Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Caution: Falling Hats

University bans graduating students from throwing their mortar boards in the air in case someone gets hurt

But now students at one university have been banned from throwing their mortar boards in the air at graduation ceremonies because of health and safety fears.


Bosses at Anglia Ruskin University say a student could be seriously injured by the corner of one of the square caps.


They say ending the tradition will also protect the mortar boards themselves from damage.


One student needed stitches a few years ago after he was hit on the head at a ceremony, according to the university, although there have been no other incidents. No legal action was taken.


Student union president Frankie Whiffen said: 'It sounds like health and safety gone mad.


'It's an important tradition and who is going to go round stopping it anyway - the hat police? ...


Laura Midgley, of the Campaign Against Political Correctness, said: 'The likelihood of being injured by a flying hat appears to be very low.


'The students are far more likely to be injured on their way to and from the ceremony - especially if they are travelling in cars which are known to kill thousands every year.


So with this logic, the whole ceremony should be cancelled.


Wow! The "Campaign Against Political Correctness!" How do I join and how do I set up a U.S. chapter?!

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Obama sees dead people

Line from Obama's Memorial Day speech yesterday:

On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.


Uh, does he know that "fallen" means dead?


Seems like he was on autopilot, reading the speech given to him by his handlers, but not letting it register in his mind, when he decides to ad lib the gaffe about seeing dead veterans in the audience.


Too bad he didn't give more thought to his speech on our fallen heroes.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

The cheapening of human life

Abortion...when human life isn’t just cheap, it’s on special offer


Let's have no more of this footling about over abortion. The issue isn’t how old a baby has to be before you cannot kill it. It is whether you think it’s right to do away with another human to suit your convenience.


Those who wonder what they would have done if they had lived at the time of some terrible injustice now know the answer. We do live in such a time. And we do nothing.


I had resigned myself to the fact that we are a callous and barbarous society, selfish almost beyond belief and so twisted that we now regard children as a burden. I had thought the most practical way of dealing with this was to try at least to cut the age at which abortions can take place. But I now think that was wrong.


The abortionists are not interested in compromise. Why should they be? They have always known what they were doing. They must know by now that the more abortions you allow, the more you have. They have – for the moment – won the argument that you can kill if it’s convenient. And our whole society has adopted the same self-serving view, often without realising it.


...

Life’s not just cheap in modern Britain. It’s on permanent special offer. So let’s have an end to the polite truce about abortion. If it must be legal, then let it at least be despised. Since Parliament’s not going to curb it, let us call it what it is, a massacre conducted to suit the selfish.


Let’s not have any slippery rubbish about its supporters being ‘pro-choice’, when in fact they’re ‘pro-death’. What choice has the poor baby about being dismembered?


Given that none of us knows, or ever will know, just how much pain and misery is spread down the ages by one single stifling of an innocent life, can anyone tell me how an abortion can ever be better than letting the baby be born and adopted?


There are, as we know, plenty of people who would be only too happy to do the adopting.

Friday, May 23, 2008

This is what a feminist looks like

From the daughter of the radical feminist Alice Walker:

How my mother's fanatical views tore us apart

...As the child of divorced parents, I know only too well the painful consequences of being brought up in those circumstances. Feminism has much to answer for denigrating men and encouraging women to seek independence whatever the cost to their families.


My mother's feminist principles coloured every aspect of my life. As a little girl, I wasn't even allowed to play with dolls or stuffed toys in case they brought out a maternal instinct. It was drummed into me that being a mother, raising children and running a home were a form of slavery.


... According to the strident feminist ideology of the Seventies, women were sisters first, and my mother chose to see me as a sister rather than a daughter. From the age of 13, I spent days at a time alone while my mother retreated to her writing studio - some 100 miles away. I was left with money to buy my own meals and lived on a diet of fast food.


...But the truth was I was very lonely and, with my mother's knowledge, started having sex at 13. I guess it was a relief for my mother as it meant I was less demanding. And she felt that being sexually active was empowering for me because it meant I was in control of my body.
[This is the radical theory behind much of the push for sex education in schools]


...Although I was on the Pill - something I had arranged at 13, visiting the doctor with my best friend - I fell pregnant at 14. I organised an abortion myself. Now I shudder at the memory. I was only a little girl.


...Although I believe that an abortion was the right decision for me then, the aftermath haunted me for decades. It ate away at my self-confidence and, until I had Tenzin, I was terrified that I'd never be able to have a baby because of what I had done to the child I had destroyed. For feminists to say that abortion carries no consequences is simply wrong.


... When I ... told her my news [of pregnancy] and that I'd never been happier, she went very quiet. All she could say was that she was shocked. Then she asked if I could check on her garden. I put the phone down and sobbed - she had deliberately withheld her approval with the intention of hurting me. What loving mother would do that?


... But she wouldn't back down. Instead, she wrote me a letter saying that our relationship had been inconsequential for years and that she was no longer interested in being my mother. She even signed the letter with her first name, rather than 'Mom'.


...Unlike most mothers, mine has never taken any pride in my achievements. She has always had a strange competitiveness that led her to undermine me at almost every turn.


... The ease with which people can get divorced these days doesn't take into account the toll on children. That's all part of the unfinished business of feminism.


... Feminism has betrayed an entire generation of women into childlessness. It is devastating.


But far from taking responsibility for any of this, the leaders of the women's movement close ranks against anyone who dares to question them - as I have learned to my cost. I don't want to hurt my mother, but I cannot stay silent. I believe feminism is an experiment, and all experiments need to be assessed on their results. Then, when you see huge mistakes have been paid, you need to make alterations.

It's Alive ... ALIVE!

[Warning: Graphic Medical Photo - no dead babies, tho]







Photo of Unborn Baby's Hand Continues to Change Hearts and Lives


"It was the earliest human interaction ever recorded," Clancy told NRL News. "It proved that the child at 21 weeks in utero is a reactive human being."

When he took the photo in August 1999, Clancy was a freelance photographer filming the fetal surgery procedure for USA Today. Unborn baby Samuel Armas had been diagnosed with spina bifida and hydrocephalus, which occur when the spinal column fails to fuse properly, leaving a lesion (or opening) that is highly susceptible to infection. Dr. Joseph Bruner and his team at Vanderbilt University were operating to close the lesion.

After the incision was made in mother Julie Armas's abdomen, her uterus was removed and laid on her thighs. An opening was made in the uterus, and the surgeons were supposed to operate on Samuel without any part of his body emerging from inside.

However, as Clancy eloquently describes on his web site, http://www.michaelclancy.com/, "out of the corner of my eye I saw the uterus shake, but no one's hands were near it. It was shaking from within. Suddenly, an entire arm thrust out of the opening, then pulled back until just a little hand was showing.

"The doctor reached over and lifted the hand, which reacted and squeezed the doctor's finger. As if testing for strength, the doctor shook the tiny fist. Samuel held firm. I took the picture! Wow! It happened so fast that the nurse standing next to me asked, 'What happened?' 'The child reached out,' I said. 'Oh. They do that all the time,' she responded."


And yet we are aborting babies at 21 weeks, some babies for "fetal abnormalties" less serious than Samuel's, some perfectly healthy. Some choice.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

24 weeks to live

Amazing story of the survival of a baby born at 22 weeks gestation. Doctors thought she was 24 weeks and so fought to save her - had they had known her real age, they would have left her to die. Something very wrong here.

The tiniest survivor: How the 'miracle' baby born two weeks before the legal abortion limit clung to life against all odds

Because this bright, beguiling toddler was born at just 21 weeks and six days into her gestation - a whole two weeks before the existing abortion cut-off.

She is the world's youngest premature baby ever to survive and the image of her tiny feet poking out between the fingers of a doctor's hand were used to support calls for the lowering of the 24-week legal limit on abortion.

... 'I realised that if the doctors wrongly believed I was 21 weeks pregnant, they would fight to save my baby as soon as they thought she was 24 weeks.


'It was the first lie I had ever told in my life, but I knew it could make the difference between life and death.'


From that moment on, doctors believed that Sonja's pregnancy was two weeks further advanced than it really was. But she still faced an agonising three-week wait before they would save the baby if she gave birth.

... 'I told them the truth, that she had been born at just 21 weeks and six days, and at first they didn't believe me.


'Then I told them to check my IVF records, and the date of my implantation. One of the doctors came back with a chart, which confirmed her age. They started saying it was a miracle - they would never have attempted to save her if they'd known.'

... Sonja says: 'When I look at my happy, laughing baby, and think that she could have been legally aborted and just left to die, it makes me feel physically ill.


'I hope the miracle of her survival shows the whole world that a fighting spirit can overcome incredible odds.


'I would never have an abortion, and I hope my daughter never has one. But I know it is up to individual choice. I just hope that doctors work to lower the age of viability, the stage at which they will try to save a premature baby.


'To watch her laughing in her Daddy's arms and then to think that she could have been a foetus aborted onto a slab, still gasping for breath, is unthinkable.


'I don't want the miracle of Amillia's birth to be overtaken by the abortion debate in America and the UK. But I do want the world to see how cheeky, happy, normal and loved she is, and hopefully this will persuade doctors to give other tiny babies the chance of life.'



How many mistakes do doctors make in the other direction, allowing 24+ week babies to die? How many 22 week old babies are left to die, but could have survived if given medical attention? Who decides these arbitrary numbers and why aren't we erring on the side of caution, on the side of life?

Immaculate Conception

You can imagine my reaction to this:

Fathers aren't needed say MPs: Commons decides IVF babies can do without a male role model

Fathers were last night effectively declared an irrelevance in modern Britain.


The requirement for fertility doctors to consider a child's need for a male role model before giving women IVF treatment was scrapped by MPs.


In a free vote, they swept away the rule despite impassioned pleas that the Government plan would "drive another nail into the coffin of the traditional family".


Labour rebels said it would send entirely the wrong signal to society as Britain faces a crisis in responsible parenting. The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, had warned it would remove the father from the heart of the family.


He accused the Government of putting the interests of "consumers" who want to become parents before the welfare of children. ...


Mr Duncan Smith said there is clear evidence that children growing up without fathers are more likely to fail in school, develop drug addiction and alcohol problems.


"This is common sense," he insisted. "All we are saying is, 'Take consideration of the need of a child for a father', not, "If you don't have a father you will never get treatment".'


No social good can come of this decision

Friday, May 16, 2008

I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!

[Parental advisory: bad lanuage]

What is up with all the bullsh*t in the media these days?! I'm going crazy!!!



U.N. racism investigator to visit U.S. from Monday

Bullsh*t! Go investigate the ethnic cleansing going on in Africa and the Middle East!



US soldier refuses to serve in 'illegal Iraq war'

Matthis Chiroux is the kind of young American US military recruiters love.

"I was from a poor, white family from the south, and I did badly in school," the now 24-year-old told AFP.
F*ck you, AFP, for editorializing bullsh*t ideas about people in the military that are demonstrably false! I thought we had debunked this crap when John Kerry fell into this trap!


Appeasement remark backlash puzzles White House
White House counselor Ed Gillespie told reporters aboard Air Force One Friday that he was surprised by the reaction of Democrats to remarks President Bush made at Israel’s Knesset. ...

The White House on Thursday was quick to state that the remarks were not aimed at Obama and Gillespie reiterated that a day after the speech.

“I’m surprised and curious as to the reaction,” he stated, adding, “The fact is that if you look at the words, they’re pretty consistent with what the president has said in the past, and frankly consistent with what many of them have said.”

Gillespie stated that some in the White House thought that the remarks would be interpreted as a rebuke to former president Jimmy Carter, who recently met with Hamas to discuss the situation in the Middle East.

He said the line about Nazi Germany was added to the speech because it was delivered to Israel’s parliament.

Get over yourself, Obama! All this feigned indignation over the President calling out appeasers - unfortunately, you're not the only worthless d*uche bag this applies to.


Opt-out fee for abortion urged

In the past two weeks, Harvard students opened their mailboxes to find a blue “opt-out” card as part of the Abortion Opt-Out Campaign of Harvard Right to Life (HRL). The initiative allows students to request a refund of the part of their Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) health insurance plan that funds elective abortions—one dollar per term. ...

For lots of students, the ability to obtain refunds from insurance due to moral convictions is troubling. Sean P. Mascali ’08, president of Students for Choice, said he thinks that students should not have this right.

How ironic, Students for Choice doesn't think students should have the choice to pay for abortions! The only choice "pro-choicers" ever support is abortion. When it comes to a woman's right to know, parental notification, taxpayer funded abortions, etc. they are against people CHOOSING. F*ck off, blood-thirsty hypocrites!


Ahhhh, I feel much better. Sorry for all the angry foul language!

Have a nice weekend!

Thursday, May 15, 2008

The Senator Doth Protest too Much, Methinks

Obama says Bush falsely accuses him of appeasement

Here is the President's quote:

In a speech to Israel's Knesset, Bush said: "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.


"We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is—the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."



And here is Senator Obama's reaction:


Obama responded with a statement, seizing on Bush's remarks even as it was unclear to whom the president was referring.


"It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack," Obama said in the statement his aides distributed. "George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel."


The White House said Bush's comment wasn't a reference to Obama.



What, does Obama think he's the only one who thinks talking will solve all the world's problems? Bush could have been referring to elite liberal opinion in general. He was in Israel, he could have been referring to foreign critics, esp. European. It does not automatically follow that he was talking about Obama.

But if Obama hears appeasement and automatically thinks the charge is aimed at himself, well maybe that's telling us a little something about Obama.

Friday, May 09, 2008

God and Science


Yuval Levin's article in the New Atlantis "Science and the Left" and Michael Gerson's WaPo column on it, "A Phoney 'War on Science'", bring up some excellent points.

Scientism - the belief in science at the exclusion of religion - leads to the conclusion that all human beings are not created equal. As Levin says:


"Science, simply put, cannot account for human equality, and does not offer reasons to believe we are all equal. Science measures our material and animal qualities, and it finds them to be patently unequal."


If we are all random products of billions of years of evolutionary accidents, then we are not all special or equal. It then follows that the mentally and physically handicapped must be genetic "mistakes." If they are mistakes, then they must be remove and a more controlled, ordered society created. This thought gave rise to the early 1900's eugenicists and the Nazis.

Levin and Gerson quote Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger as saying in 1922:

"Drastic and Spartan methods may be forced upon society if it continues complacently to encourage the chance and chaotic breeding that has resulted from our stupidly cruel sentimentalism."

This view cheapens human life and makes it expendable. It is no coincidence that Sanger's group Planned Parenthood engages in what Gerson calls one of our modern-day version of eugenics - abortion. Genetic selection and manipulation through invitro fertilization, cloning, and embryonic stem cell research also qualify.

Alternatively, the idea of human equality is a uniquely Judeo-Christian idea stemming from the belief that we are all made in God's perfect image. If we are all "endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights," then we are all equal and valuable merely for being human. God doesn't make "mistakes;" we all have a purpose.

Science and religion should not be mutually exclusive. In fact, some of the greatest scientists (Copernicus, Galileo, Bacon, Kepler) allowed their religion to inform their scientific study and vice-versa to produce fantastic results.


Albert Einstein once said, “Science without religion is blind and religion without science is lame.”



Sir Isaac Newton: "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."


Levin and Gerson are right to expose the Left's campaign to dictate only one narrow view science and discredit the work of those who may harbor a belief in the Almighty.

The Berkeley Witch Project


Code Pink Protesters Try Witchcraft at Anti-Marine Rallies


Code Pink is now resorting to witchcraft to beef up the number of its supporters protesting Berkeley's controversial Marine Corps Recruiting Center.

The women's anti-war group has told ralliers to come equipped with spells and pointy hats Friday for "Witches, clowns and sirens day," the last of the group's weeklong homage to Mother's Day.

"Women are coming to cast spells and do rituals and to impart wisdom to figure out how we're going to end war," Zanne Sam Joi of Bay Area Code Pink told FOXNews.com.

The group's week of themed protests, which included days to galvanize grannies and bring-your-daughter-to-protest, appears to have done little to boost its flagging numbers.

A FOX News camera, which has a 24/7 live shot of the recruiting center's front door, recorded little action, and the gatherings have, until this point, been ill attended.

...On Tuesday, Code Pink's theme was "Fierce mothers raging against war," Joi said, to talk about all the mothers killed and raped in war. Wednesday's theme was "Bring your daughter to the protest," where daughters explanied why they don't want their parents fighting the war. Thursday is "Sisters don't allow sisters to live in war zones" day, and the week wraps up Friday with "Witches, clowns and sirens day."


And next week to add numbers they'll bring in the homeless

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Maybe he should have burned it


Idaho student says teacher tossed his Mexican flag in trash
[Yeah, so?]

A high school student says he may file a lawsuit against a physical education teacher who took a Mexican flag he had brought for Cinco de Mayo and put it in the garbage.
...
Camelo said he then took the undamaged flag out of the garbage. He said he's been contacted by the American Civil Liberties Union and is considering a lawsuit against Straatman.

Of course, if it was an American flag, the ACLU would be rushing to defend the teacher instead. RIDICULOUS!
.

Friday, May 02, 2008

SICK of Great Britain

Hmmm, maybe Britain's socialized healthcare isn't all that great

'We're fed up with the cold weather and the NHS,' say asylum seekers trying to break OUT of Britain

Failed asylum seekers are sneaking out of Britain - because they are fed up with the poor healthcare and bad weather. ...

"We cannot explain exactly why they are trying to go, but when some of these people were questioned they said they wanted to go to a warmer country as they are fed up with the English weather and fed up with their treatment on the NHS." ...

"They also complained that they couldn't get appointments to see a doctor or a dentist. It's all a bit rich really."