Irrationality Reigns

How could a man with no record, no experience, no known convictions and no known core beliefs so mesmerize the millions to turn themselves, their children and their country over to a man armed only with neatly pressed pants, a good shoeshine and a seductive voice? We don't even get the salesman's smile...

Wes Pruden's Washington Times column is definitely not to be missed.

Today's Posts

I Wish This Was All We Had to Be Scared Of

Obamamania Hits Iran, Hamas, Cuba and Other Devoted Enemies of the U.S.

Stem Cell Expert Leaves England; Blames Insufficient Support for True Science

The Cold Reasoning of a Man Who Kills

Chip Maxwell on Taxes and Merging of Government Services

"The Court Should Not Have Done It All" -- A Remarkable Admission from Justice Ginsburg

Barack Obama Praising Violence Against Israel? Let's Go to the Videotape...Oh, Wait; the LA Times Won't Show It.

ACORN Employee: If Only 40% Were Valid Registrations, That Was "Okay"

I Wish This Was All We Had to Be Scared Of

Obamamania Hits Iran, Hamas, Cuba and Other Devoted Enemies of the U.S.

Last week an enemy of the United States spoke out and endorsed an American presidential candidate – Senator Barack Obama. Taken with other recent developments, voters should be deeply disturbed with this embrace of Mr. Obama’s campaign to become the U.S. commander- in-chief.

Ali Larijani (left) is the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, and was Iran’s representative to the United Nations who kept that international body from taking action regarding Iran’s program to expand its nuclear capabilities. On October 22, Speaker Larijani said that the regime in Iran would like to see Mr. Obama elected president.

Mr. Larijani is not the first hostile foreign leader to endorse or be aligned with Mr. Obama. In April, top Hamas advisor Ahmed Yousef also endorsed Mr. Obama. Mr. Obama’s long-time associate and self-described Marxist, Bill Ayers, actively backs him. Mr. Obama’s mentor and two-decade long spiritual leader, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, traveled to Libya to meet with the controversial Moammar Gadhafi. His church published a pro-Hamas piece on Rev. Wright’s “Pastor’s Page.” The article defended terrorism against Israel and denied Israel’s right to exist.

Mr. Obama’s political alignments are alarming.

Terrorist leaders never endorsed Bill Clinton, or Al Gore, or John Kerry. And to the best of my knowledge, terrorist leaders have never publicly supported a major party presidential nominee—until now...

Here's the rest of Ken Blackwell's compelling column.

Stem Cell Expert Leaves England; Blames Insufficient Support for True Science

(Oh, did I mention the scientist in the case is an ADULT stem cell expert?)

One of the arguments used by politicians and academic officials who aggressively support embryonic stem cell experimentation (like those of the University of Nebraska Medical Center) is the "brain drain" that occurs when top-notch scientists go looking for the most lucrative opportunities to do research. It's always been a specious argument, one based on the politics of raking in grant money rather than the best science, but here's a story showing how the "brain drain" principle may soon become an argument against ESCR.

A renowned British stem-cell expert is to leave the UK to pursue his research in France, claiming that there is insufficient support for his work here.

Colin McGuckin, professor of regenerative medicine at Newcastle University and an expert in adult stem cells, this week hit out at both his university and UK funding agencies. He said that they were prioritising embryonic stem-cell research above work with adult stem cells, despite the more immediate clinical benefits offered by his work.

Professor McGuckin plans to leave for the University of Lyon in January, taking a research team of about ten from Newcastle, including his research partner Nico Forraz. He will open the world's biggest institute devoted to cord blood and adult stem-cell research at Lyon.

Professor McGuckin is the UK's leading scientist working on stem cells derived from babies' umbilical cord blood. This method of extraction yields cells similar to embryonic stem cells, but is far less controversial because no embryo is destroyed in the process. Professor McGuckin, a Catholic, pioneered this method with colleagues in 2005, and has used the cells to grow liver tissue.

Speaking exclusively to Times Higher Education, he said he was leaving because he had to put his patients and staff first. "The bottom line is my vocation is to work with patients and help patients and unfortunately I can't do that in the UK." He said France offered a "much better environment" both to "cure and treat more people" and to "do good work"...

The Cold Reasoning of a Man Who Kills

...I know that many people disapprove of my activities. These people are convinced that no individual has the right to determine the end of his life. They are also sure that a doctor should never prescribe a medication to end life because he is professionally obliged to save life. The Hippocratic oath is what they have in mind.

We doctors today do not swear this oath and there is a reason for that — it is largely out of date...

The oath also forbids giving abortive medication to a pregnant woman. This used to be a risky matter for mothers because their pregnancies were usually well advanced before the foetus was detected. Nowadays an effective and safe drug can end a pregnancy in the early weeks without a problem. The excision of bladderstones is not immoral and the same can be said for a socially approved termination of pregnancy administered by a doctor.

When it comes to prescribing medication to a patient to help end his life, I view the Hippocratic oath in a similar way. With sodium pentobarbital, NaP, we have a drug that gives us for the first time the possibility of allowing a person to swiftly and gently pass away.

And what if there is no God?

The social rejection of suicide does not so much derive from the Hippocratic oath but rather from Christian traditions. Suicide is abhorred by all monotheistic religions. The Christian religion, which has influenced most of us, trusts to God's will in all of life's difficult moments. Only God who gave us life is entitled to take it away, runs the argument. So suicide becomes a sin. But what if this God doesn't exist? For those who do not believe, can there not be arguments for deciding the end of one's life: a life of suffering perhaps, or one blighted by increasing isolation, or the dependency on outside care?...

He needs me for that slip of paper. Is it correct to deny him the indisputably most humane means to determine the end of his life? If I do not help him, do I not play God, taking away from him the option of a gentle and, in his eyes, a rational death?...

I am a gynaecologist and as such help women to give birth. I have helped many children into this world. And I have done so gladly, it has always been an act on the borders of existence, bringing someone new to the world. But it is also part of my job to terminate pregnancies, that is to destroy something that could have led a healthy life. I have done this with less enthusiasm because the decision to end pregnancy is never taken with the knowledge of the creature whose life is about to be ended.

Now I am consciously active at another existential borderline, the voluntary exit from this world. I am not saying of course that suicide is the ideal resolution of a life. But it is just as legitimate as soldiering on to the natural end of a life. Both possibilities should exist — neither course is better than the other. And only those directly affected can decide on which way is the best for them.

If a person is determined to die, that does not mean he is mentally ill. Perhaps he simply does not believe in life after death and has drawn concrete conclusions.

Suicide is a human right. But it is vital not just to have that right but to be able to exercise it, with dignity and without using brutal methods. That can only occur with the medical prescription of Sodium Pentobarbital and with sympathetic human assistance. Suicide-help organisations make this possible.

That is why I am doing what I can to help.

Source: Dr. Alois Geiger, writing in the London Times.

(H/T: BioEdge)

Chip Maxwell on Taxes and Merging of Government Services

Marc Kraft is running for Douglas County Commissioner against the affable and very able Chip Maxwell (photo at right) and because of Chip's experience (8 years in public service, the last stint being a Douglas County Commissioner ), his popularity, and his principles (Chip is an active pro-life conservative), Mr. Kraft has had a hard time coming up with reasons to vote Chip Maxwell out of office.

So, like way too many do in political races, Kraft has taken to inventing issues. Most notably, Kraft is arguing that Maxwell is for higher taxes and a "forced merger" of the City of Omaha and Douglas County.

How does Chip respond?

"I’d like to shift more of your tax burden to sales tax, but only if the property tax is abolished. My opponent forgot to mention that part. Every year I served in the state legislature was a brutal budget crisis, and the pressure was intense to raise taxes. I said no, we should instead use the opportunity to overhaul state spending, especially the nonsensical way we fund K-12 education. Since I joined the county board in 2005, the county’s property tax rate has gone down 8.6%. I’m a tenacious defender of the taxpayer. Any change I advocate will benefit the taxpayer. I’ve proven that in my 8 years in public office, and you can count on me to keep looking out for the taxpayer."

And as for the rather strange charge of backing a "forced merger" of city and county?

"My opponent put out a hit piece on me saying I’m for forced merger of Omaha and Douglas County to create bigger and more expensive government. First of all, there’s no such thing as forced merger. A commission would be formed, there would be public hearings and opportunities for revision, and finally a vote of the people.

There are many ways to put together a merger package that makes sense for the taxpaying public. Other places around the country have done it, and so can we. If my opponent wants to make an issue of merger, that’s fine with me. Government insiders and special interests hate merger. The taxpaying public loves merger. The one time the concept of merger was on the ballot, there was overwhelming support from every corner of Douglas County. 90% of Douglas County residents also live in Omaha. The public understands that we don’t need two houses of local government to manage local services."

So pass these correctives around to your friends and family in mid-town Omaha (Chip's District 5 takes in 36th Street on the east end, Dodge on the south, basically 108th on the west, and Fort Street/Radial on the north) and make sure, that in their choice of Douglas County Commissioner, they're seeing the whole picture.

"The Court Should Not Have Done It All" -- A Remarkable Admission from Justice Ginsburg

Speaking of Roe v Wade, “I think the Court bit off more than it could chew...Of course it has to be the woman’s choice, but the Court should not have done it all. It is dangerous to go to the end of the road when all you see in front of you are a few yards.”

This from...gulp...Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

Here's the context.

Barack Obama Praising Violence Against Israel? Let's Go to the Videotape...Oh, Wait; the LA Times Won't Show It.

From today's New York Post editorial:

The Los Angeles Times is standing on what it calls journalistic integrity - a promise made to its source - in refusing to release a 2003 videotape of Barack Obama fulsomely praising a Palestinian apologist for armed "resistance" against Israel.

Pardon our skepticism.

The paper, which has endorsed Obama, said it obtained the tape from "a confidential source" who demanded "that we not release it." But what of the public's right to know?

Does anyone seriously believe that, as John McCain said yesterday, "if there was a tape with me and Sarah Palin and some neo-Nazi . . . you think that that tape wouldn't be made public?"...

...the founders of The Politico report that "Obama will win the votes of 80 percent or more of the journalists covering the election."

And journalists wonder why Americans don't trust the media.

ACORN Employee: If Only 40% Were Valid Registrations, That Was "Okay"

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports on the testimony of former ACORN worker Anita Moncrief and it isn't pretty: fraudulent voter registrations (a gang of 'em), lousy training, daily quotas set for ACORN workers registering new voters (you were fired if you didn't get yours done), "muscle for the money" schemes in which the organization would organize protests against corporations, and more.

Carol Hemingway, president of ACORN's Philadelphia chapter, told reporters not to pay any attention to Moncrief, calling the lawsuit a mere trick "to create voter-fraud hysteria and create a preemptive strategy to de-legitimize results of the upcoming election."

But Hemingway did not refer to the cold fact that all across the country evidence has shown ACORN's voter registration prowess (1.3 million so far) marred by huge numbers of illegalities. Invented names and addresses abound in these registrations as do "repeat voters."

Remember the angst, the anger and the convoluted conspiracy theories arising from Florida's hanging chads? Well, this election is looking like it will involve actions much more organized, much more sinister and much more widely spread than anything we experienced then.

And yet the judges, the media and, so far, the American public are yawning through the crisis.

Today's Posts

Dumbed-Down Voters: The Country's Future Is in the Wrong Hands

Obamedia's Five "Most Shameful Biases and Notorious Blunders"

"Dear Eliot" -- The Power of Loving Faith

Denying Personhood Is Part of a Spiteful, Sadistic Tradition

R.I.P. Objective Journalism

Dumbed-Down Voters: The Country's Future Is in the Wrong Hands

...Economist Bryan Caplan, author of "The Myth of the Rational Voter", points out, "the public's knowledge of politics is shockingly low." He scoffs at the idea that "it's everyone's civic duty to vote. This is very much like saying, it's our civic duty to give surgery advice," Caplan said. "We like to think that political issues are much less complicated than brain surgery, but many of them are pretty hard. If someone doesn't know what he's talking about, it really is better if they say, look, I'm going to leave this in wiser hands."

Isn't it elitist to say only some people should vote?

"Is it elitist to say only some people should do brain surgery? If you don't know what you're doing, you are not doing the country a favor by voting."...

Here's more of John Stossel's provocative column "A Duty Not to Vote?"

Obamedia's Five "Most Shameful Biases and Notorious Blunders"

Want to read Michelle Malkin's list of the year's five "most shameful biases and notorious blunders" of Obamedia? Of course you do. So here it is.

But be forewarned -- neither Ms. Malkin or I can be held responsible for what reading that list might do to your blood pressure.

"Dear Eliot" -- The Power of Loving Faith

The testimony of little Eliot Hartman Mooney and his family and friends is a very powerful one -- a story of life lived with courage, compassion and trust in the goodness of God. An inspiring video clip (6 minutes) comes via Igniter Media and can be viewed right here.

My thanks to my pastor (yes, I preach every week at another church but I still have a pastor) who sent this compelling video my way. I appreciate it, Dan.

By the way, if you found this video as moving as I did, you will undoubtedly appreciate reading the eulogy Eliot's father presented at the funeral. It is here. And, if you'd like to keep up with Eliot's parents and their ongoing adventures, here is their blog fresh with news of another baby, an appearance on Oprah this Friday and more.

Denying Personhood Is Part of a Spiteful, Sadistic Tradition

From Edward Cardinal Egan and published in the newsletter of the Archdiocese of New York comes a plainly-worded, profoundly important appeal. I encourage you to forward this post to many.

The picture on this page is an untouched photograph of a being that has been within its mother for 20 weeks. Please do me the favor of looking at it carefully.

Have you any doubt that it is a human being?

If you do not have any such doubt, have you any doubt that it is an innocent human being?

If you have no doubt about this either, have you any doubt that the authorities in a civilized society are duty-bound to protect this innocent human being if anyone were to wish to kill it?

If your answer to this last query is negative, that is, if you have no doubt that the authorities in a civilized society would be duty-bound to protect this innocent human being if someone were to wish to kill it, I would suggest—even insist—that there is not a lot more to be said about the issue of abortion in our society. It is wrong, and it cannot—must not—be tolerated...

Adolf Hitler convinced himself and his subjects that Jews and homosexuals were other than human beings. Joseph Stalin did the same as regards Cossacks and Russian aristocrats. And this despite the fact that Hitler and his subjects had seen both Jews and homosexuals with their own eyes, and Stalin and his subjects had seen both Cossacks and Russian aristocrats with theirs. Happily, there are few today who would hesitate to condemn in the roundest terms the self-deceit of Hitler, Stalin or even their subjects to the extent that their subjects could have done something to end the madness and protect living, innocent human beings.

It is high time to stop pretending that we do not know what this nation of ours is allowing—and approving—with the killing each year of more than 1,600,000 innocent human beings within their mothers. We know full well that to kill what is clearly seen to be an innocent human being or what cannot be proved to be other than an innocent human being is as wrong as wrong gets. Nor can we honorably cover our shame (1) by appealing to the thoughts of Aristotle or Aquinas on the subject, inasmuch as we are all well aware that their understanding of matters embryological was hopelessly mistaken, (2) by suggesting that “killing” and “choosing to kill” are somehow distinct ethically, morally or criminally, (3) by feigning ignorance of the meaning of “human being,” “person,” “living,” and such, (4) by maintaining that among the acts covered by the right to privacy is the act of killing an innocent human being, and (5) by claiming that the being within the mother is “part” of the mother, so as to sustain the oft-repeated slogan that a mother may kill or authorize the killing of the being within her “because she is free to do as she wishes with her own body.”

One day, please God, when the stranglehold on public opinion in the United States has been released by the extremists for whom abortion is the center of their political and moral life, our nation will, in my judgment, look back on what we have been doing to innocent human beings within their mothers as a crime no less heinous than what was approved by the Supreme Court in the “Dred Scott Decision” in the 19th century, and no less heinous than what was perpetrated by Hitler and Stalin in the 20th. There is nothing at all complicated about the utter wrongness of abortion, and making it all seem complicated mitigates that wrongness not at all. On the contrary, it intensifies it.

Do me a favor. Look at the photograph again. Look and decide with honesty and decency what the Lord expects of you and me as the horror of “legalized” abortion continues to erode the honor of our nation. Look, and do not absolve yourself if you refuse to act.

R.I.P. Objective Journalism

Jim O'Neill, writer, former Navy frogman and SEAL, and member of MENSA, deftly weighs in on the "death of journalism" theme in this Canada Free Press column.

...Sean Hannity has said that “Journalism is dead,” by which Hannity means that “objective journalism” is dead—journalism that attempts to be fair and balanced. In its place we have “partisan journalism”—journalism that acts as a mouthpiece for a particular party, candidate, or social agenda.

Okay, we have partisan journalism. The question is, why is almost all journalism—liberal journalism? Why is the main-stream media (MSM) almost universally in the tank for Obama?

Look at some figures. Pew Research – considered the “golden standard” of polls – recently confirmed that 70% of Obama’s press coverage is POSITIVE. The same poll showed that 60% of MSM’s coverage of McCain has been NEGATIVE.

The MSM doesn’t just give us biased or slanted news – they feed us “news” with quote marks around it. It’s partisan propaganda, pure and simple...

Today's Posts

If Objective Journalism Hadn't Already Died, It's Certainly Passed On Now

Barack Obama: The Socialist's Dream Date

Suffering from Clinical Depression? The "Mercy Killers" Have Just the Solution for You.

Choice Hotels Reverse a Bad Choice

What Lies Ahead?

If Objective Journalism Hadn't Already Died, It's Certainly Passed On Now

Michael Graham over at the Boston Herald tells you what you already know but there's still good reasons to read his column, including examples will make for great re-telling at the water cooler.

Did you see that amazing video obtained by the Los Angeles Times of Sen. Barack Obama toasting a prominent former PLO member at an Arab American Action Network meeting in 2003? The video in which Obama gives Yasser Arafat’s frontman a warm embrace, as Bill Ayers look on?

You haven’t seen it? Me, neither. The Los Angeles Times refuses to release it.

And so an incriminating video of Obama literally “palling around” with PLO supporters becomes one more nail in the coffin of “objective journalism.”

Alas, the obit for objective reporting has been buried - along with the stories about Obama’s 2001 support for court-imposed “redistribution of wealth” and Joe Biden’s latest gaffe...

So it is particularly heartbreaking for me to see the death of objective journalism. And believe me - it is stone cold dead. Sacrificed on the altar of service to Barack Obama.

Former New York Times [NYT] columnist and veteran newspaperman Michael Malone knows it. “I’ve begun - for the first time in my adult life - to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living,” he said...

Barack Obama: The Socialist's Dream Date

Robert Alt has a measured, yet still frightening, column here in the New York Post about the depth of Barack Obama's commitment to the redistribution of wealth in America.

Yes, an Obama presidency will be a great tragedy for Americans who speak for preborn babies, for natural marriage, for the need to effectively protect the United States from her many enemies, and for the rights of free speech and religion.

But for socialist radicals like Bill Ayers who want to wreck what's left of America's economy and eliminate entrepreneurship, open markets and free enterprise? Barack Obama is most definitely their dream date.

Suffering from Clinical Depression? The "Mercy Killers" Have Just the Solution for You.

One in four terminally ill patients in Oregon who opt for physician-assisted suicide have clinical depression and the Death with Dignity Act may not be adequately protecting them, concludes a study in the British Medical Journal.

The extent to which psychiatric disorders may influence patients' choices to hasten death is hotly debated. Under the 1997 act, doctors are supposed to refer patients to a psychologist or psychiatrist if there is concern that their judgment might be impaired. However, it is well-known that health care professionals often fail to recognise depression. In 2007, none of the 46 Oregonians who died by lethal ingestion were evaluated by a psychiatrist or a psychologist.

Researchers from Oregon Health and Science University assessed 58 Oregonians who were terminally ill and had requested physician assisted suicide or contacted an aid in dying organisation to determine if they had depression or anxiety. They found that some did. Fifteen met the criteria for depression and 13 for anxiety. Forty-two patients had died by the end of the study, including at least three who met the criteria for depression.

The authors point out that "the current practice of Death with Dignity Act may not adequately protect all mentally ill patients" and they have called for "increased vigilance and systematic examination for depression among patients who may access legalised aid in dying."...

(Source: Science Daily, October 8)