Burning Books vs Burning People

In reflecting on the massive news coverage being given to a small-town, small-minded preacher who is planning to burn copies of the Koran, please remember the free pass the media gives to the daily occurrence of Muslim violence directed at non-Muslims.

Yes, radical Muslims burn books too. And American flags. And effigies of the Pope, President Bush and others.

But they also burn people.

And the press is too busy with other matters to care.

For instance, a couple of weeks ago, Sheikh Tobah, a Muslim imam from the Egyptian village of Shimi, used the time of Friday prayers to call for “jihad” against the Coptic Christians living there.

His call was answered and within hours, the attacks began.

As a result, Middle-East journalist, Mary Abdelmassih reported, Christian Copts living in the village were viciously assaulted over the next two days. Eleven Copts were hospitalized.

The police made no arrests.

Of course, earlier this year Coptic Christians in Egypt fared even worse, several being killed as Muslim mobs using swords, butane gas, and Molotov cocktails attacked shops, cars and homes. That destruction and those murders also went virtually unnoticed by the world's press.

A Google search for news of the Sheikh Tobah-incited violence brought up only one instance of a major news organization deigning to mention it: CNN. And, to the network's credit, it also reported on other instances of Muslim terrorism against Christians.

These outrages, I repeat, are happening every day. But the world's press ignores them, preferring instead to repeat a trite (and blatantly untrue) mantra that Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance and high culture.

This doesn't mean that I am sympathetic to the proposed actions of the Florida preacher. I prefer an open forum in which Islam's bloody history of conquest, it's theological absurdities and it's production (everywhere it conquers) of cruel and repressive culture is carefully, thoroughly exposed.

But for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the mainstream media to behave as if burning pages is more more horrific and insane than burning people? That is a far greater sacrilege than anything this preacher is going to do.

China Reconsidering It's Forced Abortion Crimes

"An aging population and the need for more workers have prompted China's Communist Party to consider relaxing the decades-long ban that restricts most couples to one child, a harsh policy marked by forced abortions, sterilizations and fines for those who have more than one."

Now that the Communists might be easing up a bit on their barbaric and tyrannical war on babies, there is finally in this USA TODAY article, a plain acknowledgment of that long-standing policy -- a policy that the mainstream media, the U.N., the U.S. State Department, and most Democrats in Washington have long denied.

But note that the possible change doesn't arise from a moral awakening and certainly not from pressure from the U.S. due to China's despicable abuse of human rights. It is merely the realization that the bizarre "birth dearth" which has hit so much of the Northern Hemisphere has hit China too.

Today's Posts

"And That Is Nothing But Murder."

America On the Rocks

Why Does Government Stifle Competition?

Look Out for New Credit Card Trick

Hartford City Council Invites Muslim Clerics to Pray

Yipes! That Was the Summer of Recovery?

Violent Video Games:
America's Real Pollution Problem

"And That Is Nothing But Murder."

"Destruction of the embryo in the mother's womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life.

To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life.

And that is nothing but murder…”

(From Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Ethics)

America On the Rocks

No, it's not casual reading, let alone pleasure reading. But these "50 Mind Blowing Facts About America That Our Founding Fathers Never Would Have Believed" should be read and passed along. They present a lot of quick-hitting facts (with links for confirmation) which you can use as prayer targets, in conversations, and in letters to editors and politicians.

And, by the way, those 50 horrors that would have shocked George Washington and John Adams do not include aborting our sons and daughters, kids killing kids in the street, popular entertainment companies that blaspheme Christ and glorify decadence, sexual perversions defended in courts and the schools, etc.

Say goodnight, Gracie.

(Hat tip: Bob Garrett)

Why Does Government Stifle Competition?

The monks at St. Joseph Abbey had to take the state of Louisiana to federal court to defend their right to make money selling handmade caskets. That's right: empty wooden boxes. But as soon as the monks started selling them, they were shocked to receive a cease-and-desist order from something called the Louisiana State Board of Funeral Directors. The funeral directors had managed to get their state to pass a law decreeing that only "licensed funeral directors" may sell "funeral merchandise" like caskets. To sell caskets legally, the monks would have to obtain a funeral director's license. That required a year-long apprenticeship, passing a funeral industry test and converting their monastery into a "funeral establishment" by installing embalming equipment, among other things.

The state board and the Louisiana Funeral Directors Association -- the profession's lobbyist -- say the law is designed to protect consumers. But that's what established businesses always say about absurd regulations they demand. An unusually candid funeral director told The Wall Street Journal, "They're cutting into our profit." Well, yes, free competition does do that. That's the point...

John Stossel has a few more choice examples of how government serves their well-entrenched, deep-pocket business pals by forcing new entrepreneurs out of the arena altogether. As he says, "It's a system of protectionism for influential insiders who don't want competition. Every locality has its share of business moguls who are cozy with politicians. Together, they use the power of government to keep competition down and prices high."

It's yet another case of government dis-serving the people.

Look Out for New Credit Card Trick

Better look to your wallet, guys, because they're all in on it.

Credit card companies all across the world are partnering with local merchants in a new scheme to deprive you of your hard-earned dollars. The scheme translates the consumers' desires for convenience into impulse buying. And that makes more money for the credit card company, more money for the local shopkeeper, and less money for you.

The trick? A minimum purchase level.

Here's how it works. Say you're buying a coffee on your way to work. You hand over your VISA card to the clerk only to be informed that there is now a $10 minimum purchase required to use the card. Uh oh. You don't carry cash anymore. Or perhaps you do but you're feeling a bit embarrassed and there's a line waiting behind you. And so you say, "Well, okay. Put a couple of those muffins on the bill."

The people in line are happy. The coffee shop owner is happy. VISA is happy.

You're the only one feeling like you've been had. And while you're chomping away at that second muffin (you didn't even want the first one), you're feeling even more like a chump.

And, of course, you are.

So far the $10 limit is the standard. That's what VISA laid down. But the other companies are going along with it. Of course. And who knows where things will go in the future.

So, I advise a couple of things. 1) Read this quick review of the credit card changes here at The Consumerist. 2) Don't get caught in situations where you're pressured to buy to the limit. Keep a debit card or a ten spot handy. And 3) Quickly inform local merchants who sign up for this plan that you do not appreciate it and that you're going to buy your morning coffee elsewhere. These places need to be encouraged to do the right thing.

Hartford City Council Invites Muslim Clerics to Pray

Calling it "an act of solidarity with our Muslim brothers and sisters," the City Council of Hartford, Connecticut announced yesterday that it has invited local imams to perform Islamic invocations at the beginning of the Council meetings in September.

This even though the Council meetings do not normally open in prayer.

The new "political correctness" regarding Islam is both inexplicable and alarming, steeped as it is in denial of the religion's teachings and cultural effects. A religion that has (throughout the world and throughout the centuries) insisted upon coercive conversion, subjugation of women and the harshest of penal codes is now being cuddled by liberals.

They conveniently close their eyes to jihad, to sharia law, to "honor killings," to the barbaric punishments for petty crimes (or for conversion to another faith), to terrorism, to genital mutilation of women, and to the most extreme religious intolerance -- all to show how free they are from the Christian heritage of their own culture.

It is but adolescent rebellion disguised as free thinking.

But alas, thinking has nothing to do with it.

Yipes! That Was the Summer of Recovery?

Violent Video Games: America's Real Pollution Problem

Is this what the Founding Fathers imagined when they drew up the First Amendment freedom of speech?

Only a fool would argue they did. And only a fool would deny the connection between the grotesque and wicked video games that are being produced for America's children and the escalating violence demonstrated in America's schools, streets and shopping malls. Protection from these purveyors of barbaric video games is possible -- but only if the attorneys general, the courts, the politicians and the parents acknowledge the obvious and take appropriate action.

Phyllis Schlafly reviews the matter in this important column.

Extremely violent and addictive video games are polluting the minds of an entire generation of children, and most parents are clueless. Young players earn game points based on how many murders they commit, with increasingly realistic bloodshed splattered around for teenagers and pre-teens to learn to enjoy.

These highly disturbing video games encourage players to shoot innocent bystanders to win points and to commit acts like using shovels to decapitate people so dogs can then fetch their chopped-off heads. If you find that shocking to read, just imagine how much more shocking it is for a 7-year-old to see it acted out in gory graphics and to win points for committing such crimes.

Other scenes include having sex with prostitutes and then killing them or committing heinous acts of terrorism. These deadly role-playing games not only desensitize and reward players for acts of extreme violence, but are highly addictive...

Virtually every school massacre can be traced to the young killers' addiction to violent video games. The video game industry reaps tens of billions of dollars in revenue and now even surpasses Hollywood in profits, revenues and influence...

A case challenging a law limiting the sale of these violent video games to children is now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. This case reached the High Court because a couple of lower federal court judges, the kind we call supremacists, ruled that these games are entitled to as much free-speech protection as, for example, Shakespeare, and laws limiting sales to children are unconstitutional.

The video game industry is trying to wrap its evil products in the First Amendment. The industry is asking the High Court to create a new type of free speech that would make it impossible to put any limit on this victimizing of children...

Today's Posts

Of Course, It's Not Obama's Fault

Red Ink for Black Ink: Dems Are Gonna Make You Pay for Tattoo Removal

Legal Abortion Is Not Safe Abortion

Obama's Immigration Bill Can't Hide His True Intentions

An Unconscionable ESCR Policy: And Obama Insists You Pay the Bill

L.A.'s Creepy, $578 Million High School

Of Course, It's Not Obama's Fault

Richard Cohen could be the poster boy for the leftist press in America. Richard Cohen hates conservatives and thinks they're mean, stupid and downright dangerous. Richard Cohen tries every way he can to drive people down the shining path of liberalism that he (and the others of the progressive elite) know is best for them. To that end, he engages in all of the normal methods used when liberals fail: omitting the facts, distorting the facts, excusing, changing the subject, appealing to "politically correct" authorities, and blaming others.

The essay Cohen penned for the Washington Post shows every one of those methods in trying to defend Barack Obama's lousy performance as Chief Executive.

Cohen still loves, admires and praises Barack Obama. He remains a true believer in the Big O. And yet...Cohen's article still isn't going to be fun reading over at the White House. Why?

1) Because the admission that Obama is presiding over "The Incredible Shrinking Presidency" is even more dispiriting because it comes from a loyalist. 2) Because blaming George W. Bush and the "ignorant," "frightening" American people isn't going to make for a winning political strategy. But, worse news yet for the White House staff, is 3) Cohen's deciding to spread the blame for Obama's seeming ineptitude to his team.

Will this become a trend? I suspect so. For Obama's pals know something is radically wrong. Their man just isn't being loved and worshiped as he was. But since he himself cannot be blamed (blasphemous thought), somebody else has to be at fault. Cohen fingers the staff, the speechwriters and that numskull who put The O behind that "massive and capaciously empty desk."

Writes Cohen, "But what Obama can do -- what he must do -- is get some new people. His staff ill-serves him so that he presents a persona at odds with his performance." And later, "The president needs better speechwriters. The president needs a staff to tell him not to give an Oval Office address unless he has something worthy of the Oval Office to say. The president needs someone to look into the camera so that, when the light goes on and he says, 'Good evening,' he looks commander in chiefish: big. In other words, the president needs to fire some key people. Either that, or the way things are going, the American people are going to fire him."

What do you bet the ever-increasing ranks of the unemployed soon include a few with White House experience?

Red Ink for Black Ink: Dems Are Gonna Make You Pay for Tattoo Removal

It’s election season and Democratic Congressmen are talking a good game on cutting spending, but giving over one-and-half billion dollars to urban gang rehabilitation centers for such things as tattoo removals won’t convince many voters they’re serious...

Voters having a hard time making the mortgage payment or finding a job will likely be less than thrilled that another chunk of their hard-earned tax dollars is being funneled down another rat hole.

Judicial Watch, who is tracking the bill further states, “The infusion is necessary because budget cuts have forced groups like Homeboy Industries to stop paying gang members to attend work training sessions and carry out maintenance work at centers that offer them a variety of free perks. Some do administrative jobs to help out, but they still get regular checks.”

Democrats, who control Congress, are terrified of the coming election–as they should be. With the biggest issues concerning voters being the deficit, jobs and the economy, bills such as this one aren’t going to do much to convince voters Congress means business about how they’re spending taxpayers’ money.

(Mondo Frazier at Death by 1000 Papercuts)

(Hat tip: Blogs Lucianne Loves)

Legal Abortion Is Not Safe Abortion

Legalizing abortion didn't make the highly unnatural, deeply immoral act safe for women.

After all, God designed a woman's body to receive and nurture her child throughout pregnancy, not for the inviolate sanctuary of her womb to be opened and the baby violently wrenched from its attachment to her.

Abortion -- no matter who performs it, no matter under what conditions it is performed -- is a cruel act that kills an innocent boy or girl.

And abortion is always a bizarre act of violence that endangers the life, health and spirit of the woman undergoing it.

When, as in the United States, abortionists conduct their grisly trade completely unchecked by either medical peers or health and sanitation officials, you get thugs like Steven Brigham (whose greedy brutality is described below) and one wonders how many others whose dastardly crimes are going without public notice.

Three weeks ago, physician Steven Brigham led a car caravan of patients from his Voorhees abortion clinic to his facility in Elkton, Md. After one of the patients was critically injured during her surgery there, Brigham put the semiconscious, bleeding woman into the back of a rented Chevrolet Malibu and drove her to a nearby hospital emergency room rather than call an ambulance.

Those details are contained in documents issued over the last 10 days by the Maryland Board of Physicians and Elkton police. The two agencies have launched a wide-ranging investigation into Brigham's long-troubled abortion business, which he conducts in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia.

On Aug. 25, the Maryland Board of Physicians ordered Brigham, 54, to stop performing abortions in that state, where he has never been licensed to practice medicine. By then police had raided Brigham's Elkton facility - from which they said they removed 35 "late-term fetuses and fetal parts" - as well as the Voorhees headquarters of his chain of 15 clinics, which does business as American Women's Services.

Maryland authorities seek missing medical records, and are looking into Brigham's habit of sending late-term patients across state lines after initiating their abortions in Voorhees.

Brigham's four New Jersey clinics cannot provide abortions after the first trimester (14 weeks of pregnancy) because they do not meet state safety requirements for such risky outpatient surgeries. Brigham has for years performed the first phase of such abortions there - the insertion of absorbent rods that dilate the patient's cervix over a day or more - and sent them to a facility in another state for the surgery. New Jersey law doesn't address whether inserting dilators constitutes abortion...

Maryland's action is just the latest problem for the doctor, whose medical license has been revoked, relinquished, or temporarily suspended in five states over the last 18 years...

The intrinsic dangers of abortion should make state authorities all the more diligent to oversee the abortion mills run by Planned Parenthood and others. But they rarely do. Indeed, veterinarian clinics, beauty shops and tattoo parlors are much more closely inspected and governed than are abortion facilities.

Why? Medical organizations, attorneys general, local authorities and police departments are all intimidated by pro-abortion politicians and their friends in the mainstream media.

It's another tragic case where political correctness kills...quite literally.

(This is why we are urging state attorneys general, like Jon Bruning here in Nebraska, to become careful, bold and diligent defenders of women by more stringently policing the cavalier conduct of abortionists.)

Obama's Immigration Bill Can't Hide His True Intentions

President Obama's expensive plans to rebuild portions of the nation's infrastructure do not include erecting that border fence that most Americans want built ASAP. Nor does his new band-aid immigration bill effectively deal with the huge illegal immigration crisis the U.S. is facing.

And anyone who takes a careful look can see how recent actions of the Obama administration prove the President's new bill is just a cosmetic change -- and a cheap one at that.

Here's John Lott from Fox News with more.

An Unconscionable ESCR Policy: And Obama Insists You Pay the Bill

In March 2009, the president issued an executive order reversing the direction taken by the previous administration, and offering the largesse of the federal treasury to scientists engaging in the use and destruction of living human beings. As implemented by the National Institutes of Health four months later — in guidelines Judge Lamberth has now enjoined while litigation proceeds — the Obama policy entrenches in federal law a deeply regrettable precedent: the principle that human beings at the earliest developmental stages may be instrumentalized and treated as raw materials to serve the desires of others...

Announcing his policy shift in March 2009, President Obama said: “Promoting science isn’t just about providing resources — it is also about protecting free and open inquiry. It is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient — especially when it’s inconvenient.”

But it is the president who fails to be open to the inconvenient truth about the human embryo, namely, that from the single-cell stage of development onward, the human embryo is a distinct, determinate, self-directing, integrated human organism — a living member of the human species who, if given a suitable environment, will move along the seamless trajectory of biological development toward maturity. At the so-called “blastocyst stage,” when the embryo might be destroyed to derive embryonic stem cells, he or she is already a living individuated organism. The very same organism — the very same human being — who, unless deprived of the conditions of survival, will soon be crawling, then walking, and then a few years later asking mom and dad for the car keys.

Is our humanity alone enough to merit protection and regard, or are we required to prove we have some other set of qualities or capacities to qualify for respect and protection? Should we be allowed intentionally to destroy living human beings for our speculative benefit because they are going to “die anyway”? Shall we treat human beings in the embryonic stage as less than fully human because the embryonic human would be more useful to us dead than alive?

With our fellow Neuhaus Colloquium signatories, we believe these questions have clear answers. Every human being deserves to be treated with the same basic level of concern and regard that we owe to all members of the human family. If basic human equality means anything at all, it must mean that individuals deserve equal moral regard and legal protection in virtue of who they are, not because of their worth as judged by others according to their own needs and desires.

Abandoning this basic principle of justice, the Obama administration has begun to incentivize — with funds provided by the American people and in their name — the exploitation and destruction of human life for scientific research. Judge Lamberth is to be commended for faithfully applying the existing law that expresses the principled conviction that human life is not to be destroyed with taxpayer dollars. President Obama now has a chance to reconsider his misguided policy and replace it with one that advances science while respecting the equal dignity of every human life.

Excerpt from "The President’s Stem-Cell Dollars and the Judge’s Rebuke," by Robert P. George (McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University), Yuval Levin (editor of National Affairs and a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center) and Matthew J. Franck (director of the Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton) in the National Review.

For more information about the positive effects of Judge Lamberth's ruling (not to mention the exciting and hopeful progress being made by stem cell research that does NOT harm human embryos), please read Dr. Sheryl Pitner's fine article published in the Omaha World-Herald last Friday.

L.A.'s Creepy, $578 Million High School

After your long holiday weekend in which you tried to forget politics and cultural de-volution, here's an article that will jolt you back into the real world of outrageous government malfeasance. It is a piece written by Allysia Finley, assistant editor at OpinionJournal.com, and it follows up on the $578,000,000 high school in Los Angeles I mentioned here a couple of weeks ago.

It's liberalism run amok.

But remember...it's for the children.

At $578 million—or about $140,000 per student—the 24-acre Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools complex in mid-Wilshire is the most expensive school ever constructed in U.S. history. To put the price in context, this city's Staples sports and entertainment center cost $375 million. To put it in a more important context, the school district is currently running a $640 million deficit and has had to lay off 3,000 teachers in the last two years. It also has one of the lowest graduation rates in the country and some of the worst test scores.

The K-12 complex isn't merely an overwrought paean to the nation's most celebrated liberal political family. It's a jarring reminder that money doesn't guarantee success—though it certainly beautifies failure...

I asked Mr. Rubin whether some of the school's grandiose features—like florid murals of Robert F. Kennedy—were worth the cost. "Did we have to do that? Hell no. But there's no accounting for taste," he responded.

Talking benches—$54,000—play a three-hour audio of the site's history. Murals and other public art cost $1.3 million. A minipark facing a bustling Wilshire Boulevard? $4.9 million.

The Kennedy complex is Exhibit A in the district's profligate 131-school building binge. Exhibit B is the district's Visual and Performing Arts High School, which was originally budgeted at $70 million but was later upgraded into a sci-fi architectural masterpiece that cost $232 million.

Even more striking is Exhibit C, the Edward Roybal Learning Center in the Westlake area, which was budgeted at $110 million until costs skyrocketed midway through construction when contractors discovered underground methane gas and a fault line. Eventual cost: $377 million...

But even though many Roybal kids can't read or do math, at least they have a dance studio with cushioned maple floors and a kitchen with a restaurant-quality pizza oven...

The district's building spree has sparked outrage from charter schools, not least because they are getting only a tiny piece of the bond pie. California Charter School Association President Jed Wallace says a charter school can be built at a seventh of the cost of the Kennedy complex and a quarter of most L.A. schools. For example, the nonprofit Green Dot built seven charters in the area—to serve about 4,300 mainly low-income students—for less than $85 million in total. These schools also have a collective graduation rate that's nearly twice as high as that of the Los Angeles Unified School District, which Education Week magazine pegs at 40%.

Mr. Rubin says it's unfair to compare charters with traditional public schools because charters aren't saddled with onerous government regulations regarding labor and environmental standards. What he doesn't say is that charter schools don't have taxpayers as a backstop. Traditional public schools "have no accountability or restraints," Mr. Wallace bristles. "They don't have to make the tough choices when costs run over."

That's fairly evident as I glimpse a billboard-sized marble slab engraved with quotes by Cesar Chavez, Maya Angelou and Ted Kennedy. But hey, you can't put a price on taste.

Today's Posts

"When Swing Was King" Invites You Along

Political Priority? Break the Democrat Stranglehold

The Power of YOUR Pen!

Can Modern Marriage Survive Modern Weddings?

World Hunger Report: Is Brazil the Answer to Agro-Pessimism?

Weep (And Pray) for Cuba

"When Swing Was King" Invites You Along

"When Swing Was King," the new entertainment outreach that Vital Signs Ministries provides to nursing homes, independent living residences and other groups is surpassing our wildest hopes.

The presentation has received rave reviews every time we've taken it on the road. Indeed, even though our first program was in July, we have already been put on the monthly schedule of several facilities.

We're even on the "second volume" of the presentation already. That's right; we are creating new programs for each month of the year so that every "When Swing Was King" experience remains fresh and exciting.

The hour-long program involves 1) 13 songs from the Big Band era; 2) an accompanying power point show with photos of the musicians, celebrities, and social life of the 30s, 40s and 50s; and 3) interesting introductions to each song and occasional comments about what is appearing on the screen. The audiences have loved it. The activities directors are thrilled to offer "sights and sounds" that are treasured by the residents but which just aren't available to them. And Claire and I relish the opportunity to entertain, to bring back memories and to make new friends.

But here's the deal -- just last night we received a last minute invitation to present "When Swing Was King" to the residents of Harmony Court, 1802 Wall Street in Bellevue at 4:00 PM this Saturday. And since several of you have told us you'd like to see what the excitement is all about, this is your chance. We asked them at Harmony Court and they said they'd love to have visitors! So, why not consider joining us Saturday afternoon? You can see what this new program is all about, spend a little time talking with the residents at Harmony Court, and then perhaps join us for a burger at Stella's afterward.

Give us a call if you're interested. And we hope you are.

Political Priority? Break the Democrat Stranglehold

The first political campaign that ever excited me enough to get involved was the contest between Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater in 1964.

I was in the 8th grade in Golden, Colorado.

In that race, educated and enlivened by my classmate, Grover Coors III, whose family had been rock-ribbed Republicans as long as they had been brewing beer, I came out swinging for Goldwater. I took the Arizonan's side in a formal class debate, argued economic conservatism with my pals...I even bought an AuH2O bumper sticker for my Dad's car.

Confidentially, Dad never used it but, since he voted right anyway, I didn't hold it against him.

That race set the tone for my political future -- except for one brief fling in the '72 primary season when Claire and I supported Democrat Henry "Scoop" Jackson. But Jackson almost didn't count insofar as he was more Republican than Democrat -- a national defense "hawk" who was strong on law and order, civil rights and fiscal responsibility. But, as you remember, the Democrat party lurched wildly to the left that year and picked George McGovern as its standard bearer, as wacky a liberal as had, in those days, come down the political pike.

So we voted Nixon that year...as did most everyone else in the country. We never again looked seriously at a Democrat because the Democrats took that '72 election to dedicate itself to the dark side. Indeed, since those days Democrats have not only been the party of big government, confiscatory taxes, weak national defense and Nanny State tyranny, they've declared themselves the enemies of those moral standards that have stood civilization well for millenia. It's the party that rewards sloth and shoddiness. The party of abortion. The party that opposes family values...even marriage itself.

McGovern, what hath thou wrought!

Naturally then, our votes have always been for Republicans. Even when the party didn't field the best candidate. Gerald Ford and Bob Dole come to mind. And even though Claire and I have always been registered Independents. Why? Because to support anyone else (Democrat or third party candidate) served nothing but the cause of the Democrat agenda.

And the Democrat agenda (in all things: economics, foreign policy, education, commerce and moral values) is disastrous for the United States and the cause of liberty around the globe.

I repeat -- I am an Independent. I am an Independent by legal registration and by conviction. And yet I urge those of you who have been frustrated by the G.O.P.( no one has been more infuriated by them at times than me) to carefully see how the Democrats yearn for division in the conservative ranks come election season. Genuine, thorough-going conservatives fight tooth and nail for their convictions -- even within the ranks. But the infighting must never become a substitute (not even a distraction) from the bigger fight we have with the Democrat Party and its nefarious designs on Western culture.

Recent history is quite clear that third parties, splinter groups, protest no-show intentions (even when principled and earnest) do not serve the conservative cause. Indeed, they give a tremendous advantage to Democrats to become even more entrenched, to pack the courts, to pack the bureaucracies, to write the rules, and to control the education system. Need I mention how valuable was Ross Perot to Bill Clinton?

The tea party movement, the general disappointment (in some circles, make that disgust) with Barack Obama, the rise of the alternative media are all changing dramatically the Republican Party. And increasing its power and its quality. There are still, as I've written before, plenty of "RINOs, Rockefellers and country-clubbers" that the party must purge from its ranks. But the time for that purging isn't the eve of elections. Keep in view the clearer and more present danger. The Democrat power structure must be dismantled before principled and efficient conservatism will even have a chance.

I think I'm speaking for Grover Coors here...and, quite probably, "Scoop" Jackson too. Let's first get rid of the stranglehold Democrats have on the nation. And then get back to streamlining, purifying and increasing the appeal of the G.O.P.

The Power of YOUR Pen!

For those of you interested in citizen advocacy (i.e., letting your light shine) through the specific ministry of letter-writing, I pass along some (not all) of the "action targets" which we used at last Monday's Vital Signs P.A.L. Night. I include links to further info and contact information to help you zero in as fast as possible.

You can also check out the sample letters I dropped into these posts: 1, 2.

I'd love to know if you follow up with your own letters to these folks, so please let us know.

1) Nickelodeon's ongoing promotion of sexual and violent video games to young children.

2) Requests for Senators and Congressmen to de-fund Planned Parenthood. For details you can use in your letters, simply type in "Planned Parenthood" in the Search box at the upper left. You'll get a ton.

3) The Food and Drug Administration's approval of the powerful abortifacient drug, ella. It's dangers to mothers are also extensive and very serious.

Food and Drug Administration
10903 New Hampshire Ave
Silver Spring, MD 20993-0002
or by telephone:
1-888-INFO-FDA (1-888-463-6332) -- main FDA Phone Number (for general inquiries)

Also let your political representatives know that you believe the FDA needs to be brought in check.

4) The "DISCLOSE Act" (S. 3628/H.R. 5175) is legislation that would place extensive new legal restrictions on the ability of corporations -- including incorporated nonprofit citizen groups such as National Right to LIfe and others who effectively give public voice to moral concerns -- to communicate with the public about the actions of federal lawmakers. The House has passed it already and it now goes to the Senate.

5) The Protect Life Act (H.R. 5111) would amend the new health care law to prevent federal funding for abortion or abortion coverage through government exchanges, community health centers, or any other program funded or created by PPACA. The bill would also protect the right of conscience for healthcare professionals and ensure that private insurance companies are not forced to cover abortion. Urge your political representatives to support this.

6) So What Will the Republicans DO If They Win in November? Read this post for more.

7) Letters to editors on any of these matters are in order.

8) Writing prisoners and in behalf of prisoners. We use the letter list provided by Voice of the Martyrs.

Can Modern Marriage Survive Modern Weddings?

"The modern wedding is a celebration of the ego, which is the biggest enemy of the subsequent marriage."

Andrew Brown, columnist for the Guardian, has some sage observations about not only the insane costs of the modern wedding but about its unrealistic focus.

World Hunger Report: Is Brazil the Answer to Agro-Pessimism?

The world is planting a vigorous new crop: “agro-pessimism”, or fear that mankind will not be able to feed itself except by wrecking the environment. The current harvest of this variety of whine will be a bumper one. Natural disasters—fire in Russia and flood in Pakistan, which are the world’s fifth- and eighth-largest wheat producers respectively—have added a Biblical colouring to an unfolding fear of famine. By 2050 world grain output will have to rise by half and meat production must double to meet demand. And that cannot easily happen because growth in grain yields is flattening out, there is little extra farmland and renewable water is running short.

The world has been here before. In 1967 Paul Ehrlich, a Malthusian, wrote that “the battle to feed all of humanity is over… In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death.” Five years later, in “The Limits to Growth”, the Club of Rome (a group of business people and academics) argued that the world was running out of raw materials and that societies would probably collapse in the 21st century.

A year after “The Limits to Growth” appeared, however, and at a time when soaring oil prices seemed to confirm the Club of Rome’s worst fears, a country which was then a large net food importer decided to change the way it farmed. Driven partly by fear that it would not be able to import enough food, it decided to expand domestic production through scientific research, not subsidies. Instead of trying to protect farmers from international competition—as much of the world still does—it opened up to trade and let inefficient farms go to the wall. This was all the more remarkable because most of the country was then regarded as unfit for agricultural production.

The country was Brazil. In the four decades since, it has become the first tropical agricultural giant and the first to challenge the dominance of the “big five” food exporters (America, Canada, Australia, Argentina and the European Union).

Even more striking than the fact of its success has been the manner of it. Brazil has followed more or less the opposite of the agro-pessimists’ prescription. For them, sustainability is the greatest virtue and is best achieved by encouraging small farms and organic practices. They frown on monocultures and chemical fertilisers. They like agricultural research but loathe genetically modified (GM) plants. They think it is more important for food to be sold on local than on international markets. Brazil’s farms are sustainable, too, thanks to abundant land and water. But they are many times the size even of American ones. Farmers buy inputs and sell crops on a scale that makes sense only if there are world markets for them. And they depend critically on new technology. As the briefing explains, Brazil’s progress has been underpinned by the state agricultural-research company and pushed forward by GM crops. Brazil represents a clear alternative to the growing belief that, in farming, small and organic are beautiful.

(Excerpt from "How to feed the world: Brazil's agricultural miracle," The Economist)

Weep (And Pray) for Cuba

Daniel Wilkinson has written a most noteworthy article, "The New Challenge to Repressive Cuba," which was published last week in the New York Review of Books and subsequently in places like Human Rights Watch and CubaVerdad. It is a provocative review of a new breed of Cuban dissident: mellow, desirous of an end to the U.S. travel embargo, yet still bold enough to stand against the repressive, corrupt and woefully inefficient regime of the Communists.

And using the new technology to communicate that opposition to the world.

Wilkinson also includes examples from some of the bloggers themselves telling of the hard, hopeless life most Cubans experience. It's a true picture of what the Castro revolution has produced, something sinister and heartbreaking...and far different than what Oliver Stone, Sean Penn and many Democrat leaders in the U.S. present.

Here is a bit of that article.

For decades, the Castro government has been very effective in repressing dissent in Cuba by, among other things, preventing its critics from publishing or broadcasting their views on the island. Yet in recent years the blogosphere has created an outlet for a new kind of political criticism that is harder to control. Can it make a difference?...

Like other government critics, these bloggers face reprisals. Last November, for example, Sánchez reported being detained and beaten by Cuban security agents. Weeks later, her husband and fellow blogger, Reinaldo Escobar, was subject to an “act of repudiation” by an angry mob of government supporters on a Havana street. Such public harassment, as Nik Steinberg and I reported in our recent New York Review piece, is commonly used against “dissidents” on the island, along with police surveillance, loss of employment, and restrictions on travel.(The Cuban government requires its citizens to obtain permission to leave the island, and those marked as “counterrevolutionaries” are generally denied it.)

And then there is the perennial fear of the “knock on the door”—as Sánchez puts it—announcing the beginning of an ordeal that has been endured by countless critics: arrest, a sham trial, and years of “reeducation” in prison. Cuba has more journalists locked up than any other country in the world except China and Iran...

The biggest challenge for Cuban bloggers isn’t outright censorship. It’s simply finding a way to get online. To set up a private connection requires permission from the government, which is rarely granted. Public access is available only in a few government-run cybercafés and tourist hotels, where it costs approximately five US dollars an hour, or one third of the monthly wage of an average Cuban. As a result, bloggers often write their posts on home computers, save them on memory sticks, and pass them to friends who have Internet access and can upload them—for example workers in hotels and government offices. Others dictate their posts by phone to friends abroad, who then upload them through servers off the island.

No amount of resourcefulness, however, can change the fact that most people in Cuba are unable to access even the unblocked blogs. Indeed, the bloggers themselves are not always able to read their posts online. Some have never even seen their own sites.

Still, by reaching large audiences abroad, the critical blogs pose a threat to the Cuban government’s international image—which explains why the government and its supporters have reacted so virulently, attempting to discredit the bloggers as pawns or even paid mercenaries in the service of US imperialism....

Whether the bloggers can ultimately influence US policy is an open question. In any case, their objectives appear to be more modest—and more profound. They are not polemicists or pundits so much as poets and storytellers. They are less concerned with proposing new policies than chronicling the costs to ordinary people of the repressive policies already in place. The bloggers’ ability to evoke the realities of daily life in Cuba, Prieto says, is another principal source of their appeal...

Here she [Yoani Sánchez] recounts the daily chore of getting water:

"On the corner there is a hydrant which, at night, turns into the water supply for hundreds of families in the area. Even the water carriers come to it, with their 55 gallon tanks on rickety old carts that clatter as they roll by. People wait for the thin stream to fill their containers and then return home, with help from their children to push the wagon with the precious liquid…"

"I still remember how annoyed my grandmother was when I told her I couldn’t take it anymore, having to use the bathroom when there was nothing to flush with. Then we had to pull up the bucket on a rope from the floor below, helped by a pulley installed years before on the balcony. This up-and-down ritual has continued to multiply until it has become standard practice for thousands of families. In their busy daily routine they set aside time to look for water, load it and carry it, knowing that they cannot trust what comes out of the taps..."

Today's Posts

The Lorigen Corporation: Genetic Engineering for Sale?

Obama's Inventing History Again

Christina Romer: Exit Stage Left

Speaking Truth to Power (via Letters)

On Malthus, Overpopulation Myths and Eco-Terrorism

The Lorigen Corporation: Genetic Engineering for Sale?

Coming this fall to theaters in New York City and Los Angeles -- and soon after, we're promised, to cities all across the country -- is Jim, a science fiction/horror film dealing with genetic engineering. It's unclear at this point what the exact message of the film will be but then the producers may well be stirring up a special intrigue about the film by purposefully keeping things mysterious.

Their creativity in designing a multi-tiered website touting Lorigen, the company that will "star" in the movie, certainly shows they're talented (and mischievous) enough to play that game pretty well. Goodness knows, they've got my interest. Check out that website, complete with Lorigen's company history, diverse services (with trademarks to enhance their commercial value), gift cards, and much more and you'll see what I mean.

To make sure you don't miss the video sales pitch Lorigen has there I've embedded it below. To describe it, the words troubling, creepy, and bizarre come to mind -- all because this fictional pitch is not at all different from what some scientists hope to offer the world in the future.

So, if you want to build interest in a ghoulish sci-fi film and don't have a big advertising budget, you'd do well to call the guys behind Jim and it's ominous Lorigen corporation.

However, with the release date coming up soon, there are a few other things slipping out. For instance, there will be three parallel time-lines within the movie, each presenting a view on the perils and promises of genetic engineering. And the director of the film, Jeremy Morris-Burke, replied to an e-mail question about the message in Jim -- “This is a movie about the issues involved in manipulating the genes of future generations," he wrote. "The wealthy have their own hidden system for maintaining their position. In that sense, the playing field is only level as far as you can see it...”

How much attention will Jim get? Will it ever make it beyond the two theaters it's booked for in October? We'll see. But again, if only to see if the inventiveness behind the Lorigen website and video can make the leap to a full big screen production, I'm very curious.

And whether it does or not, we'll always have this trailer from the movie to alarm our speculations about the future of genetic engineering.

Lorigen Engineering from JimTheFilm on Vimeo.

(Hat tip: BioEdge)

Obama's Inventing History Again

Remember that iftar dinner the president sponsored? The dinner that got him in trouble because he came out in strong support of the mega-mosque at Ground Zero, support from which he backed away the very next day? Well, it turns out he delivered another blatant lie at that dinner, one that slipped under the radar because his support of the Ground Zero Mosque was so controversial.

Warnet Todd Huston then goes on to explain just what that lie was.

Like we've pointed out so often, if you want to see good journalism nowadays, look to the conservative bloggers. They seem to be the only ones willing to look past ideology and the talking points handed to them by the powers that be and do some genuine research into the facts.

(Hat tip: Blogs Lucianne Loves)

Christina Romer: Exit Stage Left

The following is not the kind of story one expects to see in the Washington Post.

However, with the economy getting nothing but worse while the Administration of the Big O gets nothing but more incompetent and out-of-touch, even the likes of WaPo's Dana Milbank are becoming a bit snarly.

Lunch at the National Press Club on Wednesday caused some serious indigestion.

It wasn't the food; it was the entertainment. Christina Romer, chairman of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, was giving what was billed as her "valedictory" before she returns to teach at Berkeley, and she used the swan song to establish four points, each more unnerving than the last:

She had no idea how bad the economic collapse would be. She still doesn't understand exactly why it was so bad. The response to the collapse was inadequate. And she doesn't have much of an idea about how to fix things.

What she did have was a binder full of scary descriptions and warnings, offered with a perma-smile and singsong delivery: "Terrible recession. . . . Incredibly searing. . . . Dramatically below trend. . . . Suffering terribly. . . . Risk of making high unemployment permanent. . . . Economic nightmare."

Anybody want dessert?...

Speaking Truth to Power (via Letters)

Here are just three more examples of the citizen advocacy letters written at last Monday's P.A.L. Night. Like those posted Tuesday, they show how it's a lot more effective to voice your concerns (and complaints!) to people who are in positions to act. It increases their awareness; it increases their motivation to act responsibly; and it increases your effectiveness in motivating others as you share what you've done.

You'll see from Tuesday's letters and the three I print below that we cover several subjects in a P.A.L. Night. I hope it encourages you to write a few yourself. Go on; try it. You'll find it so much more satisfying than simply grumbling under your breath!

Note also that I've provided links within the letters which will take you to more information about that particular issue...and sometimes a way to respond on the internet.

Dear Senator Johanns,

I ask you to do everything in your power to see that Senator Burris’ amendment to this year’s DOD Authorization bill is removed. This amendment, if approved, would open up military hospitals to providing abortions. As a military retiree, I find this not only morally offensive, but it is an undue burden to military medical staffs. Let military hospitals do the work they do so well -- taking care of sick and wounded servicemen and women.

Thank you.

LTC (ret) USAF Quint Coppi
cc Senator Ben Nelson

Dear Viacom,

It troubles me greatly to read of the sexualized and violent video games that are promoted through Nickelodeon. It is well documented from scientific studies that these types of “entertainment” have extremely negative effects on kid's behavior.

It's tragically obvious that we are becoming a very violent society where love and respect for one another is a lost virtue. Don't keep making it worse.

What a tragedy that the entertainment has lost its ability to produce positive and healthy TV shows.

Be a true leader of what’s right and good for young minds to learn...even as they are entertained. Perhaps others would see the healthy aspects and follow your lead. It’s easy to make trash, but it takes talent to create shows that promote good and healthy choices.

Sincerely,

Don Kohls

Dear Attorney General Cuccinelli,

I want to thank you for upholding health regulations for abortion providers in your state. I am pro-life, and so I hate the taking of innocent life, but I am appalled that the women victims are subject to dangerous health environments as well.

If the state regulates beauty parlors and veterinarians health standards, abortion clinics certainly need to comply.

Thank you for your leadership in this. I hope very much our Nebraska Attorney General will follow your lead.

Sincerely,

Carol Coppi
cc Attorney General Jon Bruning

On Malthus, Overpopulation Myths and Eco-Terrorism

You've no doubt heard about the strange and tragic situation in which James Jay Lee strapped bombs to himself (or what was thought to have been bombs) and took a gun into the Discovery Channel building. He took hostages and demanded that the network executives create a new program which would emphasize Malthusian themes, themes which would convince people to stop having "disgusting babies" and instead save animals.

He was eventually killed by police.

Wesley J. Smith wisely resists the temptation to blame Lee's insanity on the extremists in the environmental movement (though their goals are basically what Lee demanded - 1, 2) but instead urges fairness and genuine accountability, showing the difference between an individual's unhinged mind and the organized violence perpetrated by PETA, ALF and other eco-terrorists.

But one nut does not define a movement and people who argue in the public square on behalf of controversial issues are not responsible for the actions taken by said nuts. Thus, Al Gore has zero responsibility for this terrorism, even though his movie is propaganda, just as technology skeptics have no responsibility for the Unabomber, or the pro life movement for the man who murdered the late term abortionist, Dr. Tiller.

However, when a group of ideologues organize for the specific purpose of engaging in terrorism/lawlessness as a tactic–such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF)–that is a different matter altogether. In such cases, it is incumbent upon the movement leaders, in support of which the terrorism is being mounted, to unequivocally denounce such tactics and cooperate with authorities in bringing the responsible to justice. Silence or winking approval in such cases amounts to praise by faint or non-damnation. In that case, I believe some blame can fairly be laid at the movement’s doorstep.

Today's Posts

Before Starting the Mower

Obama's Embryonic Stem Cell Research: Wasteful & Immoral

Barack Obama Prefers the UN to the USA

When Orthodox Christians Don't Take the Lead...

Is Your Teenager a "Fake" Christian?

How Far Is Too Far?

Conservatives Haven't Won Anything Yet

From Whence Western Civilization?

Before Starting the Mower

It would be a nice day to stay inside with a cup of coffee and the Helen MacInnes mystery novel I started last night.

Too bad we've got other stuff on the schedule -- blogging; mowing the lawn; finishing the paperwork for the bank (we're refinancing our house loan); sending out a big batch of the letters written last Monday at our P.A,L. Night; making copies of letters to be sent to Christians unjustly imprisoned in Communist and Islamic countries; editing the background music for our "Church History and Abortion" presentation; and working on the next volume of "When Swing Was King."

By the way, the second volume had its debut yesterday afternoon at Life Care Center. Very successful. In fact, I'll try and remember to talk about it a bit on tomorrow's blog. But now I've got to get to the grass before the next round of rain does.

Obama's Embryonic Stem Cell Research: Wasteful & Immoral

AUL President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest called the decision by the Department of Justice to appeal an injunction of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research “not surprising, but not the biggest story here.”

“Adult stem cell research has yielded incredible, life-giving results for people with many diseases and disabilities, while the stem cell lines created by destroying unborn children has provided little hope for those suffering,” Yoest noted. “Media reports indicate that more than $100 million in federal funds has been wasted on embryonic stem cell research in the last year alone. With our tax dollars, we should be investing in the adult stem cell research that works now and holds the greatest long-term promise for all Americans.”

Federal District Court Judge Royce Lamberth issued the injunction against the government’s use of tax dollars for embryonic stem cell research based on a reading of the Dickey-Wicker amendment. That 1996 law prohibits federal funding for research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed and was the foundation for legal challenge when Obama signed his 2009 order which allowed embryos to be destroyed in research paid for with tax dollars.

Barack Obama Prefers the UN to the USA

Other presidents have been wrong. Other presidents have been misguided. Other presidents have been weak and pusillanimous and pathetic.

Only one truly disdains America. His name is Barack Obama.

Carol Taber over at American Thinker has one of today's must-reads.

When Orthodox Christians Don't Take the Lead...

A Mormon television star stands in front of the Lincoln Memorial and calls American Christians to revival. He assembles some evangelical celebrities to give testimonies, and then preaches a God and country revivalism that leaves the evangelicals cheering that they've heard the gospel, right there in the nation's capital.

The news media pronounces him the new leader of America's Christian conservative movement, and a flock of America's Christian conservatives have no problem with that.

If you'd told me that ten years ago, I would have assumed it was from the pages of an evangelical apocalyptic novel about the end-times. But it's not. It's from this week's headlines. And it is a scandal...

Russell Moore, a preaching pastor, theology professor and dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, has some serious misgivings about the rise of Glen Beck's "civil religion" as a substitute for orthodox Christianity.

I do too.

Read the whole essay right here.

Is Your Teenager a "Fake" Christian?

This is what it has come to -- teenagers from church backgrounds discard the central tenets of their faith and decide to simply "play" Christians. And who picks up on the troubling phenomena? Your pastor? Youth leader? The evangelical press? No, they're too busy with creating a casual, hip, tolerant, self-centered, entertainment-enveloped, doctrine-free "worship" experience.

No, the whistle blower is a young female minister who teaches at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Here's the very unsettling CNN story, "More Teens Becoming 'Fake' Christians."

How Far Is Too Far?

“I heard somebody say that you can judge your own character by the things you do in private. I’d take that a step further and say you can judge your own character by the things you do with your girlfriend.”

Guys, gals, parents, youth leaders -- here's one of the best articles on chastity you'll ever read.

Fantastic stuff!

Conservatives Haven't Won Anything Yet

As an Independent (by conviction as well as registration), I want to pass along a timely reminder from Erick Erickson at RedState.com about the dangers of holding grudges, short-sightedness, the illusory hopes of third parties...and overconfidence.

Good article to read. Good article to pass around.

It has come to this, I’m afraid.

We need to keep our perspective.

Conservatives have won nothing. Nothing.

Ken Buck you say? Sharron Angle? Mike Lee? Pat Toomey? Marco Rubio? Joe Miller? Rand Paul? Nikki Haley?

Here, pay attention: they are all candidates...

...There is a huge difference between winning a primary and winning an actually election. One gives you the name “nominee.” The other gives you the name Senator, Congressman, and Governor. It is the latter that is important.A lot of conservatives want to go pounding their fists on their chests, declare themselves Tarzan of the Jungle, and pronounce their great victories. But we have, ultimately, won nothing.

Nothing, that is, yet. There are feuds breaking out. There are some conservatives who have decided to sit on the sidelines because their candidate did not win. There are some moderates who have decided to sit on the sidelines because their candidate did not win.

As I have said from Day One of my arrival at RedState, here we are conservative in the primary and Republican in the general election. Now is the time to mobilize and fight to take back the country from the Democrats. There is only one vehicle by which we can do that — the Republican Party.

Don’t get cocky. Don’t get overconfident. Don’t decide you’ve done all you need or want to do. Victory is ours, but we must fight for it all the way to November.

From Whence Western Civilization?

To me, one of the strongest arguments in favor of the Christian worldview has always been the historical one. In other words, look at the civilization that follows the belief system, and you have a good idea of the nature of the system itself.

Basically you can phrase it this way: Is the belief system anthropically sound? That is, does it work on the human level? Would there have been a Michelangelo without a St. Patrick, a Mozart without a Charlemagne, a Jonas Salk without a Newton? Would any of these, and the aggregate of humanists that comprises Western civilization, have come into being apart from a tradition that embodied, to some degree, the divine Incarnation?

I am painfully aware that there are thousands of Christians who (1) have no interest in -- and a great deal of impatience with -- this ancient discipline of justifying the faith, traditionally called “apologetics,” or (2) who are aware of this old discipline, but now consider it irrelevant at best, or impolite and divisive, at worst. To both groups, and any others whose faith seems something more to be consumed or politicized than to be passed on, I would ask: What did Jude mean when he spoke of “contending for the faith?”

Now, I know that Christian civilization is loaded with ambiguities. Still, I have to ask, would the normal "Western world citizen" prefer to be beamed down at random somewhere in Europe or North America, or, on the other hand, in Africa, the Middle East, Asia or Siberia? We instinctively know, in spite of our white liberal guilt, that some cultures are better than others. There is a reason for that, rooted in our faith, and we needn’t be unnecessarily equivocal about this.

(Dr. Jack Niewold, American pastor and educator. Remarks from Jack's Facebook page.)