Locks, Guns, Fear: Welcome to Post-Christian America

Government costs more and more and more. And the reach it extends into our pockets, our privacy, and our personal freedoms is greater and greater.

Yet the most basic responsibilities of government -- national security and protection of the citizenry -- are being desperately neglected.

L.A.'s CBS radio news station reports...

The city attorney of San Bernardino is under scrutiny for telling residents to “lock their doors and load their guns” during a city council meeting. The official explained that because the city is bankrupt and slashing public safety budgets people will need to start protecting themselves.

City Attorney Jim Penman said he doesn’t regret what he said. “You should say what you mean and mean what you say,” Penman said…

Penman said the city is dealing with bankruptcy, which has forced officials to cut its police force by about 80 officers. Consequently, there’s been growing criticism about the police department’s response time.

“Let’s be honest, we don’t have enough police officers. We have too many criminals living in this city. We have had 45 murders this year…that’s far too high for a city of this size,” Penman said.

The city attorney said it’s important for people to be smart about protecting themselves and their family. “I’m not advocating that people go out, who don’t have any training, and buy firearms. I certainly strongly caution anyone who has children at home not to have a loaded gun in the house,” Penman said.

“We need to take our streets back, we need to take our neighborhoods back and we need to protect our homes, and that’s what I think Jim was trying to say,” McCommack said.

The city of San Bernardino has seen a 50 percent increase in murders this year compared to 2011.

How Secure Is Planned Parenthood's Victory?

Happy days are here again for Planned Parenthood. November’s elections brought the $1 billion domestic organization, the largest abortion enterprise in the United States, a victory at the polls for which, in the manner of such things, it deserves credit. It has helped return to the White House the most active pro-abortion president in American history, protected the largest expansion of abortion and abortion subsidies since Roe v. Wade, and reinstated a Democratic Senate that will block pro-life initiatives and battle tooth and nail for judges who will protect abortion on demand.

In the wake of this impressive victory, a handful of commentators, most notably Thomas Edsall at The New York Times, are declaring the “culture wars” over. Naturally, pro-life women disagree.

The 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade is approaching, and it remains as true today as it was on that fateful morning in 1973 that it is unnatural and wrong for women to find themselves pitted against their offspring in the womb. The fight for life is one we can never relinquish because for millions of us — a majority now, if Gallup’s polling is accurate — the right to life is not about “our bodies, ourselves” but about our own flesh and blood and a human-centered future…

(Marjorie Dannenfelser, "The Culture Wars Are Just Getting Started" in the Washington Times. Read the whole article right here.)

Higher Education: Is It Worth the Outrageously Increasing Costs?

The clip posted below is an enlightening (and quite frightening) primer on modern education, college costs, job possibilities, student loan debt, and America's future.

This is incredibly important information for us all...but especially for your high school kids.

Our Pampered President

Despite all those jobs he created, all those millions he gave to charity, and all those examples of personal compassion and kindness he demonstrated, the media treated Mitt Romney as the wealthy, pampered, and aloof cad who was running against the sainted populist, Barack Obama.

Yet which one of these two has spent the last three weeks whining, blaming, and primping? And which one is preparing to take off on another of his oh-so-frequent frequent vacations -- a three-week, $4 million vacation -- while the country gets ready to plunge off the dreaded fiscal cliff?

Oh, for a fair press.

Oh, for an intelligent citizenry.

Oh, for a couple more aspirins.

O, the Times! O, the Morals!

* Christian-owned-and-operated Hobby Lobby Stores and sister company, Mardel Christian & Education, didn't receive the outcome founder and CEO David Green wanted in yesterday's federal court case. U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton ruled Nov. 19 that the Oklahoma City-based companies must provide the "morning after" and "week after" pills under new federal healthcare rules that begin Jan. 1. If they don't, the companies will face fines of up to $1.3 million per day…

* Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee will not use Christmas to describe the state’s Christmas tree. This is the second year in a row he has called the state’s tree a "holiday" tree. After last year’s fiasco, his office cancelled the Christmas tree lighting ceremony, but after 24 hours they rescheduled.

“Renaming a Christmas tree to a ‘Holiday tree’ is political correctness run amok,” said Matt Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “A Menorah is associated with Hanukkah. Its name should not be changed. Santa and his sleigh appear during December bearing Christmas gifts. His name and those of his reindeer entourage should not be changed. Everyone knows that an evergreen tree decorated with lights and ornaments in December is a Christmas tree. The only reason to change the name is due to crass bigotry and ignorance.”...

* The words “bride” and “groom” – along with “husband” and “wife” are about to become archaic language in Washington state as officials prepare to remove the terms from marriage and divorce certificates...

* More than 4 million people who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 did not vote this year. But by applying new voter science, Obama nudged enough replacements in key states — many who were rare or first-time voters — to give him his margin of victory (leveraged even larger by the Electoral College).

Years of stealthy multimillion-dollar efforts paid off forAmerica’s left in the 2008 and 2012 victories by President Barack Obama. Using new voter science to get rare and first-time voters to go to the polls, the races have changedAmerica’s electorate — those who make the country’s decisions by showing up and voting.

Aided by $5 million minimum from George Soros, plus millions more from others, at least two secretive institutions were created to enable this effort by focused research on behavioral science. Their results are made available only to liberals and their causes…

* "Under pressure, Stevie Wonder cancels appearance at benefit concert for Israeli military."

* "Rick Warren Uncertain if Homosexual Behavior is Sinful, Says ‘Gays’ Go to Heaven"

Today's Posts

The Facts Relevant to "Tax Fairness" (In Less Than 4 Minutes)

Among the Latest Outrages...

No, Blinky. City Crowding Is Not Proof of Global Overpopulation.

The Lethal Dangers of Political-Correctness

The Wonder of Ultrasound: Seeing Life Saves Life

The Facts Relevant to "Tax Fairness" (In Less Than 4 Minutes)

Among the Latest Outrages...

* Pro-life advocates are calling for a federal investigation after Canada’s official statistics agency has confirmed that 491 babies died after they were born alive during abortions between 2000 and 2009.

* "The White House’s Benghazi Bungling is Proving a Disaster" by Nile Gardiner in the Telegraph.

* Is this where ObamaCare is leading America? "Sick children are being discharged from NHS hospitals to die at home or in hospices on controversial ‘death pathways’. Until now, end of life regime the Liverpool Care Pathway was thought to have involved only elderly and terminally-ill adults. But the Mail can reveal the practice of withdrawing food and fluid by tube is being used on young patients as well as severely disabled newborn babies." (Sue Reid and Simon Caldwell in the Daily Mail.)

* "For Fourth Straight Year, Obama's Thanksgiving Message Doesn't Thank God." (Ben Shapiro, Breitbart.)

* "Abortion Central to Planned Parenthood's Business." (Suzanne Gage, Lincoln Journal-Star.)

* "Electronic Tracking: New Constraint for Saudi Women." (France 24)

No, Blinky. City Crowding Is Not Proof of Global Overpopulation.

The Lethal Dangers of Political-Correctness

Can a devotion to diversity be dangerous to your health? You'd better believe it.

Here are excerpts from a  Peter Baklinski report published by LifeSiteNews, "Canada Poised to Partially Lift Ban on Gay Men Giving Blood." Read it and be amazed.

And, after reading this, ask yourself -- Why would a homosexual, knowing how devastating is the danger to a person who might eventually receive his (at least, potentially) "bad blood," still insist on donating it?

Canadian Blood Services (CBS) has revealed that it is about to exchange the lifetime ban on homosexuals donating blood for a deferral system. According to a plan submitted to Health Canada, men who have not had sex with other men for somewhere between five to ten years would be eligible to donate.

CBS spokesman Ron Vezina told the Edmonton Journal that the organization is convinced that it has sufficient evidence to support a change from a permanent prohibition to a deferral.

Canadian Red Cross had put the ban in place in 1983 after thousands of Canadians were infected with HIV and hepatitis C from contaminated blood. Criminal charges were laid against several doctors, blood products companies, and the Canadian Red Cross…

Homosexual activists have been campaigning for more than a decade to have the ban lifted calling the prohibition against homosexuals donating “discriminatory.”

“This ban is discriminatory toward men who have sex with men, but it also continues to mislead the public into thinking that [homosexual activity is] the only transmission of HIV,” said Laura Keegan, spokesperson for HIV Edmonton, to the Edmonton Journal.

But the science that looks at rates of disease and infection in a population does not discriminate.

The Public Health Agency of Canada reported in 2008 that homosexual men as a group had by far the highest rate of new HIV infections, 44%, and that 51% of people with HIV in the country were homosexual men. In 2006 the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the U.S. found that approximately 53% of new HIV cases are in homosexual men, even though they only make up a tiny percentage of the overall population. A 2009 CDC report found that the rate of AIDS is 50 times higher among American homosexual men than in the rest of the population.

The CBS ban on homosexuals donating blood hit the limelight in 2010 after the organization sued homosexual Kyle Freeman for lying about his homosexual conduct in a pre-screening process and giving blood despite the lifetime ban…

Freeman, who had lied 18 times to donate blood, was found later to be infected with syphilis and gonorrhea...

If Canada lifts the ban, it will join the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan in allowing blood donations from men who have sex with other men.

CBS spokesman Vezina pointed out that despite CBS’s immanent plans to allow homosexuals to donate blood, the organization’s first priority is to manage the safety of the country’s blood system.

“We have to remember that the recipients who are infused with blood products bear 100 per cent of the risk,” he said.

“Given the history of the blood system, we have to make sure that whatever we’re doing is prudent, and not being done exclusively for the sake of political correctness.”

The Wonder of Ultrasound: Seeing Life Saves Life

When the Sonogram bill was being debated in the Texas legislature last year, the abortion lobby claimed that the measure was an unnecessary intrusion and that it would not impact women’s decisions to have an abortion.

However, one abortion advocate has recently admitted that the Sonogram Law is, indeed, having an impact for Life. Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO of Whole Woman’s Health — one of Texas’ largest abortion chains — told the Texas Tribune last week that abortions at her five centers have declined since the law took effect in October 2011...

Elizabeth Graham, Director of Texas Right to Life, is not surprised by Hagstrom Miller’s admission. “Looking through the window to the womb, women recognize the child growing within them is not an inconsequential blob of tissue. When equipped with facts and information about both pregnancy and abortion, women are empowered to choose Life over abortion. If abortion centers are seeing a decrease in their business, that means women are turning to legitimate health care agencies for services.”

("Activist Admits Texas Ultrasound Saving Babies From Abortion" by Rachel Bohannon at LifeNews.com.)

Today's Posts

How Did It Happen?

ObamaCare Update: Look Out for Layoffs, Business Decline

Who's Calling Chen Guangcheng the Rebel of the Year?

Just What Little Gunter Needs -- An Aggressively Atheist Children's Book

The Wednesday Tea Break Returns -- Because We Need All We Can to Get By Nowadays

How Did It Happen?

"It was just a few years ago that a British TV network reported that a majority of responders to a survey believed Sherlock Holmes to have been a real person. No kidding. And substantial percentages of the same group (some 23%, in fact) denied the historical existence of Florence Nightingale and even Winston Churchill.

Let's not feel superior, though. I would be quite surprised if Americans were not every bit as ignorant as their cousins across the Pond. After all, decades of inept (yet indoctrinating) schools -- plus the frightful mindbending that comes from hours spent in front of dull-witted movies, television shows and computer games, have a powerful effect on the citizenry.

And then...that very citizenry votes."

Thus did Mr. Peabody explain to Sherman the re-election of Barack Obama.

ObamaCare Update: Look Out for Layoffs, Business Decline

Shortly after Nov. 6, Zane Tankel, who runs 40 Applebee’s restaurants in the New York City area, announced that his company was freezing employment and would not build any new restaurants. President Obama’s re-election, Tankel explained, meant that ObamaCare was likely to be fully implemented, costing his company millions of dollars and significantly raising the cost of hiring a worker.

Tankel’s statement prompted outrage and threats of a boycott, but he was far from alone. Already John Schnatter, CEO of Papa John’s Pizza, has announced that he would likely lay off some workers. Earlier, Schnatter said that ObamaCare would cost his business $5 billion to $8 billion annually, forcing him to increase the price of pizzas.

Meanwhile, two other restaurant chains, Olive Garden and Red Lobster, are moving many of their employees from full- to part-time work in order to avoid the law’s mandate that anyone working more than 30 hours must have insurance. An owner of 40 Denny’s in Florida, meanwhile, says he’ll add a 5% surcharge to customer bills in 2014 to cover his increased costs.

While restaurants, with traditionally low profit margins and large numbers of low-skilled, low-wage workers, are exceptionally vulnerable to ObamaCare’s costs, other business are being hit too. For example, Boston Scientific has announced that it will now lay off up to 1,400 workers and shift some jobs to China.

And Dana Holdings, an auto-parts manufacturer with more than 25,000 employees, says it to is exploring ObamaCare-related layoffs.

These, and countless other employers across the country, are not doing an impression of Montgomery Burns. They are simply responding to economic reality.

Under ObamaCare, employers with 50 or more full-time workers must provide health insurance for all their workers, paying at least 65% of the cost of a family policy or 85% of the cost of an individual plan. Moreover, the insurance must meet the federal government’s requirements in terms of what benefits are included, meaning that many businesses that offer insurance to their workers today will have to change to new, more expensive plans...

Overall, according to the Congressional Budget Office, ObamaCare could end up costing as many as 800,000 jobs.

The election showed us that ObamaCare is likely to be with us for quite some time. Unfortunately, a great many workers are about to find out the consequences of that decision.

("The 49ers: How ObamaCare will keep unemployment high -- by forcing small companies to cut their workforce to fewer than 50 people." by Michael Tanner. New York Post.)

Who's Calling Chen Guangcheng the Rebel of the Year?

Guards routinely stole into Chen Guangcheng's house, wrapped him in a blanket, beat him bloody, broke his wife's bones. The blanket seemed especially gratuitous: Chen is blind. This went on for a year and a half, all because the self-taught lawyer had sued the Chinese government to stop forced abortions in his village…

Yes, this is a rightfully stirring beginning to an article about the courageous human rights champion, Chen Guangcheng. But did you really expect something like this from GQ Magazine?

Neither did I.

The article, "Chen Guangcheng: Rebel of the Year 2012" and written by John B. Thompson, is not without flaws. But it certainly is a remarkable place to find a pro-life hero so strongly praised.

Just What Little Gunter Needs -- An Aggressively Atheist Children's Book

"I think that God doesn't even exist. And if He does, than he definitely doesn't live in [a synagogue, cathedral or mosque]."

Hmm. Is this Richard Dawkins talking?

No, it's a mentoring hedgehog, warning a young friend about the dangers represented by religion in Michael Schmidt-Salomon's 20-page German children's book, (English translation)"How Do I Get to God, Asked the Small Piglet."

Published last October by Alibri, the book has been criticized as "dangerous for children" by the German Family Ministry but Gunnar Schedel, the publishing firm's boss, defends it as providing a needed service for the kids of atheists and others who are critical of organized religion.

"All three religions are treated equally in the book," he said. "No one is negatively singled out."

That, it seems, the ministry agrees with -- for all three are roundly trashed as being rooted in mindlessness, intolerance, coercion, even violence.

"The three large religions of the world, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, are slurred in the book," the ministry wrote in a December memo. "The distinctive characteristics of each religion are made ridiculous."

But to the author, it's all about freedom of thought, a freedom that he believes will undoubtedly lead to atheism. "Children also have a right to enlightenment. They should not be left defenseless to the scientifically untenable and ethically problematic stories of religion."

Daddy, read me a bedtime story, please. Oh no -- not the one about the cute and cuddly forest creatures dissin' God and demanding an end to the hierarchical oppression of free-thinkers. Please Daddy, can't I just have Sleeping Beauty or Winnie the Pooh once in awhile?

(Repeat post from Feb. 4th, 2008)

The Wednesday Tea Break Returns -- Because We Need All We Can to Get By Nowadays

It's been a long time since Vital Signs Blog featured Wednesday Tea Breaks but, with all of the angst we endure by living in this comprehensive and coercive Nanny State, I figure any little reminder of sweeter, saner days is a good thing.

Here's this week's entries: 1) The Vogues, 2) Spanky and Our Gang, and 3) Blood, Sweat and Tears.

It's No Puzzle

A Busy Day Before the Feast

Well, it's been a full day already...quite a run up to Thanksgiving.

First off, there were particularly intense prayers out in front of the Planned Parenthood abortion mill early this morning. Immediately alongside were Carol Moran, Quint Coppi and Don Kohls. We also switched cars with Don as he's taking Claire's for an oil change and assorted matters.

Next was a stretch of news-gathering and blogging as Claire baked eggnog pumpkin pies upstairs. What an aroma! We punctuated these activities with showers and then lunch.

And now we're taking off for a "When Swing Was King" presentation up in Ft. Calhoun. After that it's: a session at the gym; making my Alamosa Salad for tomorrow's Thanksgiving dinner with Claire's family in Lincoln; dinner; taking a pie to our single lady neighbor and playing with her dog; watching a Christmas movie; and a bit of reading.

We have a lot to be thankful for -- everybody does, of course. But among our many blessings is activity! May it ever be purposeful, effective and rewarding. Thank You, Lord Jesus.

Lincoln's Thanksgiving Address (1863) Is More Relevant Than Ever

By the President of the United States of America. (1863)

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.

And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln