On The Mark

Flipper!

2012-01-30T18:01:00.002-05:00

This was too good to pass up.

Hat tip: Legal Insurrection

There Are No Homosexuals

2011-12-15T08:09:00.009-05:00

We often identify ourselves and others by the things we do or like doing. "He's a golfer." "She's a bowler." "I'm a truck driver." "She's an accountant." Children are often asked what they want to be when they grow up. Some may say, "I want to be a fireman". Others say, "I want to be a movie star". In ages gone by, a child might say, "I want to be president."

Forever ago, an episode of The Partridge Family consisted of the eldest child, David, being left in charge while the mother was away. The other children resented his authority and tried to make his job miserable. In an effort to frustrate him, his siblings hatched a plan. The two youngest children asked him for advice about what to be when they grow up. David encouraged them saying, "you can be anything you want to be." They responded, "we want to be Black." Hilarity ensued.

Of course, we understand the difference between being a particular vocation or having a particular hobby on the one hand and being a particular race on the other. The former has its basis in what we like and what we do. The latter is irrevocably rooted in our biological nature.

But we still talk about them both in the same way. "I am White." "I am an artist." It's no wonder we do the same thing when discussing homosexuality. We identify people according to their sexual behavior and desires by calling them homosexuals and heterosexuals. We then proceed in our discussion as if we have identified them by their biological nature, forgetting even to consider whether we are talking about growing up to be a fireman or growing up to be Black.

The heterosexuality of human beings is intrinsic to our nature. It is an obvious, irrefutable, biological fact of our species. One aspect of the definition of being human is heterosexuality. Each of our bodies is designed to fit together and to function in union with a body of the opposite sex.

Now, this fact does not prevent us from trying to find sexual satisfaction from all other things in the world, whether living or inanimate. But human desire is not always in sync with reality. Sex with a four-legged animal or a motorized device, or desire for it, does not change one into a four-legged animal or a motorized device. A human remains human regardless of his behavior. Human beings are heterosexual.

However, it is not technically incorrect to say that someone 'is gay'. But it's important to understand the only thing this can mean is that he has chosen to identify with homosexual activity in the same way a golfer identifies himself as one who is active in that sport.

But, if I were willing to risk validating the concept of 'hate speech', I might accuse of 'hate speech' those who say a person is 'born gay'. Essentially, such an assertion denies the humanity of those who engage in homosexual acts. One would be labeling another as inhuman because of their sexual behavior. I, on the other hand, insist that those who identify themselves as homosexuals are, in fact, human beings. By virtue of their humanity, and in spite of their behavior, it is impossible for them to have been 'born gay'.

Some who have correctly asserted that "homosexuality is a choice" have been asked, "when did you chose to be heterosexual?" This question intentionally confuses the two different ways in which we understand 'being'. But identity as homosexual has desire and behavior as its only basis. In contrast, identity as heterosexual has physical reality as its basis, which is then reinforced by desire and behavior. The answer to the question is, "I didn't need to choose to be heterosexual because I am comfortable with my sexuality. I accept who I really am."

Statist Theologians

2011-08-13T08:55:00.004-04:00

When arguing against pro-life Christians, so-called "Liberals" warn against the outrage of Theocracy. They confess that only Christians care about human lives other than their own.

When arguing against displaying the Ten Commandments in public places and when arguing against the objections of conscientious parents to the sexualization of their children through so-called "Sex Education" classes, so-called "Liberals" become self-righteous advocates for their "separation of Church and State". They confess the moral values they oppose are only found in Christianity.

However, so-called "Liberals" attempt to use the Bible in order to persuade Christians to support the Statist lure of so-called "welfare programs", thereby confessing their acceptance of Theocracy.

Love vs. Legalism

2011-06-05T15:05:00.008-04:00

In Crazy Love, Francis Chan writes:

Most Christians have been taught in church or by their parents to set aside a daily time for prayer and Scripture reading. It’s what we are supposed to do, and so for a long time it’s what I valiantly attempted. When I didn’t, I felt guilty.

Over time I gradually realized that when we love God, we naturally run to Him—frequently and zealously. Jesus didn’t command that we have a regular quiet time with Him each day. Rather, He tells us to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” He called this the “first and greatest commandment” (Matt. 22:37-38). The results are intimate prayer and study of His Word. Our motivation changes from guilt to love.

This is how God longs for us to respond to His extravagant, unending love: not with a cursory “quiet time” plagued by guilt, but with true love expressed through our lives.

What Francis Chan says about a "quiet time" can also be said just as accurately about tithing, church attendance, evangelism, or any number of other activities against which we have learned to judge one another and ourselves.

Lean Forward

2011-06-02T12:18:00.006-04:00

Obama's new campaign slogan is "Lean Forward". There can be no doubt about what it really means.

Edit: I now understand Lean Forward is actually the new slogan for MSNBC, and not Obama's campaign.
But really... What's the difference?

CA Schools Promote Gender Confusion

2011-05-25T14:55:00.006-04:00

Calif. School Tells Elementary Students There Are More Than 2 Gender ‘Options’

The trainer also told the children that this diversity applies to human beings as well. It is this rationale — that gender is pliable and that there are “more than two options” — that has some people frustrated.

There are moral implications for all this, but more central to what is being taught are common sense and biological facts. When you bring evolution into the discussion, you are talking about biology. Humans are not clown fish. In the context of human biology, there are only two genders. It‘s also worth pointing out that neither of them is an ’option’. We don’t get to choose our gender. Technology may someday allow the choice, but for now, we are stuck with what we’re born with. Cosmetic surgery doesn’t change the reality. That is the plain and simple biological fact. Teachers and whoever else is behind teaching this nonsense to children should be held publicly accountable for such drivel.

Hispanic Christian Democrats Demonstrate Against "Gay Marriage"

2011-05-18T21:35:00.004-04:00

Go West!

2011-04-23T09:49:00.002-04:00

Part One:

Part Two:

Hat Tip: The Right Scoop

The Palestinian Wall of Lies

2011-04-18T17:34:00.004-04:00

David Horowitz and Walid Shoebat stand against Islamic Anti-Semetic genocidal propoganda.

Democrats Truly, Madly, Deeply Love Abortion

2011-04-14T10:27:00.004-04:00

On This Aborted Fetus, Democrats Plant Their Flag

And then, totally by accident, Republicans stumbled onto the Democrats' Achilles heel. Among their specific defunding proposals, Republicans had suggested taking mere peanuts away from Planned Parenthood. The Democrats responded: NO! WE'LL CUT 40 BILLION! JUST DON'T TOUCH PLANNED PARENTHOOD!
[...]
If Republicans keep threatening to defund Planned Parenthood, they can probably get Democrats to repeal Obamacare, pass a flat tax and get a capital sentence for Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

Project White Rose

2011-03-13T00:47:00.002-05:00

Hat Tip: ARRA News Service

Smokey the Bear is a Fascist

2011-03-11T09:09:00.006-05:00

It seems any government agency can and will be used to deprive you of your rights. The National Forestry Service violated Bobby Unser's rights. That's far more serious than trespassing into a 'national forest'. The Forestry Service ought to be subject to punative fines and the individuals responsible ought to be in prison.

Hat Tip: The Heritage Foundation

All For One and One For All!

2011-03-05T10:53:00.013-05:00

Brilliant Response Against Exceptions for Rape/Incest

The trouble with unprincipled incrementalism and allowing for exceptions
Rebecca Kiessling

This is my response to Scott Klusendorf’s blog on the subject:

Hello Scott, thank you for bringing up these very important issues. Many in the pro-life movement will insist that we remain silent on things that matter to us in order to have “unity.” But the reality is that there is not unity within the pro-life movement on every issue and on strategy. We may say we want unity, but really, we’d like everyone else to either agree with us, or keep it to themselves. I think it’s beneficial for all to have logical discussions on issues involving strategy, and hopefully through these discussions we’ll at least gain more understanding.

I’m very thankful to have this opportunity to address the efficacy and import of what you refer to as “the incremental approach” to legislating abortion. I’ve written a piece which is the #1 ranked philosophical abortion essay on Google, and I’m well-able to articulate logical arguments on the subject, but for me, this is far more than merely a philosophical exercise. You see, I was conceived in rape and nearly aborted at two back-alley abortionists. But the dangerous conditions and the fact that it was illegal caused my birthmother to back out. She did not choose life for me. She chose abortion. Pro-life advocates and pro-life legislators chose life for me by making sure abortion was illegal in Michigan back then, even in cases of rape – 100% pro-life, no exceptions, no compromise, no incrementalism. They are my heroes and I owe my life to them! This is why I, in turn, do the same for others. I wasn’t lucky – I was protected. And so, it is with this sense of gratitude, purpose and urgency that I address these issues here.

I often hear the “burning building” and “sinking ship” analogies when speaking of allowing for exceptions – that you should try to save as many as you can. I believe that these analogies fail for several reasons. First of all, with the sinking ship, you are making a judgment call as to whom you should save – who is worthy of being saved first. This judgment call speaks volumes as to what values a society or organization holds dear. The saying, “women and children first” became a protocol used in marine disasters after it was established with the sinking of HMS Birkenhead in 1845, later employed in the sinking of the Titanic when 74% of the women on board were saved and 52% of the children, but only 20% of the men. By contrast, when the French ship SS La Bourgogne sank in 1898 killing 546 people, of the 165 survivors, 104 were crew members, 61 passengers, and only one woman. This was a product of the French Revolution and considered to be shameful to the entire French merchant marine. When we choose who we will save, it speaks volumes about what we really believe and who we are. Allowing for the rape exception says that children conceived in rape are disposable. It’s like putting us out there as infantry soldiers on the front lines, and then taking a huge step back, because you think that this current battle needs to be won and you perceive it’s the only way to achieve victory. But we are not column fodder!

Secondly, with the “burning building” analogy, the assumption would be that you would make efforts to go back and save the rest, right? In your blog, you state: “We are choosing to save as many as we can while we work to save all.” Well Scott, I would love to see the statistics as to how many times anyone has gone back to save the 1% after the 99% were already safe. How much are these incrementalists truly “working to save all?” I just don’t see this happening. Instead, all I’ve witnessed is that once the 99% are “safe”, the firehoses are being shut off, the fire engines are sent home, and unprincipled incrementalists are allowing the building to be burnt to the ground because, after all, those stuck inside are “only 1%.” Why bother wasting all of that water, manpower and other resources for only 1%?

The Hyde Amendment is a glaring example of this. A generation ago, the Hyde Amendment allowed for taxpayer funding of abortions in cases of rape. And instead of the pro-life calvary returning to save the 1% who’d been left behind, we had the celebration of the proposed Stupak Amendment a generation later as being a pro-life victory. In fact, NRLC originally sent out a press release saying that the Stupak Amendment wouldn’t provide for the funding of any abortions, which of course was not true because the rape exception was in there. When this fact was exposed, then NRLC and others dismissed it by saying that it “merely” incorporates the terms of the Hyde Amendment, and again, “it’s only 1%.” And so, mediocrity begets mediocrity. For me, this is so much worse than pro-choicers who would say to me “I think your mother should have been able to abort you / if I have my way, you’d be dead right now.” No, it’s much worse because it’s saying, “And our tax dollars should have paid for it!” Ouch! And that’s pro-life??? When you’re the 1%, you feel it, you get it, and it’s not a strategic game plan – it’s the lives and deaths of those similarly-situated. They are not a nameless-faceless irrelevant 1%.

Next, these analogies fail because the assumption is that 99% of the others’ lives have been saved by this unprincipled incremental approach, when that couldn’t be farther from the truth. What I’ve observed is a mediocre attempt to save the lives of the 99%, but in reality, very few have been saved by these measures, and they have not brought us any closer to ending legalized abortion – especially now with chemical abortions so readily available. Instead, many pro-lifers have become satiated with these so-called victories. When you’re satisfied with baby steps, why bother exhausting yourself with a giant leap? But after 40 years, you haven’t even made it across the room!

Fourth, these analogies and unprincipled incrementalism are based on the faulty assumption that you can’t save them all, and that simply isn’t the case. Scott, on your blog, you mentioned “abortion-control legislation aimed at limiting evil insofar as possible given current legal restraints” and “given current political realities.” Oh really? And what are those current political realities? Is it some supernatural phenomenon which is truly out of our sphere of influence or control? Of course not! The current political realities are lawmakers who have been re-elected because they’ve repeatedly received the exclusive endorsement of major pro-life organizations’ PACs in recurring election cycles, despite the fact that those lawmakers have not voted 100% pro-life. These lawmakers do not make the rape exception in a political vacuum. They make the rape exception because they are able to make the rape exception and get away with it. Too many pro-life organizations are not holding them accountable because they are allowing for it as well. Accepting rape exceptions = allowing for rape exceptions = supporting rape exceptions = making rape exceptions. The outcome is all the same, and what you support and applaud as a victory speaks volumes as to what your true values are. We will always have lawmakers who will insist on the rape exception as long as we have major pro-life organizations which tolerate, and thus, condone it. Instead of trying to push legislation through as quickly as possible, those who are 100% pro-life should hold out, as the Democrats did when they got what they wanted with the national health care legislation. They kept working their fellow lawmakers until they had them convinced and had the votes to win.

I just recently testified before a state house committee on a pro-life piece of legislation which had no exceptions. The sponsor of the bill was hoping for a 12 – 8 vote before the hearing began, but in the end, it passed with a 15 – 5 vote. Many legislators who make the exception have never really been challenged on this issue and have never put a face to it. I find that it’s rather easy to change the minds of those who make the rape exception – challenge them, hold them accountable, and put a face, a voice, a story to the issue. Even if it’s anecdotal, it’s still okay Scott. My observation is that many people like to keep this discussion in the philosophical realm so that the can play “let’s make pretend we’re not talking about real people,” so that you don’t have the opportunity to penetrate the stone wall they’ve built around their hearts with a personal story. But I’ve found that there’s nothing which pierces the heart like a personal story.

As a strategic means of ending abortion, unprincipled incrementalism has been a complete failure and got us the ruling in Roe v Wade. The majority opinion of the United States Supreme Court in Roe v Wade, Sec. IX, states, “If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment.” However, the Court noted the following in footnote 54: “When Texas urges that a fetus is entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection as a person, it faces a dilemma. Neither in Texas nor in any other State are all abortions prohibited. Despite broad proscription, an exception always exists. The exception contained [410 U.S. 113, 158] in Art. 1196, for an abortion procured or attempted by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother, is typical. But if the fetus is a person who is not to be deprived of life without due process of law, and if the mother’s condition is the sole determinant, does not the Texas exception appear to be out of line with the Amendment’s command?

“There are other inconsistencies between Fourteenth Amendment status and the typical abortion statute. It has already been pointed out, n. 49, supra, that in Texas the woman is not a principal or an accomplice with respect to an abortion upon her. If the fetus is a person, why is the woman not a principal or an accomplice? Further, the penalty for criminal abortion specified by Art. 1195 is significantly less than the maximum penalty for murder prescribed by Art. 1257 of the Texas Penal Code. If the fetus is a person, may the penalties be different?”

And then the Court concluded, “In short, the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense.”

You see, the hard lesson from Roe v Wade is that when ALL aren’t protected, NONE are protected. But it’s a lesson of which some are either ignorant, have forgotten, neglected, or have yet to learn. We will never have an end to legalized abortion in the U.S. as long as unprincipled incrementalists have their way.Many of the incremental laws which merely regulate abortion are heralded as necessary protections for women. So then why the rape exceptions? Don’t rape victims deserve the same protection? Again, it just makes no sense to throw it in there. If you can’t stand up for the 1% in some of these small measures, how are you going to do it when it comes to actually ending legalized abortion? You’ve already established that we’re expendable.

For those who would like to put names, faces and stories to this issue, please visit these pages on my site, which include written stories and videos:

www.rebeccakiessling.com/Othersconceivedinrape.html

and

www.rebeccakiessling.com/PregnantByRape.html

And there are a multitude of others for whom we speak. Never forget that 1% of 54,000,000 = 540,000 people!

Scott, I would have to be suicidal to acquiesce to a rape exception. I love life! I love the opportunity to live which was afforded to me by others who recognized the value and dignity of children conceived in rape, and that we were worth fighting for. My birthmother is thankful too. In fact, she and her husband legally adopted me 4 months ago – 22 years from the day we met. When you can say that you are committed to holding out for 100% pro-life legislation, it’s like saying, “I get it. You all matter. Yours were lives worth defending.” Now I hope you’ll all proceed from here and do the same for others!

Rebecca Kiessling, Esq., Pro-Life Speaker/Activist

Leftist Climate of Hate

2011-02-28T09:13:00.003-05:00

Union members call their governor "Hitler" only because he's trying to break up their monopolistic, budget-busting, sweetheart deals that were arranged by corrupt politicians. And they attempt to bully and terrorize those who report the facts.

Learning to Hate My Life

2011-02-26T21:21:00.006-05:00

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. ~Luke 14:26

As I consider my life since coming to faith in Christ, I see that as I have grown older, I have gradually, ever so slowly, learned more and more about following Jesus and about being guided by the Holy Spirit. But I also see that as I have aged, I have become more desperate for the materialistic things I have always wanted. For example, a sexy wife, and a high-paying job. While these are merely temptations to indulge in selfishness, still I struggle against growing desperation as I see the years rolling on ever faster.

Jesus says we must hate our respective lives in order to be his disciples. This desperation makes that easier. That is, it seems to. However, I suspect it isn't my life that I'm inclined to hate, but rather my circumstances. But resigning to hating my life because it isn't what I'd like it to be simply feels like giving in to discouragement. This kind of despair is not what Jesus is talking about. It seems instead to be hating the absence of particular idols from my life rather than hating my life.

The goal in having the proper perspective Jesus prescribes is not in being bitter over what my life is like, but rather in having no inordinate love for all the good of which my life consists. I must thank God for all his many blessings, yet never love them. I must keep them distant from my heart because this life, as good as it may be, is never the point.

The enjoyment of God's blessings is a natural consequence of having received them and appropriately results in gratitude and admiration for God. Yet my pleasure in life must never crowd out my love for God. Not in any way. Not in the slightest.

I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me. ~John 12:24-26

Straight Shooter

2011-02-26T00:10:00.004-05:00

Most politicians are either correct but lack the conviction to defend their own positions on the one hand or incorrect and have to dodge questions and give long-winded round about responses that don't tell you anything on the other hand. Chris Christie does neither. He is correct and he's courageous enough to tell it like it is.

Democrats' Anti-American Foreign Policy

2011-02-17T08:44:00.003-05:00

Democrats: Emboldening America's Enemies and Terrifying Her Allies Since 1976

[T]he moment Egyptians started rioting, Obama said, "We hear your voices."

He can hear their voices? He couldn't hear the voices of the tea partiers, and they were protesting on the streets of Washington, D.C.

But as long as Obama can hear the voices of protesters in Cairo, why doesn't he ask them what they think about ObamaCare? Maybe the Egyptians can change his mind.

The fact that liberals support democracy in Egypt, but not in Iraq or Iran, can mean only one thing: Democracy in Egypt will be bad for the United States and its allies. (As long as we're on the subject, liberals also opposed democracy in Russia, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and all the Soviet satellite states, China, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, Grenada, Nicaragua and Minnesota.)
[...]
For 50 years, Democrats have harbored traitors, lost wars, lost continents to communism, hobnobbed with the nation's enemies, attacked America's allies, and counseled retreat and surrender. Or as they call it, "foreign policy."

As Joe McCarthy once said, if liberals were merely stupid, the laws of probability would dictate that at least some of their decisions would serve America's interests.

I Can See Clearly Now..."

2011-02-13T07:31:00.004-05:00

2020!

Allen West for President 2020

2011-02-12T20:11:00.003-05:00

Now that our nation is so thoroughly burdened with debt, we are very tempted to look for a president who is adept at managing money and financial matters. But a president must be primarily shrewd with regard to international affairs and national security. Congressman Allen West has only just begun his first term as a representative from Florida. He has already demonstrated familiarity with international issues and the character required to overcome the suicidal leftists in congress. Some day, perhaps in 2016 or 2020, he will make an excellent president of the United States.

NPR & CBS Report Lies and Approve Slavery & Pedophilia

2011-02-05T11:25:00.013-05:00

Planned Parenthood (formerly The Birth Control League) staff in several different infanticide facilities are caught on video attempting to help a pimp obtain abortions for pregnant children who have been enslaved for the sex trade. This makes them accessories to child sex trafficking. NPR, CBS, and others aired blatant lies in order to defend Planned Parenthood. It is crystal clear, while NPR and CBS are ostensibly news organizations, they have a deep, abiding, desperate love for abortion.

Planned Parenthood, Child-Trafficking, and the Poor Choices of NPR and Company

The first dishonest spin I could find came from Media Matters. They asserted that the video was a “hoax” and that Planned Parenthood had immediately contacted the FBI to report a potential human-trafficking ring. This assertion was patently false. The truth is that these videos had been made in numerous locations. In each setting, a senior Planned Parenthood staff member did everything they could to help the supposed perpetrator continue to profit from the raping of children. They even went as far as instructing the supposed perpetrator on the importance of making sure the little girls “kept their mouths shut,” lest a concerned employee would get nosy and report them.
[...]
To my astonishment, NPR had taken the same spin and framing as Media Matters.
[...]
At that point, I wasn’t at all surprised to see CBS adopting the Media Matters/NPR framing and doing the same cover-up for the ignorance and lack of humanity displayed by numerous senior staff members from Planned Parenthood. It seemed so simple to me. Come out, thank Lila Rose for identifying the issue and bringing it to light, announce a new effort to better train staff, and most import of all, use the entire matter finally give help to the advocates of human-trafficking victims who have fought for years to educate the public on what atrocities are occurring right beneath our privileged little noses. But no, the Left Media’s little darling could do no wrong.
[...]
what about us as a nation? Do our past “choices” keep us from being able to honestly look at what has just occurred? Are we allowing our various political orientations to blind our ability to recognize such a clear case of wrong?
[...]
The videos of Planned Parenthood managers and staff doing these horrible deeds are accurate, truthful, and should be seen by all. The Mainstream Media Establishment’s portrayal of the videos has entered the realm of utter deception and has participated in perpetuating a system where adults and children are victimized by the human-sex-trafficking industry.

Wolves in Sheep's Clothing

2011-02-01T07:26:00.006-05:00

What about communists? Should they be welcomed into the conservative fold as well? GOProud claims to be a conservative group while promoting the cultural acceptance and normalization of gender confusion and homosexual acts.

CPAC’s Culture Club

“The issue is not that GOProud works on only four of the five traditional items on the conservative agenda — rather, it omits — because it actively opposes — one part of the core,” according to the official boycott letter that was sent to CPAC chairman David Keene in late November, signed by Cannon, Gary Bauer (president of American Values), Brian Brown (president of the National Organization of Marriage), and Mathew Staver (president of Liberty Counsel and dean of Liberty University’s law school). “It is no more acceptable as a participant at CPAC than a group that said it embraced the ‘traditional conservative agenda’ but actively worked for higher taxes and greater governmental control of the economy,” the letter continues.
[...]
Last fall, Barron all but “wrote Jim DeMint out of the conservative movement,” as Cannon tells it. In the heat of the midterm campaigns, GOProud joined liberals in attacking DeMint over comments he made about religious freedom and education — comments that bore no connection to any kind of legislative initiative. Barron has also said (on MSNBC, again) that DeMint — who’s now considered a Tea Party kingmaker — “has given up the ability to lead on any issues conservatives care about.”
[...]
This point was at the core of the November boycott letter: “We believe that, in general, the conservative movement is strengthened by the presence within it of organizations that give priority to particular, even single, issues. It is not necessary for each group within a political movement to embrace the fullness of a detailed and defined philosophy. But it is necessary for each group within any coherent movement not to stand in diametrical opposition to one or more of its core principles. It is our conviction that the institution of marriage and the family qualify — historically, philosophically and empirically — as such core principles. An organization committed to the ultimate abandonment of the legal and social meaning of marriage by definition disqualifies itself from recognition as a partner in the conservative cause.”
[...]
In the final analysis, GOProud may be doing conservatism a real service. The organization is helping a movement and party discern how to deal in a principled and prudent way with fundamental, personal issues in the political realm — in the contentious public square of a fallen world.

I have to respond to one point that is not central to the article, but is critical to GOProud's agenda:

GOProud presents itself as a victim. “The reason the boycotters applied a litmus test to us is because we were born gay,” its executive director, Jimmy LaSalvia, told the New York Times, where the controversy was featured this weekend.

Human beings are not gay. Human beings are, by definition, heterosexual. It's an obvious biological fact. That reality doesn't prevent us humans from participating in homosexual acts. But our identity as human beings is permanent and irrefutably heterosexual.

Bipartisan Revolt Against Obama's Statism

2011-01-29T16:47:00.010-05:00

Equality in education is a civil rights issue...therefore, the Democrats are reliably against it.

Boehner Set to Revive Successful DC Voucher Program that Democrats Eliminated

[T]he Omnibus appropriations act of 2009 defunded (roll call vote here) the successful program–effectively eliminating any opportunity for poor DC schoolchildren to escape the horrid DC public schools. The Democrats, namely Dick Durbin, claimed that the program funding would take away from the money the DC public schools needed.
GOP House Speaker Boehner and Senator Lieberman put out this video statement:

[...]
this is going to be a tricky issue for Obama and the Democrats–one that will further define the Democrats as bought-off, public-sector union hacks and self-serving politicians who continually oppress and exploit others for their own political gain. Some of you may think, yeah, those Republicans, but I will remind you–it was the Republicans who originally started the DC scholarship program and the Democrats (and a few of the usual RINOs) who filibustered it. Kinda like the 1964 Civil Rights Act–Democrats filibustered that one, too. Look it up.

Does anyone see a pattern here?

Obama's Neverland

2011-01-29T12:31:00.004-05:00

Obama Marks Anniversary of Roe v. Wade

On the 38th anniversary of the infamous and unconstitutional Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade, in reference to the illegal practice of murdering babies, Barack Hussein Obama said, “I am committed to protecting this constitutional right.” I wonder what fantasy land he is living in. There is no such constitutional right. On the contrary, human beings have an inalienable right to life which is supposed to be protected by the U.S. Constitution.

Mr. Obama said the 1973 Supreme Court ruling “affirms a fundamental principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters.”

As in, the way Obamacare intrudes into private family matters. Does he not realize people can hear what he says? Of course, he expects the Legacy Media to run interference for him, and it has shown tremendous aptitude for damage control. But, reality is ultimately inescapable.

Pence Has My Vote!

2011-01-29T12:19:00.004-05:00

Mike Pence has announced that he will not run for president in 2012, but is still considering a gubernatorial bid in Indiana.

Mike Pence Blasts Abortion Truce in March for Life Remarks

In a written statement containing Pence’s March for Life comments that his office emailed LifeNews.com, Pence said:
We gather to mark the 38th anniversary of the worst Supreme Court decision since Dred Scott. And we gather today in the shadow of a new pro-life majority on Capitol Hill. And we will keep gathering until Roe v. Wade is sent to the ash heap of history where it belongs.

These are trying times in the life of this nation. Our economy is struggling and our national government is awash in a sea of debt. Amidst these struggles, some would have us focus our energies on jobs and spending.

We must not remain silent when great moral battles are being waged. Those who would have us ignore the battle being fought over life have forgotten the lessons of history. As in the days of a house divided, America’s darkest moments have come when economic arguments trumped moral principles.

A nation that will not stand for life will not stand for long. You know there can be no lasting prosperity without a moral foundation in law.

And as to focusing on spending, I agree. Let’s start by denying all federal funding for abortion at home and abroad. The largest abortion provider in America should not also be the largest recipient of federal funding under Title X. The time has come to deny any and all federal funding to Planned Parenthood of America.

Thank you for braving the cold one more time and saying to the heart of our national government, ‘We will fight on for life. We will fight on for the unborn and the brokenhearted.’

And we will fight on because we know, as Jefferson said, ‘God who gave us life gave us liberty…and God is just and his justice cannot sleep forever.’

And we know this: We will win this fight because the deepest desire of every mother and father is to protect their child, at any cost, even with the own lives and that truth cannot be erased.

The American people will make this right. We will restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law. Because every American knows in their heart, this is the greatest nation on earth because we acknowledge the God-given right to liberty, the pursuit of happiness and the unalienable right to life.
Pence also hit on the truce during his speech before the Values Voters Summit in Washington. http://www.lifenews.com/2010/09/24/state-5484/
“Now I know some say that Republicans should stay away from such issues this year…that the American people are focused on jobs and spending and our movement would do well to stand aside, bank the win and return to fight after this fiscal and economic crisis has passed,” he said during the Values Voter Summit.

“But we do not live in a world where an American leader can just focus on our financial ledger. A political party that would govern this great nation must be able to handle more than one issue at a time. We must focus on our fiscal crisis and support our troops. We must work to create jobs and protect innocent human life,” he continued.

Pence continued, “To those who say we should focus on cutting spending, I say ‘Ok, let’s start by denying all federal funding for abortion at home and abroad! Stop funding research that destroys human embryos in the name of science, and let’s deny any and all funding to Planned Parenthood of America.’”

“We must not remain silent when great moral battles are being waged. Those who would have us ignore the battle being fought over life … have forgotten the lessons of history. As in the days of a House divided, America’s darkest moments have come when economic arguments trumped moral principles,” he said. “Men and women, we must demand, here and now, that the leaders of the Republican Party stand for life” and to do so “without apology.”

Abortion Is Not Legal

2011-01-29T11:54:00.004-05:00

For me, it is a tremendous encouragement to read the Truth articulated eloquently with reason and with love. Please read the entire article.

It's Not Legal

Abortion is not legal. It can never be. No matter what the Supreme Court has said, the fact is that the right to life is inalienable.
[...]
At just nine weeks, you can already see his extremities and hear the heart beating at an incredible rate.

With that evidence, even the Roe Court could not disguise its unlawful ruling. As it wrote then: “If this suggestion of personhood is established, [Roe’s] case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [Fourteenth] Amendment.” (Emphasis added).
[...]
Abortion is as incompatible with our American ideals as slavery. Roe did not make abortion legal. It only delayed punishment for the perpetrators.

God stands above all; may He have mercy on us!

If the Fed Won't Do It...

2011-01-29T11:13:00.003-05:00

...then the Several Sovereign States will!

10 states now developing eligibility-proof demands

Arizona

The proposal is highly specific and directly addresses the questions that have been raised by Barack Obama's occupancy of the White House. It says:
Within ten days after submittal of the names of the candidates, the national political party committee shall submit an affidavit of the presidential candidate in which the presidential candidate states the candidate's citizenship and age and shall append to the affidavit documents that prove that the candidate is a natural born citizen, prove the candidate's age and prove that the candidate meets the residency requirements for President of the United States as prescribed in article II, section 1, Constitution of the United States.
[...]
The Arizona bill also requires attachments, "which shall be sworn to under penalty of perjury," including "an original long form birth certificate that includes the date and place of birth, the names of the hospital and the attending physician and signatures of the witnesses in attendance."

It also requires testimony that the candidate "has not held dual or multiple citizenship and that the candidate's allegiance is solely to the United States of America."

Indiana

"After [Sen. John] McCain was nominated at the Republican National Convention, Republican officials filed with the elections division a certificate of nomination that attested both he and his vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, met the eligibility requirements set out in the U.S. Constitution. The certificate of nomination filed by Democratic Party officials for Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, contained no similar attestation.

Montana

Under Montana's plan by Rep. Bob Wagner, candidates would have to document their eligibility and also provide for protection for state taxpayers to prevent them from being billed for "unnecessary expense and litigation" involving the failure of 'federal election officials' to do their duty.

"There should be no question after the fact as to the qualifications [of a president]," Wagner told WND. "The state of Montana needs to have [legal] grounds to sue for damages for the cost of litigation."

Wagner's legislation cites the Constitution's requirement that the president hold "natural born citizenship" and the fact that the "military sons and daughters of the people of Montana and all civil servants to the people of Montana are required by oath to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States and Montana against enemies foreign and domestic."

Texas

Berman's legislation, House Bill 295, is brief and simple:

It would add to the state election code the provision: "The secretary of state may not certify the name of a candidate for president or vice-president unless the candidate has presented the candidate's original birth certificate indicating that the person is a natural-born United States citizen."

It includes an effective date of Sept. 1, 2011, in time for 2012 presidential campaigning.

Berman told WND he's seen neither evidence nor indication that Obama qualifies under the Constitution's requirement that a president be a "natural-born citizen."

"If the federal government is not going to vet these people, like they vetted John McCain, we'll do it in our state," he said.

He noted the Senate's investigation into McCain because of the Republican senator's birth in Panama to military parents.

At the time the Constitution was written, many analysts agree, a "natural born citizen" was considered to be a citizen born of two citizen parents. If that indeed is correct, Obama never would have been qualified to be president, as he himself has confirmed his father was a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom, making Obama a dual citizen with Kenyan and American parentage at his birth.

Other definitions have called for a "natural born citizen" to be born of citizen parents inside the nation.

Other states considering whether to enforce the eligibility requirements of the Federal Constitution:

Connecticut
Georgia
Maine
Missouri
Nebraska
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania

Didn't You Know?, Part 3

2011-01-25T09:50:00.005-05:00

Didn't you know that government officials promote and protect the bloody, grotesque, inhuman atrocity of infanticide? Didn't you know that so-called women's groups have no real interest in protecting women? The subject is so important and the article below so thorough and well written, I've left nothing out.

The Philadelphia Horror: How Mass Murder Gets a Pass

Let's give the "climate of hate" rhetoric a rest for a moment. It's time to talk about the climate of death, in which the abortion industry thrives unchecked. Dehumanizing rhetoric, rationalizing language and a callous disregard for life have numbed America to its monstrous consequences. Consider the Philadelphia Horror.

In the City of Brotherly Love, hundreds of babies were murdered by a scissors-wielding monster over four decades. Whistleblowers informed public officials at all levels of the wanton killings of innocent life. But a parade of government health bureaucrats and advocates protecting the abortion racket looked the other way -- until, that is, a Philadelphia grand jury finally exposed the infanticide factory run by abortionist Kermit B. Gosnell, M.D., and a crew of unlicensed, untrained butchers masquerading as noble providers of women's "choice." Prosecutors charged Gosnell and his death squad with multiple counts of murder, infanticide, conspiracy, abuse of corpse, theft and other offenses.

The 281-page grand jury report released Wednesday provides a bone-chilling account of how Gosnell's "Women's Medical Society" systematically preyed on poor, minority pregnant women and their live, viable babies. The report's introduction lays out the criminal enterprise that claimed the lives of untold numbers of babies -- and mothers:

"This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable babies in the third trimester of pregnancy -- and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors. The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels -- and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths. Over the years, many people came to know that something was going on here. But no one put a stop to it."

Echoing the same kind of dark euphemisms plied by Planned Parenthood propagandists who refer to unborn life as "fetal and uterine material," Gosnell referred to his deadly trade as "ensuring fetal demise." Reminiscent of the word wizards who refer to the skull-crushing partial-birth abortion procedure as "intact dilation and evacuation" and "intrauterine cranial decompression," Gosnell described his destruction of babies' spinal cords as "snipping." He rationalized his macabre habit of cutting off dead babies' feet and saving them in rows and rows of specimen jars as "research." His guilt-ridden employees then took photos of some of the victims before dumping them in shoeboxes, paper bags, one-gallon spring-water bottles and glass jars.

They weren't the only ones who adopted a see-no-evil stance:

-- The Pennsylvania Department of Health knew of clinic violations dating back decades, but did nothing.

-- The Pennsylvania Department of State was "repeatedly confronted with evidence about Gosnell" -- including the clinic's unclean, unsterile conditions, unlicensed workers, unsupervised sedation, underage abortion patients and over-prescribing of pain pills with high resale value on the street -- "and repeatedly chose to do nothing."

-- Philadelphia Department of Public Health officials who regularly visited Gosnell's human waste-clogged offices did nothing.

-- Nearby hospital officials who treated some of the pregnant mothers who suffered grave complications from Gosnell's butchery did nothing.

-- An unnamed evaluator with the National Abortion Federation, the leading association of abortion providers that is supposed to uphold strict health and legal standards, determined that Gosnell's chamber of horrors was "the worst abortion clinic she had ever inspected" -- but did nothing.

Meanwhile, the death racketeers have launched a legislative and regulatory assault across the country on pro-life crisis pregnancy centers from New York City to Baltimore, Austin and Seattle that offer abortion alternatives, counseling and family services to mostly poor, vulnerable minority women.

Already, left-wing journalists and activists have rushed to explain that these abortion atrocities ignored for four decades by abortion radicals and rationalizers are not really about abortion. A Time magazine writer argued that the Philadelphia Horror was "about poverty, not Roe v. Wade." A University of Minnesota professor declared: "This is not about abortion."

But the grand jury itself pointed out that loosened oversight of abortion clinics enacted under pro-choice former GOP Gov. Tom Ridge enabled Gosnell's criminal enterprise -- and led to the heartless execution of hundreds of babies. Mass murder got a pass in the name of expanding "access" and appeasing abortion lobbyists.

As the report made clear: "With the change of administration from (pro-life Democratic) Gov. Casey to Gov. Ridge," government health officials "concluded that inspections would be 'putting a barrier up to women' seeking abortions. Better to leave clinics to do as they pleased, even though, as Gosnell proved, that meant both women and babies would pay."

Deadly indifference to protecting life isn't tangential to the abortion industry's existence -- it's at the core of it. The Philadelphia Horror is no anomaly. It's the logical, bloodcurdling consequence of an evil, eugenics-rooted enterprise wrapped in feminist clothing.

The Pot Calling the Kettle Hateful, Part 5

2011-01-24T10:04:00.006-05:00

The Statist, Anti-American media defends violent rhetoric from their allies on the left and ignores death threats targeting patriots.

Suddenly Radical Frances Fox Piven Is Old “Widowed College Professor”

Now that Piven’s calls for violent revolution have landed her in the … spotlight (you thought I was going to say crosshairs, didn’t you! You vitriolic person!) and the media is circling the wagons.
[...]
Progressives who speak of Piven’s threats remain silent on the threats (worse ones) directed at Sarah Palin, whom progressives targeted online in death threats on Twitter and pages devoted to her death on Facebook.
[...]
Here is Piven advocating for violence as acceptable dissent in 2004:
“I have considerable respect for nonviolence but I don’t treat it as inevitably a necessary rule …
“It’s partly a problem almost strategy and propaganda, it’s a violent country, it’s a violent government, it’s killing people, and they’re going to call us violent if we break a window, but they will do that. Unless you have good reason for breaking the window, probably you shouldn’t do that, unless it’s,m you know, a big part of your strategy.”
Piven calls for violent revolution again in the most recent issue of The Nation:
So where are the angry crowds, the demonstrations, sit-ins and unruly mobs? After all, the injustice is apparent. Working people are losing their homes and their pensions while robber-baron CEOs report renewed profits and windfall bonuses. Shouldn’t the unemployed be on the march? Why aren’t they demanding enhanced safety net protections and big initiatives to generate jobs?
[...]
Second, before people can mobilize for collective action, they have to develop a proud and angry identity and a set of claims that go with that identity. They have to go from being hurt and ashamed to being angry and indignant.
[...]
Third, protesters need targets, preferably local and accessible ones capable of making some kind of response to angry demands.
Did Piven just say “targets?” Wait – shouldn’t the left be condemning this instead of defending it? How are we to take their calls for censorship civility seriously?
An effective movement of the unemployed will have to look something like the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece in response to the austerity measures forced on the Greek government by the European Union, or like the student protests that recently spread with lightning speed across England in response to the prospect of greatly increased school fees.
[...]as we saw after Arizona: when there was more evidence to tie Jared Loughner to the progressive-Communist movement, progressives double-downed on blaming the tea party.

The Pot Calling the Kettle Hateful, Part 4

2011-01-24T09:30:00.006-05:00

Those pesky citizens with all their liberties and whatnot!

Sheriff Dupnik Faces Voter Recall

Not much more than an hour after nutter Jared Loughner shot a Congresswoman in the head and killed several others, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik starting blaming the Tea Party and the right-wing for the killing.
[...]
We expect such gutter-dwelling rhetoric from sites like the DemocraticUnderground or the DailyKos. When a law enforcement official does it moments after one of the worst attacks against a federal official in years, it speaks to the character (or lack thereof) of the person in question.

In the days following, Dupnik doubled-down on his rhetoric, naming Rush Limbaugh by name. The mainstream media piled on laying clear blame on the Tea Party, Sarah Palin and the Republican Party in general. It must be news to me, but I didn’t realize saying “cut taxes” meant “go shoot someone in the face.”
Sheriff Dupnik played a critical role in bringing an all-time low to American politics and drove a wedge deep between right and left. At a moment when we all should have come together as a country to denounce the attacks of a mentally ill individual (one whom, I might add, was known to be mentally ill by Sheriff Dupnik’s office and who was previously investigated for making threats on others by Sheriff Dupnik’s office), Dupnik stood center stage and began the national blamestorming discussion.
[...]
Calls for his resignation are completely appropriate, however, the citizens in Pima County have something else in mind: they have begun the process to recall the Sheriff.

Recall is the ability of voters to fire a public official when they cease to serve the public. Sheriff Dupnik’s behavior is an extreme example of why such a remedy is necessary.

Didn't You Know?, Part 2

2011-01-24T08:45:00.007-05:00

How is cutting a baby's spinal cord different from sucking his brains out or abandoning him to die of neglect and exposure? Abortionists kill babies. It's what they do. And our president's support for it is a matter of public record.

Why the shock, Why the outrage, Why now?

The truth is, the procedure Gosnell preferred is not new. Third term, especially "late term," abortions are performed the same way in overwhelming numbers.

Commonly referred to as "partial birth abortions" the procedure begins the same was as the "Gosnell abortion." Inducing labor and beginning the delivery of the child is where most of the children are lost in both procedures. As many as 75% of the children lose their lives in the process of early induced labor. Leaving roughly 25% of the children involved to have their lives terminated through an additional step.

In partial birth abortion, the child is delivered to within two inches of being free of the birth canal. In the "Gosnell" he delivered the child completely.

But from that point on, little difference between the procedures existed.

Scissors would be used to puncture the base of the skull and to snip the spinal cord. On some occasions then the brains would be crushed and suctioned.

In other words, while Gosnell was collecting jars of tiny feet, severed from the babies he ended the lives of, abortion practitioners from coast to coast were performing the eerily similar procedures. And 100% of them done with the backing of the National Organization for Women, the National Abortion Rights Action League, and a long list of U.S. Senators, including then Senator Barack Obama.

It was State Senator Obama just a few years previous who had also called for votes on three occasions, in a committee that he chaired, in meetings that he had called, in which the life of a born child was in equal jeopardy to the ones Gosnell delivered.

The issue was a debate over whether or not Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois (a hospital operated by the denomination of Obama's church) could continue a practice in which a woman's labor could be induced weeks ahead of delivery. Roughly 75% of the children would die in the process, leaving roughly 25% who survived.

Instead of snipping spinal cords, the hospital would leave the children in the now infamous "soiled utility closet" to perish from exposure and neglect. Sometimes these children would expire in 45 minutes. Many times the children would struggle for life for the full 8 hours of a nurse's shift. And on multiple occasions the children would live for nearly a day.

Jill Stanek, one of the pediatric nurses who worked in the department while this practice was on going later testified before Obama's committee.

Obama's response? (According to Stanek?)

Roughly paraphrased: If a woman entered the hospital with the intent of seeking an abortion, then it was the woman's choice to allow that child to live or die. (Should it survive the induced labor.)

To be clear President Obama is the one and only ever elected federal office holder that has voted in favor of such procedures, and he did so three times, on the record.

All of which leaves me puzzled.

Why is Gosnell a monster, if so many people, including our own president believe it to be the fullest expression of "women's rights" to simply do what he was doing?

All Your Organs Are Belong To Us!

2011-01-22T13:27:00.003-05:00

Yet another grasp for power at the expense of liberty...

State plan volunteers all to donate organs, tissue

A plan that is being pushed now in the state of Colorado by two Democratic lawmakers would allow the government to assume that its residents want to donate their organs or tissue.
[...]
It calls for state administrators to present to applicants the statement:
You are automatically deemed to have consented to being an organ and tissue donor and this designation will appear on your driver's license or identification card. If you do not want to be considered an organ and tissue donor, you must elect to not be included on the organ donor registry by inserting your initials on the line below.
KMGH reported similar plans already have failed in Delaware, Illinois and New York because of the coercive nature of the statement.

Dr. Jackie Glover, of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities that is linked to the University of Colorado, had similar concerns.

"It seems coercive. It is not voluntary if you don't ask me," Glover told KMGH.
[...]
Commentator Wesley J. Smith at the First Things blog was alarmed.

"When [organ donation] was being pitched to a wary public, we were solemnly assured that only those who specifically agreed to donate their organs ahead of time, or with consent from family after death, would be donors. Now, we see advocacy to do away with specific consent – in other words to the concept of 'donation' – and replace it with organ conscription, in which the state could take your organs unless you specifically opted out beforehand…"

The British Medical Journal earlier studied the issue and said, "systems of opting out do not ensure higher rates of donation than opting-in systems."

"People may be more likely to donate when they feel they retain control of that decision rather than the law dictating that donation should take place. Brazil had to withdraw its system of presumed consent because it aggravated mistrust in the health-care system," the report said.

End Times?

2011-01-22T10:11:00.005-05:00

When we see natural disasters like tidal waves and earthquakes, odd events like 1,000 dead birds falling from the sky, or all the world's kings turning against Israel, some begin to proclaim the apocalypse. But it's events like the one described below that lead me to expect the impending wrath of God.

Oakland 2nd Graders Reportedly Engage In Sex Acts, Teacher Suspended

A teacher at Oakland’s Markham Elementary School has been suspended indefinitely after school officials said a pair of second-graders performed sex acts on each other in class – with the teacher present.
[...]
In one case, several students apparently took off their clothes and were naked in the classroom. In the second incident, a boy and girl reportedly engaged in oral sex in front of their classmates.

Atheism Saves!

2011-01-20T20:41:00.002-05:00

God to Gervais: No, Really – Thank You!

British Comedian Ricky Gervais ended his reputedly raucous evening of hosting The Golden Globes ceremony Sunday night with the mildly witty remark, “Thank God for making me an atheist.” I can’t help but reflect that God might well respond, “No, really, Ricky, thank you.” The atheism of someone like Gervais – a man who radiates unhappiness and self-hatred – has to be the best thing to happen to religion since the atheism of Bill Maher – a man who radiates unhappiness and self-hatred. Every time someone like this declares himself an atheist, twenty people must fall to their knees, crying, “Jesus Christ, don’t let me become like THAT guy!”

Didn't You Know?

2011-01-19T21:49:00.008-05:00

Abortionists murder babies. The abortion industry is built on the murder of babies. Didn't you know?

Philadelphia Abortion Doctor Charged With 8 Counts Of Murder

A West Philadelphia abortion doctor, his wife and eight other suspects are now under arrest following a grand jury investigation.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 69, faces eight counts of murder in the deaths of a woman following a botched abortion at his office, along with the deaths of seven other babies who, prosecutors allege, were born alive following illegal late-term abortions and then were killed by severing their spinal cords with a pair of scissors.

Because of the popularity of murdering babies, particularly in the Legacy Media, the District Attorney is actually defensive about prosecuting a murder case.

“I am aware that abortion is a hot-button topic,” said District Attorney Seth Williams. “But as district attorney, my job is to carry out the law. A doctor who knowingly and systematically mistreats female patients, to the point that one of them dies in his so-called care, commits murder under the law. A doctor who cuts into the necks severing the spinal cords of living, breathing babies, who would survive with proper medical attention, is committing murder under the law.”

There is nothing wrong with keeping cash in the house, but it is suggestive of criminal behavior.

Investigators say during a search of his home, they found $240,000 in cash.

The story indicates this so-called doctor was taking many short cuts. Apparently, it's easier to murder a baby if its entire body is no longer inside the mother. I can see how that would be the case. However, that trivial distinction is the only legal difference between murder and a medical procedure. But this murderer understands most rationally, as we all should, that there really is no difference. Murdering a baby is murdering a baby whether or not it, or any part of it, remains inside the mother.

Godless

2011-01-17T16:38:00.006-05:00

Stone Phillips of the Dinosaur Media just can't believe atrocities result from Godlessness.

How to Use Evil to Promote Your Agenda

Stone Philips asked the obvious questions probing Dahmer’s father and mother as to why Jeffrey committed these horrific acts. He asked if there were any signs, indications, events in Jeffrey’s life that would give us a clue as to how this monster was created. Was Jeffrey molested as a child? Did the screaming in the doomed marriage cause this behavior? The parents came up empty. They didn’t see any signs; they didn’t know of any catastrophic events. Jeffrey wasn’t abnormal or deviant by anything they saw. And if they had seen something, they would have hoped they would have reacted appropriately.

Then Stone asked Jeffrey the same question. Why? What caused you to do these things? Candidly, Jeffrey simply answers that he was Godless.

Shocking isn’t it? Jeffrey explains that up until he was caught and put into prison he had been told that he was primordial ooze, a product of evolution. After being convicted, his father sent him some information explaining that God created the world and the people in it. At some point, Jeffrey realized that he had to answer to a higher being. He logically understood that primordial ooze doesn’t have to answer to anyone or anything; a created human being MUST answer to his Creator.
[...]
Jeffrey’s father also added to the “God theory”. His father thought that if he had been more religious these things wouldn’t have happened. Notice he didn’t say: I wish we had him in sports. Or: If only I didn’t spank him. He put the blame right where it belonged: They were Godless.

If that were the end of the story, we could walk away with some important lessons. But, unfortunately, it’s not. You see, Stone Philips apparently didn’t believe Dahmer’s answer. He just couldn’t manage to take Dahmer’s answer at face value. Stone continued to probe into his parents, his classes, his life in general – ANYTHING but God – to explain why Dahmer did the heinous things he did.

But Dahmer stood his ground and said his parents were not to blame. His circumstances were not to blame. His father’s dreams and fantasies were not to blame. (Yes, they even tried that one.) He, Jeffrey Dahmer, took full responsibility for making the decision to mutilate his fellow man. And one day he will answer for his crimes to the One that created him and whose expectations for his life he cruelly violated.
[emphasis mine]

Way to go, Mr. Plumber!

Obama Moves Toward American Union

2011-01-15T14:55:00.000-05:00

U.S.-Mexico border vanishes under Obama agency program

U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada simply have been erased under a program run by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol that issues The Trusted Traveler of North America cards.

Instead of a representation of the United States, the cards issued by the agency under Barack Obama's leadership carry a logo that depicts North America as a continent, without borders to identify the United States.

Charity Volunteer Fired for Calling for Civility

2011-01-15T11:17:00.005-05:00

Video: Charity fires director for Facebook comments on Tucson shooting

Glen Busch and his wife have clothed more than 2,000 poor children since starting the Chicago chapter of Coats for Kids in 2005. That seems like a success story, but apparently a couple of Facebook postings asking people to stop leaping to conclusions over the Tucson shootings outweigh the years of good work performed by the Busches.

The Pot Calling the Kettle Hateful, Part 3

2011-01-14T12:26:00.005-05:00

The Pot Calling the Kettle Hateful, Part Duh

2011-01-13T12:15:00.007-05:00

YouTube Asked to Remove Video of Left’s Threats Against Palin

Ever since Saturday’s terrible tragedy in Tucson, Arizona, conservatives have endured, to use my colleague Dana Loesch’s words, a massive orchestration of defamation against them. And of all the vitriol that has been hurled around the internet, no other target has sustained more of it than Sarah Palin.

Within minutes of the shooting Saturday, the onslaught of inflamed rhetoric was immediate.
[...]
In fact, a couple of conservatives on Twitter – @coyotered9 and @JoeKenHa – were so disgusted that they decided to collect just a sampling of these public tweets and compile them into a slide show of sorts.

The result was this video, Twitter Users Wish Death on Sarah Palin, originally posted at YouTube. It’s since been cross-posted on Vimeo because of a takedown notice they received from YouTube in response to a privacy complaint. That’s right, one of the haters who was brave enough to publicly tweet her yearning for the death of a former Governor and Vice Presidential candidate is now suddenly concerned for her Twitter privacy.

As you can imagine, after the video first posted to YouTube, viewers were disgusted. In fact, quite a few from both the right and the left were sickened enough to let some of those Twitter users know that their behavior was reprehensible. And when the heat got to be too much for one user, she complained to YouTube about her precious privacy. Because she was “just voicing anger” in a public tweet and doesn’t want anyone “attacking her” back on Twitter.

This of course after publicly wishing death on a public figure.
[...]
The irony is almost painful. As the left is busy launching its Orwellian propaganda war against the right, accusing conservatives of inciting violence with their supposed dangerous rhetoric, the real and demonstrable dangerous rhetoric that’s been on display for all to see comes from the very fools who have been pointing the finger. The best way to stop vitriol is not to limit free speech, but to call it out when you see it.
[...]
Should the anti-conservative hate speech and threats continue, we’ll simply keep calling them out for all to see. With or without the help of YouTube.

Obama: "It's not MY fault!"

2011-01-13T10:32:00.005-05:00

Referring to the shooting of Gabrelle Giffords and others in Tucson, President Obama disagreed with the legacy media.

"Let's remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy. It did not."

Self preservation forced Obama to reject condemnation of others for their rhetoric because of the violent language coming out of his own mouth.

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” ~Barack Hussein Obama
Get out there and “punish our enemies” ~Barack Hussein Obama
“I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry! I’m angry!” ~Barack Hussein Obama
“Punch back twice as hard.” ~Barack Hussein Obama
I want to know “whose ass to kick” ~Barack Hussein Obama
“I’m itching for a fight.” ~Barack Hussein Obama

Vanderbilt Required Nurses to Pledge to Murder

2011-01-13T09:46:00.003-05:00

Vanderbilt breaks the law, denies having broken the law, proves they know the allegations are true by ceasing to break the law, and gets away with all of it.

Voila! Vanderbilt drops abortion demand

Only one day after WND reported on a complaint filed by a team of Christian attorneys over Vanderbilt University's requirement that nursing students pledge to participate in abortions, the requirement has been dropped.
[...]
Bowman had explained the Vanderbilt policy violated the law providing that any institution receiving federal grants cannot force, coerce or otherwise require an individual to assist in abortions.
[...]
In a statement one day earlier, Vanderbilt University Medical Center spokesman John Howser said the ADF was mistaken.

2011 Index of Economic Freedom

2011-01-13T09:40:00.001-05:00

The U.S. no longer ranks among the worlds freest economies.
[...]
The global average increased as many countries embraced the policies the U.S. once championed.

Sarah Palin Shames Her False Accusers

2011-01-12T09:49:00.003-05:00

Sarah Palin: "America's Enduring Strength" from Sarah Palin on Vimeo.

Transcript:

Like millions of Americans I learned of the tragic events in Arizona on Saturday, and my heart broke for the innocent victims. No words can fill the hole left by the death of an innocent, but we do mourn for the victims’ families as we express our sympathy.

I agree with the sentiments shared yesterday at the beautiful Catholic mass held in honor of the victims. The mass will hopefully help begin a healing process for the families touched by this tragedy and for our country.

Our exceptional nation, so vibrant with ideas and the passionate exchange and debate of ideas, is a light to the rest of the world. Congresswoman Giffords and her constituents were exercising their right to exchange ideas that day, to celebrate our Republic’s core values and peacefully assemble to petition our government. It’s inexcusable and incomprehensible why a single evil man took the lives of peaceful citizens that day.

There is a bittersweet irony that the strength of the American spirit shines brightest in times of tragedy. We saw that in Arizona. We saw the tenacity of those clinging to life, the compassion of those who kept the victims alive, and the heroism of those who overpowered a deranged gunman.

Like many, I’ve spent the past few days reflecting on what happened and praying for guidance. After this shocking tragedy, I listened at first puzzled, then with concern, and now with sadness, to the irresponsible statements from people attempting to apportion blame for this terrible event.

President Reagan said, “We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.” Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state, not with those who listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle, not with law-abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign rallies, not with those who proudly voted in the last election.

The last election was all about taking responsibility for our country’s future. President Obama and I may not agree on everything, but I know he would join me in affirming the health of our democratic process. Two years ago his party was victorious. Last November, the other party won. In both elections the will of the American people was heard, and the peaceful transition of power proved yet again the enduring strength of our Republic.

Vigorous and spirited public debates during elections are among our most cherished traditions. And after the election, we shake hands and get back to work, and often both sides find common ground back in D.C. and elsewhere. If you don’t like a person’s vision for the country, you’re free to debate that vision. If you don’t like their ideas, you’re free to propose better ideas. But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.

There are those who claim political rhetoric is to blame for the despicable act of this deranged, apparently apolitical criminal. And they claim political debate has somehow gotten more heated just recently. But when was it less heated? Back in those “calm days” when political figures literally settled their differences with dueling pistols? In an ideal world all discourse would be civil and all disagreements cordial. But our Founding Fathers knew they weren’t designing a system for perfect men and women. If men and women were angels, there would be no need for government. Our Founders’ genius was to design a system that helped settle the inevitable conflicts caused by our imperfect passions in civil ways. So, we must condemn violence if our Republic is to endure.

As I said while campaigning for others last March in Arizona during a very heated primary race, “We know violence isn’t the answer. When we ‘take up our arms’, we’re talking about our vote.” Yes, our debates are full of passion, but we settle our political differences respectfully at the ballot box – as we did just two months ago, and as our Republic enables us to do again in the next election, and the next. That’s who we are as Americans and how we were meant to be. Public discourse and debate isn’t a sign of crisis, but of our enduring strength. It is part of why America is exceptional.

No one should be deterred from speaking up and speaking out in peaceful dissent, and we certainly must not be deterred by those who embrace evil and call it good. And we will not be stopped from celebrating the greatness of our country and our foundational freedoms by those who mock its greatness by being intolerant of differing opinion and seeking to muzzle dissent with shrill cries of imagined insults.

Just days before she was shot, Congresswoman Giffords read the First Amendment on the floor of the House. It was a beautiful moment and more than simply “symbolic,” as some claim, to have the Constitution read by our Congress. I am confident she knew that reading our sacred charter of liberty was more than just “symbolic.” But less than a week after Congresswoman Giffords reaffirmed our protected freedoms, another member of Congress announced that he would propose a law that would criminalize speech he found offensive.

It is in the hour when our values are challenged that we must remain resolved to protect those values. Recall how the events of 9-11 challenged our values and we had to fight the tendency to trade our freedoms for perceived security. And so it is today.

Let us honor those precious lives cut short in Tucson by praying for them and their families and by cherishing their memories. Let us pray for the full recovery of the wounded. And let us pray for our country. In times like this we need God’s guidance and the peace He provides. We need strength to not let the random acts of a criminal turn us against ourselves, or weaken our solid foundation, or provide a pretext to stifle debate.

America must be stronger than the evil we saw displayed last week. We are better than the mindless finger-pointing we endured in the wake of the tragedy. We will come out of this stronger and more united in our desire to peacefully engage in the great debates of our time, to respectfully embrace our differences in a positive manner, and to unite in the knowledge that, though our ideas may be different, we must all strive for a better future for our country. May God bless America.

The Pot Calling the Kettle Hateful

2011-01-11T09:03:00.007-05:00

Traitors once again leap to accuse patriots of inciting violence in spite of all evidence to the contrary, all the while continuing to ignore the ubiquitous vitriol from the Left.
Angelic spitfire, Michelle Malkin, has assembled an extensive, though not exhaustive, presentation of leftist violence and expressions of bitter, vicious hatred from communists, anti-Americans, gender confusion activists, and other atheists and tyrants directed toward conservatives and Republicans. Excerpted is only the brief bit at the end consisting of quotes from the U.S. President who has demonstrated a proclivity for violent language.

The progressive “climate of hate:” An illustrated primer, 2000-2010

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” — Not Sarah Palin
Get out there and “punish our enemies” — Not Mitch McConnell
“I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry! I’m angry!” — Not Rush Limbaugh
“Punch back twice as hard.” – Not John Boehner
I want to know “whose ass to kick” — Not Sean Hannity
“…I’m itching for a fight.” – Yep, him again

Court-Ordered Atheism

2011-01-08T15:41:00.004-05:00

A government bureaucrat in New Hampshire and a court in the state presume to force a child to attend public school because they don't like her strong Christian faith. The arrogance here is mind-boggling. Not only should individuals be fired or impeached, and not only should there be civil harassment suits filed, but there must be criminal charges brought against any who would so flagrantly trample someone's civil rights.

I can think of very little that is more deeply offensive and perverse than some measly, arrogant, power-mad pencil-pusher trying to interfere with a parent's authority and love for her child, especially in an effort to promote statism and atheism.

Court asked to give up control of student's religion

The Supreme Court in New Hampshire today was asked to reverse a lower court decision that ordered a homeschooled student who was "well liked, social and interactive with her peers, academically promising and intellectually at or superior to grade level" into a public school because she was too "vigorous" in defense of her Christian faith.

"Parents have a fundamental right to make educational choices for their children," said John Anthony Simmons, an attorney allied with the Alliance Defense Fund.

"Courts can settle disputes, but they cannot legitimately order a child into a government-run school on the basis that her religious views need to be mixed with other views. That's precisely what the lower court admitted it is doing in this case, and that's where our concern lies," Simmons said.
[...]
According to court documents, the guardian ad litem earlier had told the mother, "If I want her in public school, she'll be in public school."

The EPA Serves Obama's Anti-American Agenda

2011-01-03T09:06:00.005-05:00

EPA's Texas Power Grab

So why is the US Environmental Protection Agency sending federal agents to Texas – to arrest the state’s economy for the “crime” of emitting carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4)? Texas is also challenging EPA over other arbitrary new air pollution standards, but that’s another article.

Cowboys and cowgirls recognize CO2 as the plant-fertilizing “gas of life” and CH4 as natural gas and cow farts.
[...]
But EPA says they are “greenhouse gases” that cause “runaway global warming.” So the ideologues who run this agency are telling Texas to start regulating its power plants and refineries into bankruptcy or oblivion – or EPA goons will take over its air quality programs and economy.
[...]
Ms. Jackson willfully ignores the immense harm that driving up energy prices will have on jobs, state revenues, people’s health and welfare, and even human lives. But her views are supported by scientists like Dr. Richard Alley, Michael Mann’s colleague at Pennsylvania State University, all handsomely paid by EPA and other federal agencies for raising alarms about global warming.
[...]
The alarmists need to get their computer models, scenarios, scare stories and climate cops out of Texas. If they don’t, Governor Perry and his Texas Rangers should arrest them for violating Lone Star rights to energy, jobs, health and the American Dream.

The Key New Year's Resolution: Stop the EPA

EPA has declared that carbon dioxide endangers the health of Americans, and the agency is using this "finding" to justify regulating anything that emits carbon dioxide. As Upton and Phillips note in their piece, many businesses have recovered from their shock at such a naked grab for power and are fighting back in the courts, but EPA is rushing forward with regulations to try and put its radical overlay on America's private sector before the courts can even respond to the claims. President Obama gets no questions on this somewhat complicated subject from his cheerleaders in the White Hous e press corps and so the largest grab for regulatory control unsupported by explicit legislation in our nation's history moves forward.
[...]
The carbon dioxide rules are thus a threat not just to the economy but also to the whole notion of self-government, and are the prime example of where bureaucratized administrative states move when allowed to assert authority unchecked by popularly-elected representatives.
[...]
An agency this radical needs gutting and overhaul, not tweaking, and Administrator Jackson needs to be in front of House committees for days on end, under oath and answering the toughest questions about her views on the agency's plans and legal authorities. Ms. Browner needs a subpoena as well backed up by legal action to compel testimony if she asserts executive privilege as President Obama has radically expanded the Office of the Presidency in an attempt to avoid the sort of balance and oversight on which separation-of-powers was premised.

If the EPA is not tamed in 2011, its regulatory reach will grow and grow. The agency has shrewdly begun its government-by-decree via diktats issued to power plants and refineries, obviously hoping that most Americans won't recognize that the precedent being set by these rules will apply to every business or operation in the U.S. that emits carbon dioxide. The fight to stop the EPA from crippling the power grid has immediate consequences to consumers but even greater consequences down the road for every citizen.

The president's willingness to indulge and indeed encourage such radical behavior should be a huge issue in the 2012 presidential campaign.

Planned Parenthood Promotes Sex for Children

2010-12-31T23:17:00.004-05:00

Planned Parenthood Launches New Sex Ed Program for Kids

As they have in the past, the abortion giant is seeking to push comprehensive sexual education on young people, and now it is taking the campaign further with a push to reach children. As CNS News reports in a new article:
Specifically, Planned Parenthood’s Web site announced the group is preparing to launch a nationwide “social change initiative” to end the “stigma and shame about sex” in American culture. The project aims to teach parents and caregivers how to educate children about sex — from birth. And it recommends telling teenagers about masturbation, oral sex and “where to go for help to prepare to be sexually active.”

Totalitarianism Through Technology, Episode 4

2010-12-29T09:51:00.009-05:00

Another Homeland Security Overreach: DHS Starts Seizing Websites

The always interesting Business Insider has this report:
The Department of Homeland Security’s ICE has launched a major crackdown on websites enabling copyright infringement or selling counterfeits of trademarked goods. In just the past few days ICE has seized at least 12 domains, TorrentFreak reports.
Knowingly violating someone’s copyright is rightfully against the law.
[...]
Still, this part of the article bothers me:
The owner of an affected site told TorrentFreak that his domain was taken over without any prior complaints or notification from the court.

Here are the two critical points:

So, the sites were seized before the site’s owner heard any charges or had the chance to submit any counter evidence in court. The owners of the sites had their property seized without being allowed to defend themselves.
[...]
But, the article begs an even bigger question: What the hell do fake Guccis have to do with homeland security?

Property seizure without due process is flat out against the law, and one of the reasons explicit in the Declaration of Independence for our secession from Britain. How could copyright infringement be a threat to national security?

The questions we should all be asking:

In the aftermath of 9-11, when the creation of DHS was being debated, would your opinion have been swayed if you knew that, within just a few years, the proposed agency would be seizing websites peddling fake purses? Did you imagine that the proposed agency would soon demand to take naked photographs of randomly-selected U.S. citizens? Or, insist on its authority to physically grope children?
Now, ask yourself this: What will the Agency be doing 10 years from now? Or, 20? In a little more than half a decade, DHS has morphed from protecting us from terrorists to protecting us from fake merchandise. Who is going to protect us from DHS?

Totalitarianism Through Technology, Episode 3

2010-12-27T16:13:00.002-05:00

Feds Warrantlessly Tracking Americans’ Credit Cards in Real Time

The document, obtained by security researcher Christopher Soghoian, explains how so-called “Hotwatch” orders allow for real-time tracking of individuals in a criminal investigation via credit card companies, rental car agencies, calling cards, and even grocery store loyalty programs. The revelation sheds a little more light on the Justice Department’s increasing power and willingness to surveil Americans with little to no judicial or Congressional oversight.
[...]
Then the agent sends a request for “Any and all records and information relating directly or indirectly to any and all ongoing and future transactions or events relating to any and all of the following person(s), entitities, account numbers, addresses and other matters…” That gets them a live feed of transaction data.
[...]
It’s not clear what standards an agent would have to follow to get a “Hotwatch” order. The Justice Department told Soghoian the document is the only one it could find relating to “hotwatches” — which means there is either no policy or the department is witholding relevant documents.

The Justice Department did not return a call for comment.

Every year, the Justice Department does have to report to Congress the numbers of criminal and national security wiretaps undertaken, as well as the number of National Security Letters issued. Tens of thousands of NSLs are issued yearly — most with gag orders that forbid ISPs or librarians from ever saying they have ever been served with such a subpoena.

But the Justice Department does not report or make public the number of times it got real time or historic cell phone location information, nor how often it is using these so-called “hotwatch” orders.

Obama Surrenders to Native Americans

2010-12-26T19:41:00.002-05:00

Obama to give Manhattan back to Native Americans?

President Obama is voicing support for a U.N. resolution that could accomplish something as radical as relinquishing some U.S. sovereignty and opening a path for the return of ancient tribal lands to American Indians, including even parts of Manhattan.

The issue is causing alarm among legal experts.

In recent remarks at the White House during a "tribal nations conference," Obama endorsed the "United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People," which includes a sweeping declaration that "indigenous peoples have a right to lands and resources they traditionally occupied or otherwise used" but that later were acquired by occupying forces.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

2010-12-26T12:20:00.002-05:00

...and Muslims obeyed the Koran.

Nigeria: Pastor killed in front of his church, other churches targeted in arson rampage

Still more jihadist violence to report against Nigerian churches on Christmas Eve. "Christmas Eve tragedy: Serial blasts, arson in Jos, Borno," by Moses Gbande and Gbenga Akinkugbethe for the Nigerian Compass, December 25:
While the world prepared for the celebration of Christmas yesterday, the residents of Jos, in Plateau State, and Maiduguri, in Borno State were thrown into tears, blood and death .
At least four successive bomb explosions rocked Jos, killing no fewer than 30 people, while suspected members of the Boko Haram sect unleashed mayhem on Maiduguri.
[...]
A pastor of the Baptist Church , Rev. Bulus T. Narya, was confirmed killed at the front of his church at the Alamderi Dala area of the city and the place of worship was set ablaze.

H/T Atlas Shrugs

That's what Christmas is All About, Charlie Brown

2010-12-25T00:09:00.003-05:00

New Jersey Senator Believes in 'Global Warming'.... and Santa Claus

2010-12-24T23:38:00.009-05:00

Dear Santa: 'Global warming' is ruining Christmas

U.S Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., is worried that "there is probably nothing we can do in time" to save Santa's workshop from the effects of "global warming."

"Dear Santa Claus," Menendez writes in a letter published in the left-leaning Huffington Post, "I am writing out of concern, because you may have to move from the North Pole due to the dramatic melting of Arctic sea ice."
[...]
"I'm supportive of the EPA power, and I think we have the votes to sustain it," New Jersey's Star-Ledger reports Menendez affirming, "but it will be close."

Islamic Hypocrisy

2010-12-24T13:08:00.002-05:00

'CHRISTMAS IS EVIL': MUSLIM GROUP LAUNCHES POSTER CAMPAIGN AGAINST FESTIVE PERIOD

Devout Muslims have launched a campaign against Christmas, blaming the beautiful holiday for sex diseases, whores, abortions, pedophilia (pot, meet kettle).

Hmmmmm. What's the response to this blasphemy? Are Christians burning down mosques? Are Christians wielding machetes, amputating the limbs of Muslims? Are Christians locking Muslims in mosques and setting them aflame? Are there worldwide riots, thousands of cars set afire, police cars trashed, buses destroyed, non-Muslims attacked?

Totalitarianism Through Technology, Episode 2

2010-12-23T08:28:00.004-05:00

Is Obama's tyrannical power grab designed to make U.S. citizens eager for tyrannical Congressional legislation?

Morning Bell: It’s Time to Stop the FCC Internet Czars

Imagine a future where the Internet is governed by unelected bureaucrats in Washington, DC, who rule at their own whim, regardless of legislators’ demands or judicial rule. Sadly, that future is now.
[...]
And while the threat of unnecessary and harmful government regulation is worrisome, the way in which the FCC is pursuing its expanded powers is flat out alarming. Federal agencies like the FCC only have power as granted to them by Congress under the law. In this case, the FCC is charging forward full steam ahead, ignoring both Congress and the courts in order to act as it pleases — in effect, making the FCC commissioners self-proclaimed Internet Czars.

Wave goodbye to Internet freedom
FCC crosses the Rubicon into online regulation

With a straight face, Mr. Genachowski suggested that government red tape will increase the "freedom" of online services that have flourished because bureaucratic busybodies have been blocked from tinkering with the Web.

The FCC's Threat to Internet Freedom

Nothing is broken that needs fixing, however. The Internet has been open and freedom-enhancing since it was spun off from a government research project in the early 1990s. Its nature as a diffuse and dynamic global network of networks defies top-down authority. Ample laws to protect consumers already exist. Furthermore, the Obama Justice Department and the European Commission both decided this year that net-neutrality regulation was unnecessary and might deter investment in next-generation Internet technology and infrastructure.

Analysts and broadband companies of all sizes have told the FCC that new rules are likely to have the perverse effect of inhibiting capital investment, deterring innovation, raising operating costs, and ultimately increasing consumer prices. Others maintain that the new rules will kill jobs. By moving forward with Internet rules anyway, the FCC is not living up to its promise of being "data driven" in its pursuit of mandates—i.e., listening to the needs of the market.
[...]
To date, the FCC hasn't ruled out increasing its power further by using the phone monopoly laws, directly or indirectly regulating rates someday, or expanding its reach deeper into mobile broadband services. The most expansive regulatory regimes frequently started out modest and innocuous before incrementally growing into heavy-handed behemoths.

On this winter solstice, we will witness jaw-dropping interventionist chutzpah as the FCC bypasses branches of our government in the dogged pursuit of needless and harmful regulation. The darkest day of the year may end up marking the beginning of a long winter's night for Internet freedom.

Mr. McDowell is a Republican commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission.

Nothing Changed This Week-The FCC Still Has No Authority to Regulate the Internet

What was true before FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s Tuesday midnight run to grab power over the Web remains true today – the FCC does not have the authority to do what they have just announced they will do on December 21st.

Unless and until the Congress enacts law making it so, the FCC doesn’t have the authority to do anything. December’s vote to commandeer control of the Internet is no more legitimate than – and just as capricious as – if they were to vote themselves masters of all the nation’s pizza joints.

The FCC – no government agency – can just decide they want to regulate an industry – and then vote themselves power over it. That’s not constitutional, representative, limited government – that’s Hugo Chavez-style expropriative despotism.

And it’s not as if The Chairman has been suffering from a dearth of people pointing out his lack of authority. We have repeatedly pointed it out. And it hasn’t just been us.

In April, the D.C. Circuit Court said so, unanimously ruling the obvious – that the Commission does not have the authority to do anything to the Internet.

Then 302 members of Congress said the same – a large bipartisan majority. So then did more than 150 organizations, state legislators and bloggers, seventeen minority groups (that are usually almost always in Democrat lockstep) and many additional normally Democrat paragons including several large unions, several racial grievance groups and at least one anti-free market environmentalist group.

And then The Chairman officially announced his intent to usurp authority.

Obama's mystery proposal to regulate the Internet

In their net neutrality quest, Genachowski and two of his fellow Democratic appointees are working to expand government power into an area where the commission has no jurisdiction, under the guise of solving a problem that does not exist.
[...]
This exercise in government opacity and overreach is already damaging the economy. As major telecommunications and Internet service companies prepare to roll out new fourth generation (4G) wireless service for millions of customers, these unelected bureaucratic commissars are recklessly creating doubt about the future value and profitability of those companies' investments. They are also discouraging future investments that need to be made for the Internet to continue its phenomenal growth.

Federal courts will almost certainly strike down anything the FCC adopts Tuesday, just as they did earlier this year. Congress will also have its chance to undo Genachowski's handiwork through the Congressional Review Act. But why should we have to go this far to rein in a government agency supposedly run by people who took an oath to "support and defend" our Constitution? Is Obama unable to make his own appointees obey the law? Either way, the new Congress should hold Obama accountable for what the FCC is now doing in his name.

Conservatives Plan Countermeasures to Neutralize FCC Internet Edict

More than 300 members of Congress from both parties contacted the FCC in the spring, demanding they defer to Capitol Hill on rules governing the internet, and the DC Circuit Court of Appeals dealt the FCC’s online regulatory ambitions a severe rebuke in April. The American people had their say on the matter, too: All 95 Congressional candidates who ran on an explicitly pro-net neutrality platform in 2010 lost.

Despite clear opposition from two branches of the federal government and the American people, the FCC has forged ahead with its aggressive regulations.
[...]
The subtext to this brewing fight is the question of how far Congress will allow the executive branch to implement its agenda through increased regulation and rulemaking, bypassing the legislative process. This approach was advocated in a 54-page report published by the liberal Center for American Progress in November. “Pushing back against the FCC will set the tone for the next two years about how aggressive the Obama administration can be in pursing regulatory regimes. This fight is the first opportunity for Congress to show whether it has the will to stand up to these executive branch power grabs,” Kerpen said.
[...]
Both Blackburn and Kerpen also mentioned the appropriations process as a safety net solution to impeding a regulatory onslaught, if legislative fixes fall short. “If the Congressional Review Act fails, we can look to appropriations to starve any funding for enforcement,” Kerpen said.

A Pigford Sty of Corruption and Fraud, Part 3

2010-12-20T15:37:00.004-05:00

The legacy media is deeply entrenched in Statism. As a result, they would never expose a Statist president for his or his administration's involvement in corruption. But this one isn't going to go away easily. It will have to be addressed. How will the anti-American, Statist legacy media ultimately spin this story?

The Pigford Case and Why the NY Times Doesn’t Want to Talk About It

This is pretty amazing in a number of ways:

This should be a case about public corruption, one that involves the President since he recently signed off on more money for this settlement. There are three reasons it’s not on the front page of the NY Times.

Reason 1: There were some real victims here, black victims. That’s shameful. No one likes to linger on their shame, especially not the government. And that goes for media outlets who, by and large, are on the current administration’s side.

Reason 2: If this was investigated it would undoubtedly uncover hundreds of people who took advantage of the system, all of them black. No one at the Times or the Post wants to portray blacks as victimizers of the public trust. Exposing something like this as reality would be a blow to the liberal narrative about government handouts and minorities. The Times won’t lend credence to what they see as a negative stereotype, i.e. “welfare queens.”

Reason 3: And this may be the biggest one of all. Andrew Breitbart broke the story. The liberal media is emotionally invested in Breitbart’s failure. You could see that in the grudging way they covered the ACORN story. You could see it in the gleeful way they covered the Shirley Sherrod story. They refuse to give him a win, especially one which would rehabilitate his image and make him more powerful going into 2012. They hate him. It’s obviously a factor in this situation.

There are only three courses left to the MSM. One, pretend it isn’t happening or, at best, frame the complaints as the product of far right troublemakers with no facts offered to back them up. That’s going to be increasingly difficult in light of this video tape, but it wouldn’t be the first time Times readers have gone without the facts.

Two, write a massive article full of pathos for the real victims and minimize or sidestep the fraud issue. In other words, let it be known that the Grey Lady has decided the good outweighs the bad so it’s okay to turn a blind eye on this one.

Three, investigate and let the chips fall where they may. Of all the options, this is the least likely. But you can just imagine how this would have been treated if Bush had signed off on it instead of Obama at a time of financial crisis and worries about deficits and government spending. It would have been front page news.

Gender Confusion Enforced by State of Georgia

2010-12-20T09:55:00.004-05:00

Hope for Every Man

For those not aware, Keeton was threatened with expulsion from Augusta State University for refusing to submit to a re-education program run by state-employed university officials.
[...]
According to state officials, the principal “problem” was Keeton’s assertion that free will plays a role in homosexual conduct.
[...]
It is unclear how Boortz arrives at the conclusion that someone would find the phrase “You can change” to be more traumatic than the phrase “You cannot change.” Human beings have always been comforted by the idea that they have some control over their fate. To suggest that homosexuals are somehow emotionally traumatized by ideas that are found comforting by others is to suggest a high degree of emotional volatility. The idea is not only condescending but lacks any basis in reality.
[...]
The State of Georgia is attempting to do no less than force a student to articulate a position that has been empirically falsified; namely, that the genetic influence upon homosexuality is so complete as to nullify free will. Their motivation is predicated upon a second falsehood; namely, that the first falsehood promotes self-esteem.
[...]
Jesus did not come into the world to establish government programs that teach people there is nothing wrong with them and that they lack the ability to change. He came into this world to save sinners. But His offer is available only to those willing to acknowledge their sin and willing to change. And He gives us the power to change even when talk show hosts tell us we cannot.

We live in a world that hates God – so much so that it nailed Him to a cross. But Hope was resurrected and is there for every man today. And that is our greatest source of comfort in a world that preaches hopelessness.

Abortion Industry Continues to Abet Rape

2010-12-19T10:16:00.004-05:00

Judge: Planned Parenthood Rushed Abortion on Sexually Abused Teen

Hurley also told the newspaper there is one more issue remaining to be resolved in courts — the matter of whether Planned Parenthood violated state law requiring abortion centers to notify parents when their teenager daughter is considering an abortion.

Also, under Ohio state law, such a case of sexual abuse or statutory rape is required to be reported to appropriate law enforcement officials.
[...]
Hurley said he’s obtained a handwritten note from Planned Parenthood that mentions the phrase, “Don’t ask/don’t tell” and said the note was from a Planned Parenthood trainer, Julia Piercey.

“So, to me, their position is laughable,” Hurley told the Cincinnati Enquirer. “It came from their own files, from their own trainer.”

Inmates Run the Asylum, Episode 2

2010-12-18T19:43:00.003-05:00

Terrorist Supporter Teaches Next Generation of Diplomats At One of America’s Best Conservative Liberal Arts Colleges

Today, Professor Bassam Frangieh, director of the Middle East studies program, teaches Arabic to the next generation of “leaders in the making.” The new program was founded with the high hopes that they will join the diplomatic corps and promote peace in the Middle East. If Claremont McKenna’s president, Pamela Gann, has her way, that program will have a study abroad component in the Middle East (most likely in Jordan).

But Frangieh, as seen in an investigation I published in The Claremont Independent, a student news magazine of the Claremont Colleges, supports two terrorist groups, Hamas and Hezbollah. He looks to Hamas, a group designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization with “with great pleasure,” and signed a petition that supported Hezbollah and condemned Israel as a “Zionist killing machine.”
[...]
Frangieh endorsed the most barbarous of attacks – suicide bombing – in a 2000 essay he wrote that celebrated Arab poet “martyrs” who fought Israel. That fight is justified because, according to Frangieh, Arabs have suffered the “most devastating blow” with “the creation of the state of Israel and the transformation of the Palestinians into a stateless people.” (He ignores that Israel allows Palestinians not living in the territories to vote and serve as members of the Knesset.)

Here’s what Frangieh wrote in that essay:
Nietzsche wrote, “The ideal condition cannot be achieved by dreaming, we must fight and struggle to achieve it.” Clearly, the fights and struggles of isolated poets and individuals have not succeeded in making change. Even if the best one hundred Arab poets loaded themselves with dynamite and exploded in the streets of Arab capitals, it would not be enough. For real change to come about, thousands of people will have to die; thousands must martyr themselves. It appears that only massive revolution will succeed in overturning the corrupt regimes of the Arab world. Only then can significant and radical change take place. [Emphasis added]
[...]
Given Frangieh’s views and his role in training future diplomats, every American, every real lover of peace, ought to ask for an explanation, if not his dismissal.

The "Tax Cut Compromise" Isn't

2010-12-18T13:00:00.002-05:00

Swindle of the year

Barack Obama won the great tax-cut showdown of 2010 - and House Democrats don't have a clue that he did. In the deal struck this week, the president negotiated the biggest stimulus in American history, larger than his $814 billion 2009 stimulus package. It will pump a trillion borrowed Chinese dollars into the U.S. economy over the next two years - which just happen to be the two years of the run-up to the next presidential election. This is a defeat?

Totalitarianism Through Technology, Episode 1

2010-12-18T11:59:00.006-05:00

Washington Set to Control Your Light Switch

The next step in Green won’t even require Congressional approval. The Department of Energy recently decided they have authority over appliances in your home.
[...]
Smart Grid sounds harmless and modern, but it will be incredibly intrusive. Appliances in the future will have microchips installed; when you plug them in, they will handshake with the grid, and a central authority will determine whether that appliance deserves to get power or not. If a bureaucrat in Washington decides that it’s not hot enough for you to put on the air conditioner, your air conditioner will not work. If the Fed decides that Margaritas lead to too much trouble on Cinco de Mayo, all blenders can be disabled for the day.

They can also turn off radios, televisions and computers. In the era of electronic information, restricting the freedom of the press is as easy as turning off the light. The idea is to conserve power, but a Smart Government will be able to use the technology to retain power as well.

A Spy is a Spy is a Spy

2010-12-16T22:47:00.002-05:00

Like a Condom, the First Amendment Can't Protect You

Liberty in Cali, of All Places

2010-12-15T20:59:00.005-05:00

L.A. Parents Pull the Trigger on School Choice

A Pigford Sty of Corruption and Fraud, Part 2

2010-12-14T01:26:00.004-05:00

A Black Farmer Blows the Whistle on the Black Farmer Settlement

I have 200 acres in Arkansas and have raised hogs.
Pigford is the biggest rip-off this country has ever known, and there are lots of people in positions of power that know it. Politicians are using it to buy votes. Trial lawyers are using it to get rich.

I personally know of people who have no connection to farming at all who got Pigford checks. People with potted plants in their apartments claimed to be farmers and got paid. I saw an instance where eight Pigford checks went to one house. There are drug addicts and pushers who have received payments who have never farmed a day in their life.
[...]
Congress needs to investigate Pigford immediately. I believe that probably 80 to 90% of Pigford claims are fraudulent. I know that its at least 300 cases in Arkansas alone. By investigating this fraud we are opening up a can of worms. But it needs to be done. Justice demands it.

Hallelujah! But the Fight is Far From Over

2010-12-13T18:12:00.003-05:00

Judge torpedoes Obamacare, warns of 'unbridled fed police'

"A thorough survey of pertinent constitutional case law has yielded no reported decisions from any federal appellate courts extending the Commerce Clause or General Welfare Clause to encompass regulation of a person's decision not to purchase a product, notwithstanding its effect on interstate commerce or role in a global regulatory scheme," the judge said.

And he warned, "The unchecked expansion of congressional power to the limits suggested by the Minimum Essential Coverage Provision would invite unbridled exercise of federal police powers."
[...]
The judge said the mandate "is neither within the letter nor the spirit of the Constitution."

Inconvenient Weather, Sweet Irony

2010-12-13T10:45:00.008-05:00

The Global Warming Summit in Copenhagen was unseasonably cold, and thus embarrassing, so this year's summit was planned for Cancun, Mexico. Surely, it will be nice and toasty in Mexico!

Irony alert: The unusually chilly global-warming summit

The irony: As negotiators from nearly 200 countries met in Cancun to strategize ways to keep the planet from getting hotter, the temperature in the seaside Mexican city plunged to a 100-year record low of 54° F.

They might be able to save the planet if they'd just have more of these 'summits'.

The Annual American Assault on Christ

2010-12-12T10:24:00.008-05:00

Score One for Judeo-Christian Culture

We in America, and in the West as a whole, need to stop apologizing for our culture. We –or more accurately those who came before us- have created something great, and that is why people leave their non-Christian nations to come here and to other Western nations. How dare anyone say they have a right to the benefits of our society while at the same time attacking the root of our culture?

The norm needs to be reinforced: At Christmas time, we are celebrating the birth of the historical figure who gave rise to our culture, Jesus Christ. We who celebrate Christmas should be vocal in saying that we are offended when Christmas is ripped out of public life. Those who do not celebrate can bloody well not celebrate. It is selfish and insulting to demand that the majority alter something sacred, simply for the convenience or comfort of an unreasonable minority.

Well said.

Gender Confusion Doublespeak

2010-12-11T11:10:00.007-05:00

Gender Benders Wage War On Sports

Kye Allums, a shooting guard on the George Washington University women's basketball team, has decided that she is a he. Changing her name from "Kay-Kay," Allums is believed to be the first Division I college basketball player to go public about being a "transgender" person.

The obvious question is whether Allums would still be able to compete. You can't have men playing in a women's basketball program, and it's more than awkward to have a man showering with the women in the locker room. Spurred by a track-and-field controversy four years ago, NCAA rules prohibit sexual reassignment surgery or hormone treatments for athletes to retain their eligibility. Allums, a junior, has pledged to forego those steps while she retains her eligibility for college basketball.

But in the meantime, in the midst of a culture that doesn't dare utter a discouraging word about gender denial and genital self-mutilation, Allums is listed on the GWU website as a male member of the women's basketball team. All the press reports swoon about how "he" -- who remains a woman in every biological way -- is handling this so bravely as a role model: "I'm trying to be an example for other people to not be afraid of who they are."

So let's get this straight (so to speak). A woman expects to be an example to others of one who is not afraid to be who she is. She intends to do this by pretending to not be a woman. Her statement is ridiculously irrational. In fact, one might call it 'hysterical'. Far worse is the absence of any challenge to it. Apparently, her bizarre, deluded assertion is being condoned and accommodated by the GW sports program and whatever media is reporting on her denial of who she is. As a result, she gets no help to learn to become comfortable with her sexuality. In addition, she is a role-model, but one that encourages others who are sexually confused to embrace their confusion and deny their gender rather than to overcome whatever trauma led to their fear.

I'm reminded of Romans 1:18-32, but also of G.K. Chesterton's The Oracle of the Dog wherein Chesterton's recurring character Father Brown says, "It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense and can't see things as they are."

"Safe-sex" Hypocrisy

2010-12-10T09:23:00.006-05:00

Just when you thought it was safe to have sex with a multitude of complete strangers...

The Diseases of Pornography

Inmates Run the Asylum, Episode 1

2010-12-10T00:48:00.005-05:00

Islamists Training TSA Scanners! Yes, You Read That Correctly

press release

Muslim Public Affairs Council

Told Ya

2010-12-09T23:47:00.005-05:00

The WikiLeaks Vindication of George W. Bush

weapons of mass destruction

Child Protective Services is the New Gestapo

2010-12-08T13:03:00.003-05:00

Blogger accused of child neglect and mental abuse

H/T Verum Serum

Global Warming Paganism

2010-12-08T10:34:00.003-05:00

Any conference for addressing mythical global warming would be incomplete without homage to imaginary gods.

Cancun talks start with a call to the gods

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, invoked the ancient jaguar goddess Ixchel in her opening statement to delegates gathered in Cancun, Mexico, noting that Ixchel was not only goddess of the moon, but also "the goddess of reason, creativity and weaving. May she inspire you -- because today, you are gathered in Cancun to weave together the elements of a solid response to climate change, using both reason and creativity as your tools."

A Pigford Sty of Corruption and Fraud, Part 1

2010-12-07T10:10:00.007-05:00

In addition to being a concise, but thorough, summary by Breitbart himself of his exposure of NAACP racism in response to their media-complicit false accusations of racism against the Tea Party, it also introduces a report initiated to understand why Sherrod was fired, but producing evidence of yet another scandal of government fraud and corruption.

Me & Mrs. Sherrod — And The $1.25 Billion Pigford II Black Farmers’ Settlement

liberal Journolist Hayes said snarkily.

The Pigford Shakedown: How the Black Farmers’ Cause Was Hijacked by Politicians, Trial Lawyers & Community Organizers — Leaving Us With a Billion Dollar Tab.

Class Warfare Exploded

2010-12-06T21:21:00.005-05:00

"In the real world of American democracy, social and economic divisions are between the Cans and the Can-Nots, the Dos and the Do-Nots, the Wills and the Will-Nots. The vast majority of wealthy Americans, as a matter of empirical fact, are first generation wealthy and have created what they possess. In the process of creating wealth for themselves, they have created wealth for hundreds and sometimes thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of others. But to describe the wealthy as wealth earners and wealth creators - that is, to describe them accurately - is to explode the whole religious fantasy that gives meaning to radical lives, inspires the radicals’ war, and has been the source of the most repressive regimes and the greatest social disasters in the history of mankind." ~David Horowitz, Barack Obama’s Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model

Girl Murdered for Believing in Jesus

2010-12-05T08:27:00.008-05:00

Consider this a companion piece to the previous post, Girls Just Wanna Have Guns.

Somali Teenage Girl Shot to Death for Embracing Christ

Girls Just Wanna Have Guns

2010-12-05T08:19:00.002-05:00

Girls Just Wanna Have Guns

Meet the Liberal Elite!

2010-12-04T22:18:00.004-05:00

Brilliant... and thorough!

H/T Babalu

We The People

2010-12-03T21:34:00.001-05:00

H/T The Borg Conspiracy

Bobby Jindal Interview

2010-12-03T12:11:00.004-05:00

This is actually part one of the 3-video series. I already posted the 2nd and 3rd parts. In this segment, Bobby Jindal emphasizes the benefits and success of smaller, disciplined government.

Austrian MP Strikes Back

2010-12-02T16:30:00.005-05:00

It's encouraging to see a European official who is not a cowardly Islamophobe or a suicidal multiculturalist.

Bobby Jindal Interview, part 2

2010-12-02T12:41:00.003-05:00

Still loving the Exceptional America

Bobby Jindal on Immigration Policy

2010-12-01T21:44:00.004-05:00

There he goes again, loving America.

Evangelical Legalism

2010-11-29T12:00:00.006-05:00

Reclaiming the Doctrine of Justification

Here's what ails us...

Here's the cure...

You Get What You Vote For

2010-11-23T09:22:00.006-05:00

This is what happens when the world carefully concludes that the U.S. president has no great love for America or for liberty. It's only natural that communist tyrants are emboldened when a communist lives in the White House.

North Korea fires artillery barrage on South

North Korea fired dozens of artillery shells onto a South Korean island on Tuesday, killing one person, setting homes ablaze and triggering an exchange of fire as the South's military went on top alert.

Congressional Treason

2010-11-20T13:01:00.006-05:00

Treason in America: Move Over ‘Hanoi Jane’ – Meet ‘Baghdad Barbara,’ ‘Weasel Waxman,’ and ‘Jihad Jodie’

Code Pink

The Conspiracy to Shakedown Chevron

2010-10-29T09:10:00.003-04:00

Outtakes from so-called documentary prove the movie maker a fraud, litigants conspirators, and Chevron innocent.

‘Crude’ Footage Reveals Lies Behind Trial Lawyers’ Suit Against Chevron

fair and balanced effort

was ordered by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on July 15

Breaking Point

2010-10-23T13:14:00.004-04:00

H/T Conservative Latina

Chicago Press Protects Political Machinist Rahm Emmanuel

2010-10-13T10:03:00.005-04:00

Chicago press attempts to deny freedom of the... PRESS!

They try to drive away and even threaten violence against a reporter who is there to interview rather than for the purpose of creating good public relations in support of Chicago Political Machine veteran Rahm Emmanuel.

Manchurian Candidate Must Be Impeached

2010-10-10T23:23:00.002-04:00

Democrats Keep Trying to Corrupt Elections

2010-10-08T13:36:00.004-04:00

Now that the Tea Party is revolting against the Republican establishment, Democrats find it isn't enough to have subverted and corrupted the Republican party establishment with the likes of John McCain, Arlen Specter, etc. They must now find ways to infiltrate the Tea Party as well.

Dems Admit Rep. John Adler Planted Fake Tea Party Candidate

"The goal was to take 5 percent of (Republican Jon) Runyan’s vote," said a Democrat with direct knowledge of the Adler campaign and CCDC operations.

"Steve Ayscue designed the plan with Geoff Mackler following his lead."

Like, You Know, Brilliant?

2010-10-03T10:12:00.001-04:00

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

Self-Inflicted October Surprise?

2010-10-03T08:39:00.004-04:00

Perhaps not, but in its attempt to top a rally by American Patriots on 8/28/10, the Coalition of Tyranny led by the NAACP embarrasses its D.C. puppets.

One Trillion attend One Nation Rally
By Connie Hair

Hollywood's Favorite Butcher

2010-09-29T19:54:00.002-04:00

H/T Babalu

Legacy News Covers Up SEIU Terrorist Connection

2010-09-29T09:28:00.004-04:00

Chicago Media Omit Fact That FBI Terror Suspect is Chief Steward for SEIU

possible connection to overseas terror networks

The Associated Press

Our Anti-American President

2010-09-27T09:42:00.001-04:00

Obama's Arizona Jihad - HUMAN EVENTS

The Last Best Hope: Pass it On!

2010-09-24T21:59:00.003-04:00

H/T: The Borg Conspiracy

"My Yoke is Easy and My Burden is Light"

2010-09-24T15:05:00.005-04:00

How Many Times Did Goldwater Run For President Again?
By Ann Coulter

RINO Hunting

2010-09-24T14:58:00.003-04:00

Jim DeMint's courage and Lisa Murkowski's betrayal
By Mark Thiessen

Marc A. Thiessen is a visiting fellow with the American Enterprise Institute and writes a weekly column for The Post.

Dim Bulbs in D.C.

2010-09-22T15:37:00.004-04:00

Not only is it morally wrong for the government to try to run your life, but also the government is simply very bad at doing it.

Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs: Proceed with Caution
By Peter Wilson

CFL manufacturers claim that a 13-watt CFL emits the same amount of light as a 60-watt incandescent, but it doesn't seem to work that way in the real world. I've been in CFL-lit hotel rooms where I need a flashlight to read my dog-eared copy of The Road to Serfdom.

Warm-up time: it takes up to 5 minutes for a CFL to reach full strength, which may be related to the point above (why CFLs seem less bright). My friend has installed them in a hallway where illumination is needed only for the thirty seconds it takes to navigate the staircase. Not ideal when Grandma visits and can't see the skateboard on the stairs.

Few CFLs last for their advertised lifetimes of five years or more. Many people report replacing them after one year, making those return on investment numbers a bit less rosy. Using them in ceiling fixtures, on dimmers or timers, and for less than fifteen minutes per use reduce their life.

CFLs contain mercury and should be returned to a hazardous waste center for disposal. Studies assume a 25% recycling rate, with the rest going into landfills. (The Westinghouse website recommends recycling only when disposing of "a large quantity" of fluorescent tubes and doesn't mention how to dispose of their CFLs.) According to a 2008 Yale study, burning coal to supply electricity to incandescent bulbs emits more mercury per bulb than a CFL contains, but regions that rely on cleaner fuels like natural gas experience greater mercury contamination with the introduction of CFLs. Why would environmentalists advocate to bring a toxic product into every home?

Cleaning up a broken CFL doesn't require a haz-mat team, but you have to take significant precautions to avoid mercury contamination of living areas.

Manufacturing CFLs is labor-intensive. No CFLs are made with expensive U.S. labor; most are made in China, where hundreds of factory workers in CFL plants have been hospitalized for mercury poisoning. The last major light bulb factory in the U.S., a GE plant in Winchester, VA, closed earlier this month.

CFLs require six times as much energy to manufacture as incandescent bulbs, not to mention -- if you're concerned about such things -- the carbon footprint of shipping them from China.

CFLs appear to cause migraines and epileptic seizures in a small number of people. Other health risks are being studied.

CFLs work poorly in cold temperatures -- as a wintertime front porch light, for example. In cold climates, the heat of incandescent bulbs is a useful -- if inefficient -- byproduct.

CFLs degrade the quality of the electric current (so-called "dirty electricity" with uneven sine waves) on a circuit into which they are plugged, causing problems for other electronic devices and possible health hazards to humans.