orphanage, our teaching seminars, etc. That document will then become the October LifeSharer letter and will be posted on the regular VSM site and I will, of course, provide a link to it from here at the blog.
In the meantime, let me try and provide a few timely "culture war" updates for today's blog. I post them below.
Thaddeus Baklinski reports for LifeSite News --- The suit filed against the city of San Diego by four firefighters who were commanded against their wills to drive a fire truck in the city's "gay pride" parade has ended in a deadlock among the jurors; a mistrial has been declared.
Charles LiMandri, West Coast director of the Thomas More Law Center and attorney representing the firefighters, called the mistrial "extremely frustrating" and is awaiting a new trial scheduled for January 16, according to a San Jose Mercury News report.
The firefighters were ordered to ride in the parade by Assistant Chief Jeff Carle, who testified that he was aware that the parade was offensive but defended his actions, saying, "I was faced with not having an engine in the pride parade. I didn't think it would be proper to be absent in that parade when we're present in almost every other one."
The four men said the sexually explicit environment at the parade was so vulgar and disturbing that each of them sought therapy after the event. "You could not even look at the crowd without getting some type of sexual gesture," one firefighter said. "If any crew member were to hang up pictures at the station of what we saw, we would be disciplined."
Eight of the 12 members of the jury felt the firefighters were subjected to sexual harassment, but that was one short of what was needed to move the trial forward. Juror Helene Matthews told Mercury News reporters she felt the firefighters were sexually harassed but that others on the panel "dug in from the get-go and were not willing to change their minds or think differently."
"Whether you're gay, whether you're straight, whatever, none of us should have to go into the workplace and be subjected to things that go against our morals," Matthews said...
Did you know that Ken Haar, the candidate for Nebraska Unicameral District 21 (Lincoln's Air Park, Highlands, and Fallbrook neighborhoods plus the 27th and Superior streets area), is the husband of Chris Funk, the director of the abortion-promoting, abortion providing Planned Parenthood of Nebraska and western Iowa?
Here's a few important items about this guy that you need to pass around.
...2008 is the year in which "fact checking" of political ads and statements became a full-blown journalistic fad. May it soon go the way of streaking and Mexican jumping beans.
The "fact check" is opinion journalism or criticism, masquerading as straight news. The object is not merely to report facts but to pass a judgment. The Washington Post's Fact Checker blog ends each assessment with between one and four "Pinocchios," just like movie reviewers giving out stars.
Like movie reviewing, the "fact check" is a highly subjective process. If a politician makes a statement that is flatly false, it does not need to be "fact checked." The facts themselves are sufficient. "Fact checks" end up dealing in murkier areas of context and emphasis, making it very easy for the journalist to make up standards as he goes along, applying them more rigorously to the candidate he disfavors (which usually means the Republican)...
James Taranto has more on the "fact-check" fad in the Wall Street Journal.
While looking for something to read on a long trans-Atlantic flight Monday, I couldn't help but notice that the "foreign" section of the Paris bookstore was dominated by gushingly ga-ga works about Barack Obama. It was just another illustration of how the world wants Obama --- bad. After all, in him they see a weaker America: more of a milquetoast in matters of freedom and justice, more of a patsy in international commerce, and more of a gullible "Sugar Daddy" in the redistribution of America's wealth to the world.
For another angle on this deeply troubling matter, please read this Investor's Business Daily editorial. Excerpts are below.
Newsmax reported last week that Sen. Barack Obama's campaign has collected "the largest pool of unidentified money that has ever flooded into the U.S. election system, before or after the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms of 2002."
Federal Election Commission data show that some $222 million of the cash Obama has collected came in the form of contributions of $200 or less, with the Democratic nominee's campaign identifying the donors of less than $40 million of that sum.
Campaigns may accept donations of less than $200 without providing the donors' names and addresses in campaign finance reports, but Sen. John McCain's camp has made its full donor database available on the Internet. Independent campaign finance watchdog organizations have asked the Obama campaign to list all its donors, as well, but it's refused. What is Obama hiding?...
Sixty-three listings had "UK" as the donor's location. Other locales apparently providing money for Obama included Abu Dhabi, Addis Ababa, Beijing and Fallujah, as well as France and Italy.
Obama's Web site formerly let donors choose from among every United Nations member when listing their residence. By contrast, the presidential campaign of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton actually required U.S. citizens residing abroad to fax a copy of their passport before accepting their donations. Federal law prohibits the acceptance of campaign contributions from foreign nationals.
In the summer, the head of Nigeria's stock market held a series of fundraisers believed to have collected $900,000 — ostensibly to pay for some Nigerians' attendance at the Democratic convention in Denver. A Nigerian government commission is now investigating.
Do the "Doodads," "Good Wills," "Dahsudhu Hdusahfds" and Nigerian money men form only the tip of the iceberg? The hundreds of millions this supposed "man of the people" has raised is an astonishing sum, with a large percentage coming from unknown sources.
Obama might say he doesn't know who any of these people are, so it is absurd to suggest he would be a president in the pocket of anti-American foreigners he doesn't know.
But they know him. Many foreign powers would give a fortune to install a far-left president who wants to reduce American economic and military power. All signs point to Obama being exactly that.
We made it to Ouagadougou. All of the luggage with the supplies we packed made it too. We are very busy and the internet connection is tenuous so I will not be able to blog from Ouagadougou this week. We will return late Monday, October 6th. We have already met with the American ambassador to Burknia Faso; toured, presented gifts and helped at an orphanage and continue to prepare for the festival. We ask for your prayers for a profound and effective time of ministry as we work to make our teaching, the marriage seminars, and the festival itself all rousing successes for the kingdom of God. Thank you.
Because today and tomorrow are travel days (Omaha to St. Paul to New York to Paris to Ougadougou) and because I still have several things to do before taking wing, I know you'll excuse my not blogging today.
As mentioned in an earlier post, however, I will be taking along Claire's laptop and I will be endeavoring to continue the blog from Burkina Faso next week. Please "tune in" to see if I can pull it off.
The reasons for the trip I've explained in previous posts: "Preparations for Haggai Fest Well Underway," and "Vital Signs Pie Social Celebrates Upcoming Haggai Fest in Burkina Faso." And there's the "official" Haggai Fest website with more info right here. There's even a blog at that site which will probably start revealing inside stories of our mission within a couple of days.
We would, of course, appreciate any and all prayers for a safe, profound and effective time of ministry as we work to make our teaching, the services to the orphanage, the marriage seminars, and the festival itself all rousing successes for the kingdom of God. Thank you.
As my last blogging act for the day, I will gather in the Top Ten for Claire to send out later this afternoon. That's our weekly review of Vital Signs where we attempt to select the Top Ten posts of the week and email them with direct links to you. It helps cybersurfers, we are often told, to keep up to date with helpful, action-oriented updates from the culture wars -- without being overwhelmed by them.
We're pleased to hear those compliments. And we're pleased to send out the Top Ten to whoever asks us. So, if you're not on our Top Ten list, zip us a note at vitalsigns@vitalsignsministries.org and we'll sign you up.
Are You Planning a "Fireproof" Weekend?
Surprise, Surprise: "Brain Death" Isn't Death
Being Buried by Unrealistic (Dare We Say Greedy?) Expectations
"I Deserve" -- The New Mantra of Western Culture
Uncomfortable Truths About In Vitro Fertilization
Are the Niceties of Shari'ah Law Coming to a Formerly Civilized Country Near You?
Want a Clear, Concise Explanation of the Fannie/Freddie Mess?
I hesitate to put a link to the official site of the movie "Fireproof"that's opening this weekend, as they say, in select theaters --- but only because a movie trailer will automatically pop up and, in my opinion, give way too much of the story away.
But I'll do it anyway (here you go) though I strongly suggest you quickly move your cursor over and stop the clip from showing. After all, you want to save some dramatic tension for the theater, don't you?
And just why should you plan on seeing this flick starring Kirk Cameron? Well, here's a few answers to that question from people you might recognize...
"Amazing! Action-packed, heartwarming, and a great resource to help strengthen and affirm marriages!" Dr. Gary Smalley, author of Change Your Heart, Change Your Life
"FIREPROOF is an excellent film that makes marriage-commitment real and attainable with Christ's grace." Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz, Archdiocese of Louisville
“FIREPROOF went beyond my expectations! It captures the real-life issues of marriage in a moving, emotional, and riveting way. It inspires you to put your faith in action and fight for your marriage. I encourage anyone who is married or even thinking about getting married to see this movie.” Dr. Tony Evans, Senior Pastor, Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship
"FIREPROOF is going to do much more than entertain and stir hearts; this is a movie that will impact couples in a profound way for decades to come." Dennis Rainey, President, FamilyLife
"Anyone who is married or plans to be married will find FIREPROOF both inspirational and instructive. It is an excellent movie!" Richard Land, President, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (SBC)
"FIREPROOF dramatically affirms that a marriage works best when the husband, the wife, and God work together for its success." Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight, The Knights of Columbus
"FIREPROOF is a gripping and powerful story. Its surprising twists and turns make for a great plot with a simple, but powerful message. I loved it and you will too!" Mike Huckabee
Our old friend and colleague, Dr. Paul Byrne has a review of recent developments in the "brain death" controversy showing how the ever-increasing fever for human organs is causing even what little protection there was for potential donors to be swept away.
..."Brain death" never was, and never will be true death. This has been known by neurologists and organ transplanters since the beginning of the multi-billlion industry. So if a declaration of "brain death" is not true death, but organs are taken legally in accord with "accepted medical standards," why not continue to make "acceptable" less stringent criteria?
In the 10 years after the ad hoc Committee conjured up the Harvard Criteria, 30 more sets were reported by 1978. Every set became less stringent. Less strict sets were reported until eventually there is a criterion that does not fulfill any of the "brain death" criteria. This is known as donation by cardiac death (DCD). Organs are obtained for transplantation by first getting a DNR order, then taking the patient off life support and wait until the patient is without a pulse (NOT WITHOUT A HEART BEAT!).
In the past the waiting time was 10 minutes, then shortened to 5 minutes, then 4, then 2 and now in the NEJM (8-14-08) the waiting time is only 1.25 minutes until they cut out the baby's heart...
Victor Davis Hanson has these observations (and more of great value) in his Town Hall column. (Be sure to read both pages.)
...We created the cultural climate for this shared madness. Television shows advised how to “flip” a house after putting in cosmetic improvements. Real-estate seminars and popular videos convinced us that homes were not places to live in and raise a family but rather no different from piles of chips on a Vegas table.
We created the phony populist creed that everyone deserved to own a house. So lawmakers got the message to relax lending standards in service to “fairness.” But Americans forgot that historically nearly four in 10 of us aren’t ever ready, or able, to sacrifice for a down payment, monthly mortgage bills, home maintenance and yearly taxes — and so should stick to renting...
It’s also axiomatic that only the rich—that is, anyone making more money than you—seek to get something for nothing. Thus, several developments last week in New York City’s massive housing-welfare regime will never be portrayed as a manifestation of greed among the poor, but only as social justice.
In June, the city’s Rent Guidelines Board approved a rent increase for apartments whose tenants have lived in them for more than six years and that rent for less than $1,000 a month. The Board acted in response to rising fuel, water, and tax expenses, which have hit small property owners particularly hard. On September 16, the Legal Aid Society and Legal Services of New York sued the Rent Guidelines Board over the new rates.
The rent increase—$45 a month for one-year leases and $85 a month for two-year leases—will affect tenants like Santiago Garza, who has been living in a rent-stabilized apartment on West 48th Street since 1981. Garza pays $570 a month for his digs, while a comparable apartment next to him rents for $1,800, he told the New York Post in June. Yet Garza and the hundreds of angry tenants and advocates who protested the rent hike when it was approved believe that they are merely getting what they deserve—unlike their landlords, who don’t “do enough,” Garza complained. Getting a $1200-a-month subsidy from your landlord, and forcing him to take a huge loss on the market value of his property, isn’t greed, it’s a right! A $1200-a-month windfall to a tenant: simple justice. A market-driven level of rent: landlord avarice.
This remarkable sense of entitlement is of course the official creed in New York, whose city council and representatives in Albany believe that landlords are virtually public entities, obligated—at whatever cost to themselves in foregone income—to provide services and shelter to a lucky group of renters (and at whatever cost to the city in unbuilt rental units). Imagine if the New York City Council, whose speaker, Christine Quinn, enjoys a rent-stabilized apartment in Chelsea, capped worker salaries, so that employers would not face the hardship of competing in the marketplace for employee talent. Such a law would be denounced as a grotesque infringement on the economic rights of the common man. But if the first-time owner of a duplex in Queens seeks a market return on his investment, he is pilloried for ripping off the poor...
Source: Heather MacDonald's wry and compelling "Greed Is for Other People" over at City Journal.)
...This is not a good situation for the babies. The human body is only built to bear one child at a time; only ten percent of twin pregnancies make it to their due dates. The more babies in one womb, the earlier they’re born, and the more time they’ll have to spend in NICU. The more likely, also, they are not to survive. Born early and drastically underweight, such babies are often considered miraculous if they even make it home. Moreover, such high-risk pregnancies are more likely to end by C-section, and it’s the high rate of C-sections that is in part blamed for the current rise in maternal mortality.
Of course, it’s possible for a multiple pregnancy to be reduced, and the procedure is fairly common. After all, goes the logic, better to lose two babies in utero than lose all four at birth. Doctors can determine the position of all the fetuses by using ultrasound. They will then test those fetuses that are easiest to reach for abnormalities. And if all the fetuses are equally healthy and get-at-able, the doctors will ask the parents which gender they would prefer to keep. Usually, triplets and quads are reduced to twins (the risks go far, far down with only two in the womb), so parents may be able to choose one of each sex and complete their family right away, assuming they’ve already got a dog at home.
It’s an understandable logic: Eliminate one or two so the remaining two can thrive. But it completely bypasses the real question: Should these children have been created in the first place? There’s something to be said for the old “children are a blessing” mentality; it fostered the idea not only that children are good, but also that children are sent from somewhere else. Their coming cannot be rigidly controlled. If anything, it’s the notion that the timing and apportioning of children can be controlled absolutely that’s gotten us into this situation...
Kate Bluett has a lot more to say about the important (and terribly misunderstood) moral issues involved with in vitro fertilization. Read the entirety of her fascinating, challenging article in Salvo Magaizine right here.
By the way, here's a few posts from previous Vital Signs Blog relevant to this issue: Culling Embryos to Get a Perfect Baby; Does the Pro-Life Movement Care About In Vitro Fertilization?; The Tragic Fate of IVF's "Excess" Babies; Ova Freezing as a Lifestyle Choice; In Vitro's Monstrous Secret; and What Happens to the "Extra" Embryos?
If there's any doubt that the suicide of Western civilization is well underway, read about this upcoming conference hosted by that formerly Catholic university located just outside Washington, D.C. The conference (“Is There a Role for Shari'ah in Modern States?”) will feature Islam apologists John Esposito and Harvard Law professor, Noah Feldman -- two fellows who never let facts stand in the way of a strong ideological agenda.
And understandably, certain elements of Shari'ah law probably won't be raised by the speakers.
After all, items like the "honor killing" of disobedient wives and daughters, genital mutilation of young girls, torture and death sentences for moral offenders, rewards for the persecution of non-Muslims, and execution of apostates might tend to be a bit "off-putting" for conference attendees.
Investor's Business Daily lays the blame for America's financial crisis at the doorsteps of Presidents Carter and, more emphatically, Clinton, as they tried to fund a dangerously ambitious "affirmative action" housing program with huge amounts of government money. It was an unfair, unwise move which eventually submerged our entire financial structure in bad debt.
Though it was Jimmy Carter who signed the Community Reinvestment Act, starting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to aggressively lend to minority communities, it was Clinton who "supercharged the process" by rewriting their rules in ways never envisaged by Congress.
...In so doing, he turned the two quasi-private, mortgage-funding firms into a semi-nationalized monopoly that dispensed cash to markets, made loans to large Democratic voting blocs and handed favors, jobs and money to political allies. This potent mix led inevitably to corruption and the Fannie-Freddie collapse...
The rewrite, as City Journal noted back in 2000, "made getting a satisfactory CRA rating harder." Banks were given strict new numerical quotas and measures for the level of "diversity" in their loan portfolios. Getting a good CRA rating was key for a bank that wanted to expand or merge with another.
Loans started being made on the basis of race, and often little else.
"Bank examiners would use federal home-loan data, broken down by neighborhood, income group and race, to rate banks on performance," wrote Howard Husock, a scholar at the Manhattan Institute.
But those rules weren't enough. Clinton got the Department of Housing and Urban Development to double-team the issue. That would later prove disastrous...
Since they could borrow at lower rates than banks due to implicit government guarantees for their debt, the government-sponsored enterprises boomed. With incentives in place, banks poured billions of dollars of loans into poor communities, often "no doc" and "no income" loans that required no money down and no verification of income.
By 2007, Fannie and Freddie owned or guaranteed nearly half of the $12 trillion U.S. mortgage market — a staggering exposure.
Worse still was the cronyism.
Fannie and Freddie became home to out-of-work politicians, mostly Clinton Democrats. An informal survey of their top officials shows a roughly 2-to-1 dominance of Democrats over Republicans.
Then there were the campaign donations. From 1989 to 2008, some 384 politicians got their tip jars filled by Fannie and Freddie. Over that time, the two GSEs spent $200 million on lobbying and political activities. Their charitable foundations dropped millions more on think tanks and radical community groups.
Did it work? Well, if measured by the goal of putting more poor people into homes, the answer would have to be yes. From 1995 to 2005, a Harvard study shows, minorities made up 49% of the 12.5 million new homeowners.
The problem is that many of those loans have now gone bad, and minority homeownership rates are shrinking fast.
Fannie and Freddie, with their massive loan portfolios stuffed with securitized mortgage-backed paper created from subprime loans, are a failed legacy of the Clinton era.
Had enough of the wild rumors and scurrilous attacks on Sarah Palin? Of course you have.
So give Terry Eastland's article in the Weekly Standard a go as he fairly, sympathetically informs you about her interesting "faith journey."
