You'll love the clip below but then go on over and check out the website of Roger Williams, a genuine conservative who is running for Congress down in Fort Worth, Texas. He's a successful business owner with experience also in government (Secretary of State) and education (Board of Trustees at TCU) who is spot on with marriage and pro-life issues, abolishing earmarks, balancing the budget, getting rid of ObamaCare and more. His website also contains a blog which you'll find entertaining as well as informative. Good stuff.
And, by the way, the clip below was produced by Jonathan Kayser, the talented and principled political consultant who hails from right here in Omaha.Good job, J.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Today's Posts
Have Time for a Few Prayers for the Persecuted Church?
A Thank You Party for Life Care Center
Joe Biden's Despicable "Understanding" of China's Forced Abortion Policy
Planned Parenthood Also "Understands" And Accepts China's Forced Abortion Policy
What's Scaring Away New Jobs? ObamaCare.
Pictures of A Preborn Child? There's an App for That!
A Thank You Party for Life Care Center
Joe Biden's Despicable "Understanding" of China's Forced Abortion Policy
Planned Parenthood Also "Understands" And Accepts China's Forced Abortion Policy
What's Scaring Away New Jobs? ObamaCare.
Pictures of A Preborn Child? There's an App for That!
Have Time for a Few Prayers for the Persecuted Church?
Stuart Cunliffe, our British pro-life colleague who blogs at Diary of a WIP and who produces an e-mail Prayer Digest that I find of great value, shares this burden for the persecuted Church around the world. And here are a few of the specific cases he passed along this morning. Some of them I've mentioned before but please take a couple of minutes to send some prayers heavenward for the following:
* Christians are being harassed in more countries than any other faith group, according to a new report by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Nearly a third of the world’s population live in countries where restrictions on religious beliefs and practices increased between 2006 and 2009. China, Egypt, France, Nigeria, Russia, Thailand, Vietnam and the United Kingdom were listed as countries where Christians were finding it more difficult to practice their faith.
* Christians in the Nuba mountains in South Kordofan state, which has one of the largest Christian populations in North Sudan, are being subjected to a campaign of ethnic cleansing. A leaked UN human rights report described ‘significant loss of human lives. . . abductions. . . arbitrary arrest and detentions; targeted killings; summary executions. . . mass graves; systematic destruction of dwellings; and attacks on churches.’
* A car bomb exploded outside a church in Kirkuk, Iraq, injuring 23 people. Car bombs outside two other churches were defused.
* More than 60 violent anti-Christian attacks were recorded in India during the first half of 2011, says the Evangelical Fellowship of India. Hindu extremists attacked churches, pastors and homes, disrupting services and beating up worshipers.
* There has been a fresh outbreak of violence in Nigeria, resulting in the death of at least 15 Christians. Police and army were said to be involved in the attacks. Members of a radical Islamic group have killed at least 10 Christians in Maiduguri, Nigeria, in the past two months. Most of the Christians are reported to have fled the city.
* Two churches on Zanzibar island were burned down within four days. Population of the Zanzibar archipelago is 99.9% Muslim. Pray the Christians there will stand firm in their faith.
* Pastor Vahik Abrahamian, in prison in Iran since September 2010 but cleared of all charges in April, has still not been released. There are fears for his health.
* Asia Bibi, the Christian mother on death row in Pakistan for allegedly making derogatory remarks about Mohammed, may be in jail for years awaiting her appeal, lawyers say.
A Thank You Party for Life Care Center
And yes, we made sure the cake was big enough so that there was plenty left over to supply the night shift too.
Alongside the cake, we set up some pictures of Mom and that turned out to be a nice blessing for the staff because so many of them truly treasured her. We also had off some copies of the funeral reading which staff members had asked for. And then there were also the gifts we donated to the facility as a memorial to my Mom. We had been deliberating over an appropriate memorial gift for quite awhile and had checked out several items. But we ended up giving the administrators a Visa gift card to get whatever they wanted for the facility. We also filled a box with 8-10 jigsaw puzzles (which Mom loved to put together), decks of cards and boxes of dominoes and gave that to LCC for the residents' use.
The nurses and aides, administrators and activities staff, rehab therapists and cooks, custodians and maintenance workers -- everybody stopped by to grab a piece of cake, give us hugs, and tell a story or two about Mom before going on back to work. It was a really sweet time.
Thank yous are always a great thing to pass around. But, in the case of the Life Care Center folks, they were genuinely deserved.
Joe Biden's Despicable "Understanding" of China's Forced Abortion Policy
Reggie Littlejohn, the president of Women’s Rights without Frontiers, has written the Vice-President a letter that I suggest you read and pass along. Perhaps you'll use it as a stimulation to write your own letters to Mr. Biden and his boss.
Dear Vice President Biden,
I write concerning the remark you made Sunday during your official visit to China: “Your policy has been one which I fully understand — I’m not second-guessing — of one child per family.”
By your own admission, then, you “fully understand”:
That China’s One Child Policy is enforced through forced abortion and involuntary sterilization;
That, because of the traditional preference for boys, girls are disproportionately subject to abortion, abandonment and infanticide;
That because of this gendercide, there are an estimated 37 million more males than females living in China today;
That this severe gender imbalance is a powerful, driving force behind human trafficking and sexual slavery from nations surrounding China;
That according to the World Health Organization, China has the highest female suicide rate of any country in the world. Approximately 500 Chinese women kill themselves each day. Could this extraordinary suicide rate be related to the trauma of enduring a forced abortion or forced sterilization?
Since you “fully understand” this, how can you then state that you do not “second-guess” this policy, which causes more violence to women and girls than any other official policy on earth? I understand that you have several children. Would you “second-guess” this policy if it were the law of the United States? Can you imagine the devastation if it were your own wife being dragged away to forcibly abort your children? Families in China endure this every day. Is such a policy acceptable so long as it does not affect U.S. families, but only Chinese families?
Or do you agree with CNN’s Ted Turner, and with Norman Fleishman, the former Planned Parenthood executive, both of whom have stated that the United States should adopt the One Child Policy?
To say that you “fully understand” and yet do not “second-guess” the One Child Policy is to turn a blind eye to the incalculable suffering caused by this policy. If you disagree, please issue a statement clarifying your remarks. Otherwise, why should we not conclude that for you, forced abortion, forced sterilization, infanticide and gendercide are acceptable forms of population control?
Planned Parenthood Also "Understands" And Accepts China's Forced Abortion Policy
Indeed, it seems Planned Parenthood leaders believe such policies make sense for the United States too!
Here's Women’s Rights without Frontiers again with this alarming update:
In a new letter to the editor of the Napa Valley Register, Norman Fleishman wrote that, unless the U.S. enacts the Obama administration’s health care plan and China’s One Child Policy, “the world is doomed to strangle among the coils of pitiless exponential growth.”
It is inexcusable that someone in Fleishman’s position should make such an appalling recommendation. As a former Planned Parenthood Executive Vice President, he is obligated to get his facts straight.
China’s One Child Policy causes more violence to women and girls than any other official policy on earth. It is China’s war on women. It is enforced through forced abortion, forced sterilization and infanticide. It has led to gendercide, the sex-selective abortion of baby girls. Planned Parenthood should agree: whether you’re pro-choice or pro-life, no one supports forced abortion, because it’s not a choice...
In China, a woman’s body is not her own. It is the domain of the state. The Chinese Communist Party functions as “womb police,” wielding the very power of life and death over women’s wombs. This is a terrible violation of both women’s rights and human rights. After 30 years of such a legacy, one thing is clear: it is time for the international community to rise up for the women and girls of China...
Fleishman’s recommendation that the United States adopt the One Child Policy brings into sharp focus the following issue, which Planned Parenthood must publicly resolve, since it is publicly funded. Does Planned Parenthood truly stand for “choice,” or does it stand for population control, even if that means forced abortion? If Planned Parenthood stands for “choice,” then why are they working hand in hand with the Chinese Communist Party’s coercive population control machine? The IPPF website openly declares, “The China Family Planning Association (CFPA) plays a very important role in China’s family planning programme. It supports the present family planning policy of the government, which is appropriate for the present national situation."
If Planned Parenthood really stands for “choice,” they should oppose forced abortion in China, not seek to expand it to America. Women’s Rights Without Frontiers calls upon Planned Parenthood immediately to repudiate Fleishman’s remark – if they indeed disagree with it.
What's Scaring Away New Jobs? ObamaCare.
The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Dennis Lockhart, concurs, stating that "prominent" among the obstacles to hiring is the "lack of clarity about the cost implications" of ObamaCare. "We've frequently heard strong comments," reported Lockhart, "to the effect of, 'My company won't hire a single additional worker until we know what health insurance costs are going to be.'"
Additionally, 84% of small business owners in the survey said the economy is on the wrong track, 79% view the current regulatory environment as unreasonable, and 79% believe Washington should get out of the way of small business, rather than offering a helping hand...
(Ralph R. Reiland, "Obama: Circling back to the iceberg," Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)
Pictures of A Preborn Child? There's an App for That!
Sidewalk counselors, take note. Along with your signs, banners and CPC brochures, you may want to have the MobiUS at hand.
According to FastCompany, the FDA recently approved MobiUS, a medical ultrasound imaging system made by medical device company Mobisante. The system basically consists of an ultrasound wand, a smart phone, and a clever app. That's it!
Just like the doctor's office version of such a system, the MobiUS allows a medical practitioner to view, manipulate, and analyze ultrasound images instantly. As a bonus though, he or she will be able to transfer the data wirelessly to wherever it needs to go.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Today's Posts
Driving By An Abortion Clinic
Writing to Planned Parenthood Supporters: Here's an Example
Among Adults, Compulsive Gambling Worse Problem Than Booze
Sunday Is Not Always a Day of Rest
The Next Step in America's Cultural Devolution? Sex-Selection Abortions.
Communist China's War on Freedom (And Baby Girls)
Writing to Planned Parenthood Supporters: Here's an Example
Among Adults, Compulsive Gambling Worse Problem Than Booze
Sunday Is Not Always a Day of Rest
The Next Step in America's Cultural Devolution? Sex-Selection Abortions.
Communist China's War on Freedom (And Baby Girls)
Driving By An Abortion Clinic
I can...
Here is one of the most popular LifeSharer letters of recent years, an imaginative adventure which explores the impact just a single pro-life witness can create. I think you'll find it a hopeful and inspiring read. You'll find it under "February 2010" in this list of LifeSharer letters on the Vital Signs Ministries website.
Writing to Planned Parenthood Supporters: Here's an Example
Whole Foods Market, Inc.
550 Bowie Street
Austin, TX 78703-4644
I write to ask if your company will be continuing to support Planned Parenthood even though the mega-abortion business has been scandalized in recent months through numerous undercover video tapes. These tapes have revealed numerous Planned Parenthood staffers around the country illegally covering up statutory rape and even advising sex traffickers how to escape the law. In addition, Planned Parenthood has been caught making alarmingly misleading claims about the health services they provide.
And, oh yes, there’s that little matter of the missing millions of American taxpayer funds which Planned Parenthood refuses to explain.
In light of these very disturbing reports (not to mention the tragic fact that Planned Parenthood is the nation’s number one abortionist with nearly 350,000 preborn babies being killed by surgical abortion every year), I urge you to completely sever ties with this nefarious business.
Until you do, I must respectfully announce I will not be doing business with Whole Foods Market. I will also share the news of this regrettable partnership with friends, family, my church members and the visitors to my blog and networking sites.
Please do the right thing. And soon.
This is one of the letters written at one of Vital Signs Ministries' P.A.L. Nights. Similar letters were also sent to other Planned Parenthood supporters -- JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo (including Wachovia), Chevron (including Texaco, Xpress Lube), Midas, Nike, Marriott (including Courtyard, Fairfield, Renaissance, Ritz-Carlton, etc.), Johnson & Johnson, Staples, Olive Garden, and Red Lobster.
Among Adults, Compulsive Gambling Worse Problem Than Booze
What might otherwise be an academic debate could have bigger consequences for the gaming industry, which has long fought criticism that gambling creates social ills that go unaccounted for in official statistics. Casinos are subject to high “sin” taxes in states where they are granted monopolies, with some tax money diverted to help problem gamblers. There’s still relatively little money for problem gambling treatment in the United States, in part because it has been viewed by academics and industry officials as rare.
Welte’s research found that the prevalence of alcohol problems peaks at a younger age and drops off significantly after age 21, a similar trend found elsewhere and possibly explained by the fact that young people tend to engage in risky behavior more than adults.
By contrast, the prevalence of gambling problems increases after 21, peaking at ages 31 through 40 and declining slowly until later adulthood, when it falls off significantly, the study found...
Sunday Is Not Always a Day of Rest
Indeed, Claire was feeling well enough to travel with me up to Blair, Nebraska to present "When Swing Was King" to an audience at Crowell Assisted Living facility. We had a wonderful time. It was our second presentation at this facility and so we are getting to know the layout and the staff better. And the residents were great fun. Several sang along with the songs. Several had stories to tell us along with their complements and thanks. And all were swaying to the music, tapping their toes, and laughing at the jokes I throw into the commentary. It was a really swell time.
But we were getting tired and Claire especially was running out of steam. But next on the agenda was the annual church business meeting back down in Omaha. As many of you know all too well, a church business meeting can be a...well, let's just say... a less than pleasurable experience. Especially when they run more than 3 hours. So by the time we got home, we were pretty done in. And then Claire reminded me that before us on Monday was an all-day meeting down in Lincoln. Those meetings were scheduled to start at 7:30 which meant there would be only 3-4 hours of sleep if I was going to fit in some blogging. So I decided I'd skip it today and get another couple of hours of sleep.
Uh, check that.
A booming thunderstorm woke us up a little after 3 this morning followed by a couple of hours of lightning, hard rain, high winds, and a few waves of hail. Nothing damaged -- except that night's repose I was looking for! So, enlivened by the knowledge that a strenuous Sunday was behind us, I've brewed a few cups of coffee and ended up putting blogging on the agenda after all. After a couple more posts, I'll take a cool bath, spend a little time reading in Joni Eareckson-Tada's Holiness in Hidden Places and be off for Lincoln.
And though a bit tired still, I'll be with Claire all day long.
And that makes any day one to look forward to.
The Next Step in America's Cultural Devolution? Sex-Selection Abortions.
Before you dismiss the thought, before you tell yourself that such cold-hearted brutality will never be tolerated here in America, please consider the lines of immoral extremity that we have already crossed: Wholesale abortion that is protected by law, even promoted and paid for by taxpayer dollars. Telemed abortion schemes where powerful, poisonous drugs are dispensed to young girls who haven't even seen a physician. Government requiring insurance companies to pay for abortions. The denial of parental and spousal rights regarding abortion decisions. Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Lethal experimentation on human embryos. The removal of religious conscience protection.
Let's face the facts. In our post-Christian culture where the traditional boundary stones have been overturned and removed, things once deemed unthinkable have become, in a remarkably rapid order, ho-hum social policy. Considering then the religious devolution we've experienced in the last two generations and the ever-increasing depth of the "culture of me," why deny that the next steps in the path to barbarity are already underway?
The changing mindset regarding sex-selection abortion here in the United States was recently highlighted in an approving article in the New York Times. And that drew the following response from medical ethicist Wesley J. Smith.
The NYT certainly has been writing about our emerging brave new world of industrial procreative manufacture and quality control lately. Today’s installment discusses how a new blood test of the mom can detect gender at 7 weeks–without ultrasound that can bond a mother to her gestating child. So much easier that way to discard the unwanted wrong sex nuisance! Moreover, the wrong sex tissue bundle can be flushed away using RU 486 with no one the wiser! How wonderful that the whole eugenic process can be made less emotionally difficult for people for whom not just any baby will do.
IVF can also be used for sex selection. Pro lifers, we are told, should approve because it prevents abortion:
But clinics and some ethicists say this type of sex selection is more acceptable because it occurs before embryos are implanted, before pregnancy. “We’re trying to prevent the abortion,” said Dr. Jamie Grifo, program director for New York University’s Fertility Center. His and other clinics typically allow sex selection for couples with two or more children, parents interested in “family balancing,” adding a child of the opposite sex. “For someone who has two girls and wants to have a boy, so each sibling can grow up with brother and sister, what’s wrong with that?” Dr. Grifo said.”
It’s eugenics. Besides it isn’t where the destruction of human life happens that matters to pro lifers, it is that nascent life is destroyed.
I do think this is a proper area for law and regulation. I also think this is an area where medical conscience should be protected. No medical professional should be forced to be complicit in the eugenic destruction of human life.
Communist China's War on Freedom (And Baby Girls)
The Communist Chinese regime in Beijing that butchered my generation in the streets of Tiananmen Square for quoting Jefferson and Madison believes that human liberty is a threat to state-provided security and prosperity. They are as wrong today as the Soviet Union was wrong in the 20th century, and I for one will not cede the 21st century to a Communist nuclear-armed dictatorship that tells you how many children you can have, that tells you if you can pass out Bibles, that tells you what Catholic Church you can attend, or tries to culturally commit genocide against the people of Tibet.”
That's straight (and much-needed) talk from Michigan Congressman Thad McCotter. And you get more of the same from the editor-at-large of National Review Online, Kathryn Jean Lopez, in this very important column.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Today's Posts
Of Course I Oppose Back Alley Abortions
Church History & Abortion
A Political Parable
Ooops! ObamaCare EVEN MORE Expensive Than We Thought.
And You Don't Believe We're On the Eve of Destruction?
There's Hope for Marriage and the Family
The Abortion "Counselors" Are Actually Abortion Salesmen
The Loser Pays -- But So Do Many Others
Church History & Abortion
A Political Parable
Ooops! ObamaCare EVEN MORE Expensive Than We Thought.
And You Don't Believe We're On the Eve of Destruction?
There's Hope for Marriage and the Family
The Abortion "Counselors" Are Actually Abortion Salesmen
The Loser Pays -- But So Do Many Others
Freeing Schools From Federal Interference
The ideas? Get rid of standardized tests. Get rid of federal interference in local schools. Get rid of all the special studies, committees and strangling regulations.
Hey, as long as we're dreaming, let's go ahead and get rid of the whole bloated Department of Education!
...There are 5,000 federal bureaucrats laboring in the Department of Education, who, in addition to crafting other pedagogical alchemy, are engaged in rattling local schools fearful of losing federal funding because their student test scores fall short of an arbitrary standard. Here's a better idea: If the federal government must have 5,000 people doing something about education, assign them all to lend a hand in classrooms — assuming that they wouldn't do more damage there than they already do from afar...
What to do?
Stop wasting money by creating ever more utopian formulas and enforcement schemes. Assume teachers are competent and dedicated and that principals are smart and capable enough to spot and get rid of teachers who aren't. As naive as that might seem, it surely beats the results we have obtained from the increasingly centralized system that barks at the schoolhouse door today.
The answer, of course, is to let teachers and schools fail or succeed on their own. The bad ones don't need someone from Washington to point out what already is apparent. Remove federal and state straitjackets that kill creativity and snuff dedication. This means school choice and vouchers — ideas loathed by the bureaucrats and labor unions that use their power to preserve a failed system for their own benefit. Count on them to continue to leverage their power with the cudgel of ever more laws, regulations and rules that preserve — no, actually increase — their power. It will take nothing less than a revolution by fed-up Americans to break the hold that this cartel has on our children.
A Political Parable
Bob was visiting with some friends and he asked their little girl what she wanted to be when she grew up. She said she wanted to be President of the United States.
Both of her parents, (very liberal Democrats) were standing right there, so Bob asked her, "If you were the President, what would be the first thing you would do?"
She replied, "I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people..."
Her parents beamed with pride.
"Wow...what a worthy goal," Bob told her. "But you don't have to wait until you're President to do that, you can do that right now. Why don’t you come over to my house, you can mow the lawn, pull some weeds, and sweep my driveway, and I'll pay you $50.
Her eyes lit up, but after a few seconds she asked, “But how will that help the homeless people?”
Bob then explained to her, “After you are all done, I'll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out begging for change, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house. Wouldn’t you like doing something wonderful like that?"
She thought that over for a few seconds, and then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Why doesn't that homeless man do all that work and you can just pay him the $50?"
And then, realizing how truly bright this little girl was for making that connection, with a big, warm grin, Bob shook her hand and said, "Welcome to the Republican Party."
Her parents still aren't speaking to Bob.
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