Making Sense of the Virginia Tech Massacre

By John W. Whitehead

When I was a boy, like most children, I was into everything and everybody’s business.

Full of mischief, I was constantly getting into scrapes. All I had to do was walk out the door and trouble found me—or vice versa. But I never got away with anything because inevitably, by the time I arrived back home, my parents had already been alerted by the neighbors to my goings-on and were waiting to light into me.

(read more)

President Bush's Remarks on the Global War on Terror

TIPP CITY, Ohio
 
Tipp City High School
1:05 P.M. EDT
 
THE PRESIDENT:  Thanks for coming.  I'm honored you're here.  Steve, thank you for the invitation.  It's a real pleasure to be with you.  What I thought I would do is share some thoughts with you about a couple of subjects, primarily Iraq, and then I'd like to answer some of your questions, on any topic you'd like to ask me about...(read more)

Was Virginia Tech Massacre a Hate Crime?

BUDAPEST, Hungary, April 19 /Christian Newswire/ -- America is still reeling over the horrific slaughter of students and faculty at Virginia Tech. The shooter's actions have not been listed as a hate crime, but what makes that heinous crime somehow less hateful or less important than a crime of bias? (read more)

Presidential Proclamation: National Day of Prayer 2007

WASHINGTON, April 20 /Christian Newswire/ -- The following is a Proclamation by the President Bush -- National Day of Prayer, 2007: (read more)

Evidence Concerning Iraqi WMD Programs

By Bob Ellis
Dakota Voice

Did Saddam have WMDs? Would he have made some if we hadn't invaded? I think the answer to the first question is "Almost certainly," and the answer to the second is "Absolutely."

We've been over this many, many times in the past four years, so why do I bring it up again? Well, the liberals are making a fresh run at trying to repaint history to make it more palatable to them. So let's look at the information again.

A 2005 Washington Times report says

The CIA's chief weapons inspector said he cannot rule out the possibility that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were secretly shipped to Syria before the March 2003 invasion, citing "sufficiently credible" evidence that WMDs may have been moved there.

The article also says...(read more)

South Dakota Congressional Delegation on Abortion Decision

Compare and contrast these quotes are from the Sioux City Journal.

"I think the fact that this was a very close decision of the Supreme Court signals that this is not necessarily something that signals where the court is headed on Roe v. Wade generally," Herseth Sandlin said Thursday during a telephone news conference.

- From Congresswoman Herseth-Sandlin, who receives plenty of financial aid from pro-abortion Emily's List.

Meanwhile, from Senator Thune:

In a release, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said the court's decision is a "major triumph."

"As a nation, we have come a long way in protecting the unborn since the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade. However, we still have a long way to go in the fight," he said.

How Pro-Abortionists Live With Themselves

David Limbaugh's latest column explains the inconsistency of abortion with regard to "rights," but also explains how pro-aborts manage to live with this inconsistency:

One has to scratch one's head to think of any other liberty that is so absolute that it permits no restrictions. We don't think that way regarding other liberties.

For example, would anyone seriously argue that my right to swing my fist entitles me to commit battery on another person? Does our right to sexual liberty entitle us to rape? Why do the radical pro-abortionists regard any restriction on abortion, which doesn't just harm another person, but kills him or her, an impermissible encroachment on a woman's liberty?

The only way it is logically possible to couch the abortion debate in terms of a woman's right to her own autonomy is if we accept the premise that the second party in the equation, the unborn, is not a party at all, but a meaningless mass of tissue bereft of human dignity. Sadly for the pro-aborts, it is increasingly clear from any perspective we choose to examine it: scientific, spiritual or otherwise, that the unborn is a human life. If the pro-aborts were not aware of the humanness of the unborn, they wouldn't grudgingly pretend to strive to make abortion "safe, legal and rare." There is no moral imperative to protect a human-less mass of tissue.

Giving Away Bibles Illegal--In America!

From WorldNetDaily:

Two members of Gideons International who were arrested in Florida for handing out Bibles on a public sidewalk are battling a second round of charges, after the initial trespassing charges against them were dismissed, but authorities filed a new set.

"Why is Florida so interested in prosecuting people who hand out Bibles?" asked the Alliance Defense Fund, which is working on the case for the two volunteers. "Does the state now believe that its citizens will be safer if 'protected' from Bibles? In a country founded on religious freedom, the actions of the State are a disgrace."

Something Wrong in the Heart

In the shadow of the Virginia Tech massacre, Chuck Colson's latest column talks about this disturbing trend in recent decades to call criminals "sick" instead of "evil." Chuck should know something about this, having served time in prison himself, and having founded the prison ministry Prison Fellowship.

From TownHall.com:

We are uncomfortable attributing events like this to human evil, much less to a kind of evil that seeks to undo God's creation—what Christians call the demonic.

We think of sin and the demonic as not-so-quaint relics from a superstitious age. And even more destructive, random events like this remind us how little we know about ourselves and what we are capable of, as well. But failing to call evil evil misleads us about the world we live in and our need for God's grace, the only real answer and hope for any of us.

Media Probe: We Just Weren't Biased Enough

Bill Moyers, bastion of journalistic objectivity in the greatest tradition of Pravda, is coming out with a critique of the media's performance before the Iraq War.

When I saw the headline on Drudge "'Devastating' Bill Moyers Probe of Press and Iraq Coming on PBS; Dan Rather Admits: I Blew It...", frankly I was stunned.

Remembering how hard the press fought the idea of action against Iraq in the months-long "rush to war," and remembering the complete lack of objectivity which is characteristic of Moyers (he's to the Left of Dennis Kucinich), I wondered how Moyers could possibly be responsible for a media report that finally came clean about the overwhelming liberal, anti-war bias displayed by the press.

Then I got hit in the face with a cold bucket of reality.

From Editor & Publisher:

While much of the evidence of the media’s role as cheerleaders for the war presented here is not new, it is skillfully assembled, with many fresh quotes from interviews (with the likes of Tim Russert and Walter Pincus) along with numerous embarrassing examples of past statements by journalists and pundits that proved grossly misleading or wrong. Several prominent media figures, prodded by Moyers, admit the media failed miserably, though few take personal responsibility.

What a selective memory they have!

The best information our and every other intelligence agency on the planet had indicated Saddam had or was in the process of developing WMDs, yet the media "didn't dig enough."

What, they didn't feature enough interviews with Saddam, telling us how innocent he was? They didn't feature enough propaganda from the French, Germans and Russians (who were in bed financially with Iraq) about how we should leave the peace-loving peoples of Iraq alone?

They didn't feature enough prattle from the UN (that was also in bed financially with Iraq) about how we needed to ignore Saddam's defiance of their own 17 resolutions and "just give peace a chance?"

Maybe the media focused too much on those empty ultimatums to Saddam from the UN and our own congress...only with President Bush, they weren't empty.

Maybe the media should have worked harder to give Saddam longer to hide his WMDs by sending them to Syria, burying them, and dumping them into the Euphrates River; if only they'd done a better job of slowing down the months-long rush to war, we wouldn't have found the chemical weapons we did.

I guess the "mainstream" media will just never run out of new tricks to keep amazing me with not only how biased they can be while calling themselves "objective," they'll never lose their ability to remain utterly blind about their own bias, even to the point of pointing out how their missed opportunities to have been even more biased prove their objectivity.

Where Are the Grownups?

Peggy Noonan, former Reagan speechwriter, has an excellent column today at the Wall Street Journal regarding reactions to the Virginia Tech massacre. I don't always agree with her, but today she hit's the nail on the head and drives it gently, thoughtfully, firmly home.

The literally white-bearded academic who was head of the campus counseling center was on Paula Zahn Wednesday night suggesting the utter incompetence of officials to stop a man who had stalked two women, set a fire in his room, written morbid and violent plays and poems, been expelled from one class, and been declared by a judge to be "mentally ill" was due to the lack of a government "safety net." In a news conference, he decried inadequate "funding for mental health services in the United States." Way to take responsibility. Way to show the kids how to dodge.

The anxiety of our politicians that there may be an issue that goes unexploited was almost--almost--comic. They mean to seem sensitive, and yet wind up only stroking their supporters. I believe Rep. Jim Moran was first out of the gate with the charge that what Cho did was President Bush's fault. I believe Sen. Barack Obama was second, equating the literal killing of humans with verbal coarseness. Wednesday there was Sen. Barbara Boxer equating the violence of the shootings with the "global warming challenge" and "today's Supreme Court decision" upholding a ban on partial-birth abortion.

One watches all of this and wonders: Where are the grown-ups?

(emphasis mine)

Can't Render Justice With a Flawed Moral Foundation

Some excerpts from this Argus Leader article about jury deliberations in the Daphne Wright murder case shows how completely adrift many people are these days, both logically and morally.

"I felt like it was all 12 of us saying, 'We grant you mercy,' " said Frost-Elshami, a 38-year-old housewife and mother of two.

The jury wasn't there to grant mercy, they were there to ensure justice was done. Looks like we missed the boat on that one; missed the justice boat and took the mercy ferry instead.

"We wanted her to know that we were more merciful to her than she was to Darlene," said Lisa Wise, 42, a John Morrell employee who also sat on the jury.

Reckon the murderer will get it? I suppose the endless appeals we'll see clogging up the judicial system and burning off tax dollars will reveal whether she appreciates the mercy or not. Maybe she will learn something from it, maybe she won't; in either case, that lesson would come too late to do the victim any good. And it might teach other potential perpretrators that they can expect a better deal than they give their victims.

This is what happens when criminal sentencing becomes more about the people on the jury than about the crime and the perpetrator. When we become more concerned about making ourselves feel good and noble ("Look at me, I showed mercy where the perpetrator showed none") than about rendering a punishment appropriate to the seriousness of the crime, justice is the casualty.

Besides, the perpetrator had an obligation not to injure or kill another innocent person; the jury has no obligation to show "mercy" to someone who has show callous disregard for human life.

But the moral question of a life or death sentence didn't take long, with seven jurors set on life without parole and at least four on the fence. Wise said none wanted to impose the death penalty, but Frost-Elshami said there was one.

So now we know there was only one person on the jury who recognizes the value of a human life wrongly taken.

Both jurors said Thursday that Wright's being black and a homosexual were not discussed in deliberations, but her challenges growing up deaf contributed to their decision.

"I didn't look at what color she was, whether she was a lesbian, but the deafness played a role," Wise said, adding that the sentence might have been death had the defendant been a man.

So this was a pity sentence? People with disabilities are somehow less culpable, less responsible for their actions? Do you think God gives us a pass for our moral failures if we have a disability or had a tough time growing up? Our society might, but I don't see any evidence in the Bible that God gives us a "Get Out of Hell Free Card" if we had "challenges." If I were deaf, I would be supremely insulted by this.

I note also that justice depends on your sex: "the sentence might have been death had the defendant been a man." I don't think justice is blind, anymore.

Wise said she strongly considered the death penalty as the horrific photographs of the victim's body ran through her mind. It was the religious convictions and sense of forgiveness in VanderGiesen's parents that helped her agree on the life sentence.

People can and should forgive; governments have a duty to render justice and punish the guilty. The Apostle Paul stated as much in Romans 13.

"I can live with her never being able to get out of prison again. I can live with that," Wise said.

Whether this juror can "live with" the perpetrator's sentence is irrelevant; if she wasn't able to render justice, she shouldn't have accepted a seat on the jury.

And while Juror Wise may be able to "live with" this sentence, meanwhile the victim isn't living at all--which is what the trial was all about.

Liberals Have No Sense of Humor

From CNS News:

The student senate at a Rhode Island college has drawn fire for disbanding the school's Republican group after the group refused to apologize for a satirical stunt designed to highlight political correctness on American campuses.

The College Republicans at the University of Rhode Island (URI) established a satirical scholarship to ridicule the notion of scholarships based on race, gender or nationality.

It offered a $100 grant to a student who was white, heterosexual, American and male.

In our politically correct culture, we mustn't blaspheme the holy doctrine of (non-white) racial preference.

These young Republicans must have forgotten that liberals (a) don't have a sense of humor, and (b) don't like it when you point out their hypocrisy.

Climate was Drier in 1930s and 1860s

It's dry in South Dakota right now, but keep this in mind in the face of global warming hysteria.

From the Rapid City Journal:

As bad as it has been in western South Dakota this time, it was even drier in the 1930s and drier still n based on tree rings n in a drought of the 1860s, Todey said. Beyond damage to livestock feed supplies and crops, the drought has hurt recreation, irrigation and municipal water supplies on some parts of the Missouri River. It contributed to more than 1,000 wildfires in the state last year. That tested financial resources as well as the emotional strength of those who suffered damage from the fires and scrambled to fight them, Todey said.

“People were running scared last year,” he said.

It will take a couple of years of average or above-average moisture to recover, Todey said. But if historic patterns are any indication, there might be better times ahead.

“If the 10-year cycle is correct, the 2010s could be better,” he said.

If You're Straight Keep Quiet About It

Some schools across the country--and a few in South Dakota--recently took part in the pro-homosexual "Day of Silence" this week. While schools generally bend over backwards to make way for this event, students who don't see things the homosexual way sometimes encounter opposition.

From OneNewsNow:

Pastor Gardner says his 15-year-old son David, a student at Oakridge High, was suspended for a day by the school because he wrote with a black marker "I'm straight" on a piece of duct tape and attached it to his shirt. He explains that David donned the message to voice his objection to the school's participation in the Day of Silence.

I know a lawyer here in Rapid City who is an allied attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, and so far he hasn't informed me of any problems with the "Day of Truth" counter-event that some schools in South Dakota held yesterday. Hopefully there were none.

The father of this young man in Michigan has some good advice for Christians everywhere:

It is time, says the Michigan pastor, for Christians to step to the forefront. "I tell you, I fear what's coming in the next ten years for the Church and the schools -- and children, in general -- if the Christians don't come out of their closet," he says. "The gays and lesbians want to come out of their closet; I think the Church needs to come out of their closet and stand up and be the Body of Christ that God has told it to be."

Media Go Home

ABC news report, "Media Backlash at Virginia Tech" by Daniel Marotta (April 19, 2007), brings a strong message to the media. Are they listening?

"Students have also been handing out a flier that reads: "We are Hokie Nation and we need to mourn and heal. We need each other. The media has taken advantage of our situation and are exploiting us for their own sensationalism. We will not tolerate the abuse; we love our community far too much to stand for this any more.

"We, the students of Virginia Tech, are asserting ourselves. We are taking back our campus. All media, if they have any respect for Hokie Nation, will no longer attack our administration. They will no longer hound our students. Leave us to heal. Leave us to ourselves. Hokie Nation needs to be UNITED. Return our campus to us."

And further proof that getting the story is ultimate...

"But the media has not only complicated the healing process. The sheer size of its presence has taxed the college, campus administrators and the broader community. News and television crews have housed themselves in Blacksburg's hotels, making it difficult for those traveling to be with loved ones to find available space.

The parents of wounded student Kevin Sterne expressed gratitude to local people who opened their homes to them when there was no room at an inn Tuesday night because the media had booked all the rooms."

Nothing like being thoughtful and showing some consideration for family members.

When the Fire Dies Down

By Ken Korkow

When I was dating Liz, we would talk for hours on the phone, write long letters, kiss 'til my lips were sore. When I was with her, my personality changed. She made me glow and feel really alive.

Then we married. (read more)

Unbelievable: A Pedophilia Web Site?

I came across this a few minutes ago!

"Pedophilia Web Site Angers Parents

Last Edited: Thursday, 19 Apr 2007, 6:32 PM CDT

Created: Thursday, 19 Apr 2007, 4:26 PM CDT

KANSAS CITY, MO. -- It tells little girls that it's okay to be in love with an adult. A website that seeks to legalize pedophilia has some parents hopping mad and working to shut it down.

Parents said kids are learning about this website for adults sexually attracted to young children through the popular social networking site Myspace, which is owned by the parent company of this web site."

Please follow the link to read the rest of the story and see for yourself just how mad the world has gone thus far.

Virginia Killer's Grandfather Expresses Remorse

From Reuters:

Kim said he felt grief, anguish and sorrow over the shooting.

"Seung-Hui troubled his parents when he was young because he wouldn't talk, but he was well-behaved. I don't know how I can compensate for the responsibility for raising my kids improperly," Kim told the Dong-A Ilbo newspaper.

He extended his deepest sympathies to the victims of the shooting and their families.

A Third Great Awakening?

Many people are praying for a Third Great Awakening, a spiritual renewal, in America. Lord knows we need it.

From CBN News:

Finney and other revivalists believed that the Gospel did not just get people saved, but it was also a means of making the country better. The Second Great Awakening inspired a wave of social activism.

Marshall said, "Every single social ministry in America in the 19th century, the first mission to the deaf, the first ministry to the blind, the first prison reform, the temperance movement, and, of course, the biggest one out of them all, the anti-slavery movement, the women's movement -- all of these were started directly by evangelical Christians who had come to Jesus in the Second Great Awakening."

Several societies were also created to spread the Gospel, including the American Bible Society.

Christians started orphanages, hospitals, and Sunday schools.

The First Great Awakening, which occurred in the early to mid 1700s, has often been credited with laying the foundation for the American Revolution.

Revivals of Christian faith can change the course of civilizations...but they have to start with God's people.

Dying to Stop Global Warming

From the National Center for Policy Analysis, on "Green But Unsafe" by John D. Graham in the Wall Street Journal, April 18, 2007.

Whatever the European Union's (EU) green vehicle plan's effectiveness is in slowing the pace of global warming, the regulatory impact assessment now being drawn up will need to consider a factor that is often overlooked: the safety of motorists.

More motorists die when two small cars collide than when two large cars collide. If both small and large cars are reduced in size, the decline in crush space adds risk for occupants in both vehicles, says Graham. Downsizing only the large cars is safer for the small cars, but it puts the occupants of large cars at greater risk in single-vehicle impacts (for example, when crashing into guardrails and trees) and in collisions with heavy trucks.

Senator Harry Reid: We're Losers

Gee, thanks for pulling together for the good of the team, Senator Reid.

From NewsMax:

"Now I believe myself . . . that this war is lost, and that the surge is not accomplishing anything, as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday," said Reid, of Nevada.

I wonder how Americans would have reacted if the Senate Majority Leader had said in 1942, after we'd had our fleet sunk at Pearl Harbor and been kicked out of the Philippines, "The war is lost."

More Societal Decay

From Drudge today, about rap star Cam'ron who told "60 Minutes" he wouldn't help police catch a serial killer.

Far more disturbing is this from Geoffrey Canada, an anti-violence advocate from Harlem:

Canada says in the poor New York City neighborhood he grew up in, only the criminals didn't talk to the police, but within today's hip-hop culture, that's changed. "It is now a cultural norm that is being preached in poor communities....It's like you can't be a black person if you have a set of values that say 'I will not watch a crime happen in my community without getting involved to stop it,'" Canada tells Cooper.

Young people from some of New York's toughest neighborhoods echo Canada's assessment, calling the message not to help police "the rules" and helping the police "a crime" in their neighborhoods. These "rules" are contributing to a much lower percentage of arrests in homicide cases -- a statistic known as the "clearance rate" -- in largely poor, minority neighborhoods throughout the country, according to Prof. David Kennedy of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "I work in communities where the clearance rate for homicides has gone into the single digits," says Kennedy. The national rate for homicide clearance is 60 percent. "In these neighborhoods, we are on the verge of -- or maybe we have already lost -- the rule of law," he tells Cooper.

Says Canada, "It's like we're saying to the criminals, 'You can have our community....Do anything you want and we will either deal with it ourselves or we'll simply ignore it.'"

So when we hear of conflicts between minorities and the legal system, is there a genuine problem of racism, or is it this lawless attitude manifesting itself?

Global Warming Good For Us

From the Asheville Citizen-Times:

A new study from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researchers show that model simulations for the 21st Century indicate a robust increase in vertical wind shear in the tropical Atlantic and East Pacific Oceans. A new study from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researchers show that model simulations for the 21st Century indicate a robust increase in vertical wind shear in the tropical Atlantic and East Pacific Oceans.

Historically, increased vertical wind shear has been associated with reduced hurricane activity and intensity.

Now global warming can save us from hurricanes.

Go ahead: take that Hummer or Excursion for an extra long drive today! Do it for our fellow Americans in Florida.

No Justice in a Weak Society

I guess it'll have to do. The Argus Leader announces the jury has sentenced Daphne Wright to life in prison for the kidnapping and murdering Darlene VanderGiesen.

The jury of 11 women and one man agreed with Nelson that the killing and chain saw dismemberment revealed Wright had a depraved mind. But they said life in prison without parole is a more appropriate punishment than death by injection.

Wright would have been the first woman on South Dakota's death row. She is also black, deaf and homosexual, which had her lawyers and mother raising questions about a fair trial.

VanderGiesen, who died at 42, was also deaf.

Prosecutors said it was VanderGiesen's platonic friendship with Wright's ex-girlfriend, Sallie Collins, that drove the woman to murder on Feb. 1, 2006.

Testimony revealed Wright bought a chain saw two days later and chopped the body into four pieces. When the last of the remains were recovered six weeks later, VanderGiesen's family held a second funeral in their hometown of Rock Valley, Iowa.

All the whining and caterwauling I heard throughout this trial was truly disgusting. The murderer couldn't get a fair trial--or sentencing--because she was (1) a woman, (2) deaf, (3) a minority, (4) a homosexual, (5) she lacked "problem solving skills," (6) her mama fed her biscuits with a slingshot, (7) they used to tie a steak around her neck to get the dog to play with her, (8) any other excuse you can possibly dream up to alleviate her culpability.

A society that can't give a murderer what they deserve--the death penalty--in a case as egregious as this one, where she chopped up a woman with a chain saw, is a society that has lost its commitment to justice.

That's a society in real trouble, and in an advanced state of rot.

Carrie K. Hutchens

Archived columns by Carrie K. Hutchens.

Evolution Doesn't Conform to Scientific Laws

From a great article about how the simple cell blows a hole a mile wide in the theory of evolution, from Babu Ranganathan on The Conservative Voice:

Without DNA there cannot be RNA, and without RNA there cannot be DNA. And without either DNA or RNA there cannot be proteins, and without proteins there cannot be DNA or RNA. They're all mutually dependent upon each other for existence! The cell is irreducibly complex. It could not have gradually evolved! Evolutionists generally believe that it took one billion years for the first life form or cell to have evolved. That belief, although still taught as gospel in many elementary and secondary schools, cannot be sustained by modern science.

The great British scientist Sir Frederick Hoyle has said that the probability of the sequence of molecules in the simplest cell coming into existence by chance is equivalent to a tornado going through a junk yard of airplane parts and assembling a 747 Jumbo Jet!

For evolution to have occurred and resulted in the organisms we see today, it would have had to violate the laws of nature.

It takes a lot more faith to believe in evolution than in the Bible.

Health Care Sticker Shock

From the New Haven Register:

The state lawmakers who back a single-payer, universal health care plan for Connecticut have received a needed, if overdue, dose of fiscal reality.

The Connecticut legislature's budget office estimates their universal health care plan could double the state's proposed $17.5 billion dollar budget.

The editorial also had this to say about the plan:

Advocates of universal health care have not only ignored the staggering cost to taxpayers, but the fact that the present health care system, imperfect as it may be, provides health coverage, either through employers or individual coverage, to 94 percent of state residents.

But, doubling the state’s budget and bankrupting state taxpayers is no way to solve the problem of providing health insurance to the 6 percent of state residents without coverage.

I recall when Dr. Robert Moffitt of the Heritage Foundation testified to the South Dakota legislature earlier this year about our state's health care plans, he said something along the lines of not screwing up what we have in order to close the gap for the remaining uninsured.

I hope our legislature was listening, and listening good.

Hat tip to the National Center for Policy Analysis.

Accuracy of Abstinence Study Questioned

Free sex advocates have latched onto a recently released study which says abstinence programs arent' making a difference in teen sex. However, not everyone is buying it.

From OneNewsNow:

Valerie Huber is executive director of the Washington-based National Abstinence Education Association. She says the results of the study are too narrow, with only four of 700 Title V programs being examined.

The four programs surveyed did not show reinforcement through the years, she contends, yet today's abstinence education programs recognize that is "an essential component."

No message of responsibility to a young person is going to do much good unless it's repeated and reinforced, preferably in all areas of their lives.

Further Reprieve: Emilio Gonzales' Case Postponed Until May 8th

Little Emilio Gonzales is the 17 month old in Texas, whose life is being threatened by the Texas Futile Care Law. A law that allows doctors, hospitals and their so-called ethics committee to decide that care is futile and give a 10-Day termination of life notice. That's right, families have an entire 10 days in which to find another facility to care for their loved one. Should they fail to find one within the allotted time, the hospital staff can readily end life support of the patient deemed futile.

Catarina Gonzales, Emilio's mother, sought help in saving her baby and an extension was granted. The hospital agreed to give the mother until April 10th at 5 PM to find another facility that would accept her son. On that very date, a hearing was scheduled with Travis County Probate Judge Guy Herman. Judge Herman scheduled a hearing on April 19th to give the hospital and Emilio's mother time to prepare, in effect giving the toddler a nine day reprieve. Judge Herman has since postponed tomorrow's hearing until May 8th to further give time for preparation, thus giving little Emilio the additional time as well.

(April 18, 2007) From Texas Right to Life's Alert:

"While Texas Right to Life continues to aggressively pursue leads and transfer possibilities, Emilio’s needs are as follows: surgeons willing to provide his tracheostomy and g-tube procedures, physicians willing to care for Emilio while he recovers, a long term care facility willing to care for Emilio after his procedures, and physicians willing to help attorney Jerri Ward in the May 8th court hearing."

"While God in His inscrutable ways is obviously at work here, please join us in prayer for Emilio’s family, for all who are currently involved in Emilio’s care and his transfer attempts, and most importantly, for Emilio’s health. Additionally, please pray that all in our society will learn and remember that when one life, no matter how sick, small, or unloved is deemed futile, all human life is rendered valueless. Finally, please pray that all in the Pro-Life movement will be blessed with the courage to defend baby Emilio no matter what powers and principalities oppose us."

Amen.

Adult Stem cell patch restores vision

From LifeSite.net, yet another example of adult stem cell research helping people:

A man's vision has been restored by a corneal patch grown from adult stem cells by a team at the University of Melbourne's Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA) and the Bernard O'Brien Institute of Microsurgery (BOBIM).

Meanwhile, the crickets are still chirping as we wait for results from embryonic stem cell research--the kind that kills embryonic human beings.

Homosexual "Marriage" Tactics Change

According to an NPR report, advocates of homosexual "marriage" are shifting to a long-range strategy:

Rather than challenging marriage statutes straight on, gay-marriage advocates are trying to win incremental rights, such as domestic partnership benefits, or hospital-visitation rights.

In doing this, they will build a certain level of acceptance in many people's minds (just like the frog in boiling water), until the general populace becomes ready to accept it on a larger scale.

They may also, once enough states implement something like "marriage-lite," play the "Full Faith and Credit Clause" card (Article 1, Section 1, U.S. Constitution) or the "Equal Protection Clause" card (14th Amendment, U.S. Constitution) to force it on the entire country. Remember, if you boil the frog slowly, he'll put up with the heat until it gets him.

Another factor helpful to this long-term strategy:

A Pew Forum poll last year found that 70 percent of people older than 50 still oppose gay marriage. But more than half of those polled who were younger than 30 said that gay marriage should be the law of the land.

In other words, homosexual activists will just wait it out until all those old fogies who believe God meant what He said about homosexuality die off.

Partial Birth Abortion Decision in Context

To provide a little "rubber meets the road" context regarding today's Supreme Court decision on partial birth abortion, this editorial from National Review Online does nicely:

The liberal dissenters have not merely made a minor logical error here. Take their argument seriously for a moment. They claim that it is conceivable that in some cases, partial-birth abortion is the safest method of abortion, and therefore it has to be allowed. (And it has to be allowed whether or not the pregnancy itself threatens the mother’s health.) They further claim that it should make no difference to anyone where the child’s feet are positioned when he is aborted.

Let’s apply this argument to infanticide. It is conceivable that in some cases removing the child from the womb completely before killing it is the safest option. And surely it should make no difference to any rational person whether the infant was fully within the womb, partly inside it, or all the way out when his skull is crushed? Four justices on the Supreme Court have accepted all the premises for a constitutional right to infanticide. They lack only the nerve to take their reasoning to its logical conclusion.

In case you aren't aware of just what a partial birth abortion is, go here or here.

Normally, a breech birth (where the feet come out before the head) is the LAST thing you want, because it's very dangerous. Yet in partial birth abortion, they FORCE the baby to come out this way. So how can this extra-dangerous method possibly be necessary to save the life of the mother?

Franklin Graham on Virginia Tech Massacre

Giving credit where credit is due, from NewsMax.com:

"There is evil in the world, no question about it,” Graham said. "I believe Satan, the devil, is behind this … This young man was filled with evil. There’s no way to describe the fact that he could go and murder this many people and do what he did without this man being possessed by an evil spirit who brought this carnage on this university.”

"You have to forgive,” Graham said. "This was a human being. What he did was wrong, what he did was evil. Absolutely, we can forgive, but I’m not concerned about this young man right now. I’m concerned with the families of his victims.”

Pro-Life Victory on Partial Birth Abortion

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of a nationwide ban on partial birth abortion.

From Bloomberg:

The justices, voting 5-4, refused to invalidate the 2003 law even though it lacks an exception for cases posing a risk to the mother's health. The court also rejected claims that the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act is so vaguely worded it would force doctors to forgo a commonly used, constitutionally protected abortion technique for fear of prosecution.

The 5-4 split was along (mostly) predictable lines.

Interestingly, however, Judge Kennedy, who was the swing vote in 1992's Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision which preserved the "right" of abortion. In my mind, this lends support to what I and some others believed last year during the Referred Law 6 fight: that Kennedy might just swing back around and uphold RL6. (Kennedy was expected to overturn Roe in the Casey decision, but switched his vote in the end).

To see what it took four years of court fighting--and before that, many years of indecision in Congress--to now outlaw, go to this page at the National Right to Life website. Or for a video illustrating this barbaric procedure, go here.

BBC Clueless on Gun Control

The Media Research Center highlights BBC coverage of the Virginia Tech murders. Of course, the liberal BBC puts the gun control spin on it.

"The question all around the world, when an incident, a terrible incident like this happens is how many shootings does it take before America has a serious discussion about gun control?"

Meanwhile, the BBC ignores the real problem: evil.

When I lived in England for three years, I was struck (until I got used to it) by news reports of murders when I would listen to the radio there. It was one of those things that would just slap you in the face after listening to it for a little bit.

After a couple of weeks, I noticed that almost every single news report contained multiple reports of someone slashed to death here, stabbed to death there, hacked to death somewhere else. Yes, Britain had gun control...but the British people were slicing and stabbing each other to death like crazy with the knives still available to them. Oh, and let's not forget the many ones who were strangled and even a few garroted. I remember being amazed at all the knifing and strangling going on in this realm of no-guns.

Guns make killing a little easier, but if someone wants to murder, they'll find a way. The real problem isn't guns; the real problem is the evil in men's hearts.

And the only thing that can truly fix that is the man they left out of the Virginia Tech memorial yesterday: Jesus the Messiah.

Jesus Not Invited to Memorial

Sibby has an interesting and insightful analysis of the memorial service yesterday at Virginia Tech for the murder victims.

In a country where most people profess to believe in Jesus Christ as their savior, Jesus was the only religious figure left out of prayers and invocations.

Why this conspicuous absence?

Thomas Jefferson: Theocrat

One of the books I'm currently reading--amidst the tons of headlines I go through each day--is "America: The Last Best Hope Vol. 1" by William Bennett.

Tonight I read an interesting passage about something that happened early in Thomas Jefferson's administration.

Bennett pointed out that, only hours after Thomas Jefferson wrote his often misinterpreted "wall of separation between church and state" letter to the Danbury Baptists, Jefferson joined in a religious service in the U.S. House of Representatives where Baptist leader John Leland preached.

Jefferson attended a religious service on federal property! Oh, what a closet theocrat, was Jefferson! :-)

Imus: The Inside Story

I knew there was more to this Don Imus flap than met the eye. I recently said that many of his fellow libs were throwing him under the bus because Imus was too prone to criticize his fellow liberals when their behavior was beyond the pale.

I've listened to Imus often enough to notice that, but not enough to notice this from Cliff Kinkaid's latest:

The real “inside story,” as Newsday’s Thrush indicated, is that Media Matters, the organization that initially taped and distributed Imus’s racist remarks about the Rutgers basketball team, has extremely close ties to Hillary. Media Matters had been after Imus for months because of his treatment of Hillary, noting as far back as May 2006 that he had referred to her as “Satan” and a “witch.” Media Matters called this attempted humor a “smear” and urged its followers to contact MSNBC and “take action” and protest.

And consider this:

While Imus had allowed Obama to come on his show, he had steadfastly refused to permit Senator Clinton to appear. Imus had been on the outs with the Clintons for many years, with some of the hostility stemming from his performance at the Radio/TV Correspondents Association Annual Dinner in 1996. Among other things, Imus had made fun of the former president’s womanizing.

Before he was fired by NBC News and CBS last week, one of Imus’s sidekicks regularly imitated Bill Clinton on the air, reminding people of how this potential First Husband had become a first-class national embarrassment and disgrace when he was having sexual relations with a former White House intern and lied about it. It was one of the truly funny bits on the show.

If you think the Hillary connection to the Imus firing is a stretch, consider the fact that David Brock wrote a sympathetic book about Hillary during the time of his transition from closeted homosexual to ex-conservative.

School Threats Echo Across the Country

Bogus copycats caused disturbances over seven states today in threats reminiscent of the massacre in Virginia yesterday.

From accessnorthga.com:

One threat in Louisiana directly mentioned the massacre in Virginia, while others were reports of suspicious activity in Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Dakota, South Dakota and Michigan.

Even if it's some kid looking for excitement, law enforcement has to go the distance with these.

As one of the two in Rapid City turned out, it was a 15-year old kid making a false report (the other one wasn't fully substantiated, last I heard). He's going to regret scaring people for a long, long time.

Canadians Give Nearly 1/2 Income to Big Brother

From Canada.com:

The average Canadian family earned $63,001 in 2006 and paid taxes equalling $28,311, almost 45 per cent of its income, while spending 35.6 per cent of its income on food, clothing and housing.

Like the Canadian model of "free" health care? How "free" does it look when you have to give up 45% of your income to the government supplying that "free" health care? And let's not forget about how long you'll have to wait to get this "free" health care.

More Guns=Less Slaughter?

In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech bloodbath yesterday, some are bemoaning the fact that we don't have more gun control laws, while others say that if more responsible people were armed, this slaughter could have been ended quickly.

Also, this morning Central High School in Rapid City was put in lockdown after it was reported that someone had a gun on campus.

Interestingly, most people in a Gallup Poll says gun violence is a result of the way parents raise their children (45%) with access to guns coming in at 21%. It seems most people equate much of the violence in our society to parenting.

So what's the answer? Could greater access to handguns by responsible people have curtailed this horrible crime? Are more restrictions the answer? Or is (shudder to think) teaching our children values, particularly the value of human life, the answer?

Pornographic Prom Dresses?

Several girls were turned away from a prom in the Jefferson Parish school district in Louisiana. From the Times-Picayune:

Many West Bank families were fuming Saturday after a teacher refused to allow the girls into the prom because of alleged violations of the Jefferson Parish school system's dress code, most of them related to excessive display of cleavage.

"I was embarrassed," said Miranda Melerine, 17, a senior at the Marrero high school, who was among those barred by teacher Judy Gardner, an adviser to senior class activities. "We can't go back to prom night. Prom's over. Our prom has been stolen from us."

If this girl had her breasts hanging out, she should be embarrassed...but it doesn't sound like that's what she was embarrassed about.

Some tried the, "Gee I'm too blessed" excuse:

Earlis Fayette, 18, said his girlfriend also was sent away by Gardner at the door. "She said, 'No, her chest is too big and it (the dress) reveals too much," said Fayette, adding he was offended by the terse exchange.

However, I'm with the principal and school spokesman:

Nowakowski, who said he had conferred with Higgins Principal Germaine Gilson and others, wasn't sympathetic to arguments that well-endowed girls find it harder to meet the district's standards.

"They do make extra material for dresses for large-breasted women," he said, adding that those who feared their dresses might not comply with the code could have brought the dress to school earlier and tried it on for Gardner. Seeing a dress in a picture and seeing it on the girl may lead to different conclusions, he said.

I'm not aware of any thread shortages in this or any other country, so I don't see why these girls couldn't have bought dresses that covered their bodies.

My biggest question is this: where were the parents when these girls bought their dresses and put them on to go to the prom? I guess they either weren't there, in which case they were derelict in their parental duties. Or they were there and gave approval to these revealing dresses--in which case they were derelict in their parental duties. Either way, these parents were AWOL from being parents.

Is the job of a parent to teach their children right from wrong and protect them from harm, or is it to help their daughters get laid? That frank language may offend you, but I believe couching it in more "uptown" language would belay the seriousness of this.

If you advertise a good or service, pretty soon you're going to have customers showing up wanting some. And it's a simple fact of life that males are visually stimulated, far more even than girls are. Young ladies: if you're showing it off, the boys think it's up for grabs--literally. Parents: if you don't know this, you should--if they aren't offering it, they shouldn't be advertising it.

I frequently see young girls with painted-on shirts (the part that does cover them--many don't even cover the belly), dresses that are painted-on, and skirts that show way too much. Often, these girls are in the company of their parents when dressed like this. I don't blame the kids; I blame the parents.

Parents, if you value your daughter's well-being (and that involves sexual purity), teach her to dress modestly, and enforce it. There are also parents of boys who would appreciate your help in not getting their sons worked up and ruining their sexual purity, too.

A parent's job isn't to be their child's buddy; it's to protect them and teach them the right way to live.

Kudos to the school officials for doing the job the parents should have.

More Questions About the HPV Vaccine

From the Wall Street Journal Online:

The company prefers to point to a subset of 4,616 trial participants who were mostly free of HPV when they were vaccinated. Only 52 of these women went on to develop precancerous lesions on their cervixes over the next three years, 46% fewer than among the placebo group. Merck says this smaller group of women is the one most representative of the 11- and 12-year-old girls for whom Texas and Virginia have required vaccination.

That's a pretty good reduction. However, people should know that the vaccine isn't a magic shield that's going to prevent an HPV infection; in the media and government hype, the fact that it doesn't even protect against all strains of HPV has been lost.

Another fact that's been glossed over:

Safety is another issue. Merck tested the vaccine in only a few hundred 11- and 12-year-old girls. Some doctors consider that number too small to declare the vaccine safe for preteen girls, given the big changes their bodies undergo.

And if you get your daughter vaccinated at age 11, which is the opening of the recommended vaccination window, she may be unprotected by the time she is most likely to become sexually active; researchers say the vaccine may no longer be effective in as little as 5 years.

If you want the vaccine for yourself or your daughter, have at it. Even though relatively inexpensive Pap tests have reduced cervical cancer by 80% already. Just be aware of all the facts.

But mandating it as some states have done, or leaving the taxpayers to foot the bill as we've done in South Dakota, is wrong.

Law to Require Teaching Condom Use

Hearkening back to yesterday's discussion of sex ed funding, here's a piece from WorldNetDaily today that illustrates why, while I agree with lexrex on cutting all public funding, it needs to be cut across the board, not just abstinence education.

In Colorado, they're expanding sex ed with a "condom, contraception and copulation" curriculum :

Citing the requirement for the state's "public peace, health and safety," Colorado lawmakers have approved the proposal sponsored by Rep. Nancy Todd, D-Aurora, regarding "the adoption of science-based content standards for instruction regarding human sexuality."

Citing statistics from Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, it requires any school that provides sex education classes to include the information on condoms and other contraception, including "emergency contraception."

The proposal will mean a "comprehensive condom, contraception and copulation" curriculum for all students, state Sen. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield, told the Rocky Mountain News.

Brits: No More War on Terror

From Sky News:

Mr Benn will say in his speech: "In the UK, we do not use the phrase 'War on Terror' because we can't win by military means alone, and because this isn't us against one organised enemy with a clear identity and a coherent set of objectives.

"It is the vast majority of the people in the world - of all nationalities and faiths - against a small number of loose, shifting and disparate groups.

"What these groups want is to force their individual and narrow values on others without dialogue, without debate, through violence. And by letting them feel part of something bigger, we give them strength."

I suspect this has it's roots in some wimpy, politically-correct motivation, or another move to undermine President Bush, but for a moment let's accept it at face value.

If we should be fighting all terrorists--and I believe without a doubt that we should--how do we accomplish that without a common frame of reference for all these barbaric groups? After all, they do share at least a few things in common: hatred of the west, hatred for Israel, support for the supremacy of Islam, and a willingness to target innocent civilians to accomplish their goals.

I will say this much for this British initiative to change the language of the war on terror: unlike many liberals who continually snipe and undermine our efforts to fight these savages, these Brits do at least acknowledge that words mean things, that what we say affects the motivation of the enemy.

Giuliani: "Get Beyond" Issue of Abortion

From the New York Post:

Asked about abortion, he [Giuliani] said, "Our party has to get beyond issues like that."

We need to just "get beyond" the murder of millions of innocent children, killed for the sake of convenience? Hmmmmm

Democrats Can't Handle Iranians, Canadians

More on the Dems who are too scared to participate in a debate set up by Fox News.

From the Daily Journal:

The risk to this strategy is it could make the candidates look like, well, weenies.

"If you can't handle the people at Fox News Channel, it makes people wonder if you can handle the Iranians, the North Koreans, the Chinese, the Russians and maybe even the Canadians," said Ellis Henican, a Newsday columnist and Fox News contributor.

(No offense intended to our neighbors to the north; it's just that Canada doesn't have a very big military--I even heard some Canadians joking about it during a visit to Canada shortly after 911.)

The comment is notable because of the amount of truth it contains.

And Henican is a liberal! He should be careful, though. This kind of intellectual honesty could get him fired.

South Dakotans a Compassionate People

From KELO:

South Dakota is tied for ninth in a ranking of states where people do a lot of volunteer work.

In South Dakota, the figure was just over 37 percent. Utah led the nation at almost 46 percent.

In South Dakota, folks realize that people can help other people better than government can.

40% Pay No Taxes

From the National Center for Policy Analysis:

The U.S. income tax system is so bad and increasingly reliant on a shrinking number of Americans to pay the nation's bills, that 40 percent of the country's households pay no income taxes at all, says Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary, and president of Ari Fleischer Communications.

• According to a recent study by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), those who make more than $43,200 (the top 40 percent) pay 99.1 percent of all income taxes.
• Those who made more than $87,300 in 2004, the top 10 percent, paid 70.8 percent of all income taxes.
• In other words, 10 percent pay 7 out of every 10 dollars and their share of the burden is rising.

This might explain why there's not more of an outcry about our grossly unfair tax system: nearly half of Americans aren't affected by it--except maybe to get a free ride.

A free society depends on its citizens staying informed about the activities of their government. When 40% pay no taxes, they have little incentive to stay informed, or to protest unfair taxes.

That's a society in jeopardy.

Doctors in UK Refusing to do Abortions

Interesting. Doctors in the UK are increasingly refusing to perform abortions.

From This is London:

Katherine Guthrie, a spokesman on family planning for the RCOG, said: 'You get no thanks for performing abortions. You get spat on. Who admits to friends at a dinner party that they are an abortionist?

'There is an increasing number of young doctors who are not participating in training. The Department of Health is really worried.'

You'd think if abortion was such a wonderful public service, doctors would be selflessly lining up to perform such a noble act as killing an unwanted child.

Yet, unless your conscience is drastically seared, something inside just keeps saying, "This is wrong."

Murderer Fights for Life?

From the "Interesting Headline" file: KOTA's "Death row inmate fights for life tomorrow"

Briley Piper wasn't doing much "fighting for life" when he brutally murdered Chester Allan Poage.

Hate Crime Laws Unnecessary

A friend sent me a link to this piece by Matt Barber: "'Gay' Goliath Lobs Dud at CWA; Aims for Clever, Lands on Silly."

It's important to note that the two thugs who robbed and murdered Shephard are now serving life in prison apart from any 'hate crimes' law, proving once again that such laws are entirely unnecessary if not completely unconstitutional. Equal justice under the law is guaranteed, and equal justice was received.

The piece is about the fake case behind a recent push for "hate crime" legislation. But the quoted paragraph above perhaps says it best why "hate crime" laws are not only bad philosophically, but are completely unnecessary.

If a person is assaulted, murdered, or whatever, it doesn't matter if the motive was because of skin color, sexual affiliation, or whatever. A crime is a crime, regardless of motivation, and perpetrators should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, regardless of why they did it.

Adding a "crimethink" law to the books won't make anybody safer or result in any greater justice.

Air Force Backing the Army on the Ground in Iraq

This story was in the dead-tree edition of the Rapid City Journal today, but I found a similar version of it online at the Las Cruces Sun-News. Air Force personnel are backing up the Army on the ground in Iraq.

They are part of a small but steady stream of airmen being trained to do Army duty under the Army chain of command, a tangible sign the Pentagon was scouring the military to aid an Iraq force that was stretched long before President Bush ordered 21,500 additional U.S. troops there.

Seems they're bringing Air Force guys back to Camp Bullis in Texas to train them on the Army way of doing things.

It's an interesting story in and of itself, since even Air Force ground combat units--the few that there are--don't normally have much of a role beyond the relatively short defense perimeter outside an air base.

But it's more interesting to me personally since I used to be one of these Air Force guys (note the younger, thinner, more-haired me above at Bullis). I was in one of the last classes to be trained in Air Base Ground Defense (ABGD) at Camp Bullis, Texas (an Army base) back in 1987; they moved the school to Fort Dix about six classes after mine.

There were no tears shed (at least not by us trainees) at the thought of Bullis closing; it was off the beaten path near San Antonio, many of the instructors were a bunch of egotistical jerks, and it was just one of the most un-fun schools an Air Force geek could go through.

But now Bullis is back in business. Bad guys beware! The U.S. military will do what it takes to take you out!

A New Breed of Bible Thumper

This takes the term "Bible thumper" to a whole new level. From KARE 11:

A Mankato jail guard has been suspended after allegedly thumping an inmate with a Bible.

James Lee Sheppard, 56, has been charged with two gross misdemeanors for allegedly swatting a Blue Earth County Jail inmate with the book, grabbing him by the throat and slamming him against steel bars on Feb. 8, according to the criminal complaint.

A video shows a guard entering the cell of inmate Jeremy Hansen, 26. The guard then takes Hansen's Bible and strikes him in the side of the face with the book. The two exchange words as the guard walks away, said Mankato Police Officer Allen Schmidt who watched the video.

Lead by Example

These global warming fanatics in Congress would have a little more credibility if they acted like they took the "problem" seriously.

From CNS News:

(CNSNews.com) - As Sen. John Kerry promotes his new book on the dangers of global warming, he's been running up an average electric bill of $1,100 a month at his federal-style red-brick townhouse on Louisburg Square in the Beacon Hill area of Boston.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate committee on environment and public works, paid a high of $675 a month and a low of $225 a month in 2005 to power her home in Greenbrae, Calif., according to the utility company Pacific Gas and Electric.

Or is all the sacrifice and conservation just for us "little people?"

Can't Rely on Liberals to be Consistent

What's the world coming to when you can't even rely on liberals to be consistent?

I'm talking about this abstinence education report that shows a lack of results in four out of hundreds of abstinence education programs. Some liberals say we need to get rid of abstinence education now. From CNS News:

Responding to the survey results, James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, said in a news release of his own that "after 10 years and $1.5 billion in public funds, these failed abstinence-only-until-marriage programs will go down as an ideological boondoggle of historic proportions."

"Congress must now move to de-fund these programs," Wagoner added. "Anything short of eliminating these programs would be a dereliction of its duty to promote public health and protect young people in the era of AIDS."

Normally, whether it be welfare, education spending or whatever, if something isn't working, liberals demand more money be thrown at it. That approach goes back decades for liberals: if something isn't working, just spend more money on it. So why aren't they demanding more money be spent on abstinence education? Because it doesn't fit the ideology of sexual license.

Seriously, I recently defended abstinence education if for no other reason than it's the morally correct message to send to young people, and it's never wrong to teach the right thing.

I just found this liberal aberration interesting.

It Ain't Easy Saving the Planet

So you thought buying a bunch of those florescent light bulbs was going to save the planet and save you money, and you could feel good about it? Think again.

I heard recently about the mercury in these things being a problem at the landfill. Since environmental wackos have been playing "Chicken Little" since the days of DDT, and being the environmentally contemptuous planet-wrecker I am, I thought, "Who gives a rip."

Now I find out there's a health hazard inside my house.

From WorldNetDaily:

So, last month, the Prospect, Maine, resident went out and bought two dozen CFLs and began installing them in her home. One broke. A month later, her daughter's bedroom remains sealed off with plastic like the site of a hazardous materials accident, while Bridges works on a way to pay off a $2,000 estimate by a company specializing in environmentally sound cleanups of the mercury inside the bulb.

Here's another incident:

Elizabeth Doermann of Vanderbilt, Tenn., had a similar experience. After her CFL bulb broke – because the cat knocked over a lamp – she didn't call Home Depot. Instead, she did what she had always done when old-fashioned incandescent bulbs had broken. She vacuumed up the mess.

"If I had known it had mercury in it, I would have been a lot more careful," she told the Tennessean. "I wouldn't have vacuumed it up. That blew the mercury probably all through the house."

The warnings on the packages of some of the new bulbs are in fine print – hard to read. They are also voluntary, with many bulbs being sold and distributed with no disposal warnings at all.

Practically every light socket in my house has one of these things. I didn't buy them to save the planet (surprised?); I just wanted to save a little money on electricity and not have to put in new light bulbs as often.

Now I find out about this? Hmmm. Looks like I'll have to go back to destroying the planet the old fashioned way: with Edison bulbs.

Smoking Ban: A Snuffing Away Of Our Rights

I have spent a great deal of time reading comments and arguments regarding the smoking ban proposals and have to shake my head in utter disbelief. How have we gotten to this point in time? It is definitely a world gone mad with the rules going even crazier.

I don't even think smokers are saying that smoking is healthy or a good choice for anyone. But that isn't even what the smoking ban is all about, though some can't seem to get a grasp on that. They are too busy arguing about the effects of second hand smoke as defined in some report or other. Yeah, but what does that have to do with smoking bans in private businesses where customers are there by choice? There by choice rather than necessity?

It is one thing to ban smoking in government owned facilities where the public might be forced to go to do business, but quite another to do so in a bar or restaurant that no one has to go to in the first place. It is then, because it does happen to be a privately owned business, that the owner(s) should have the choice of going smoke-free or catering to the smokers and smoker friendly consumer if they so choose. That is the true issue! The right of the business owner to decide whether the business will serve the non-smoker or the smoker and smoker friendly -- not the issue of whether smoking or second hand smoke is good for anyone ever.

If smokers wish to get-to-gether and share second hand smoke, what is that any business of the non-smoker? No one is asking them to partake. No one is forcing them inside the door of a business where smokers gather, so why should they feel they have a right to go inside and demand there be no smoking because they have decided to be there?

This is not a thing about a smokers' rights or a non-smokers' rights, but rather, the rights of the business owner to cater to the customer of choice!

Shouldn't a simple sign on the door that indicates it is a business that caters to smokers be a clue to non-smokers that can't (or won't) tolerate smoking to turn around and go somewhere else? If not, why not?

(We don't live in a socialistic country yet, but looks like we are headed there or worse. May we stop ourselves in time.)

Most Americans on Gov't Dole

This is scary! From NewsMax:

Slightly over half of all Americans – 52.6 percent – now receive significant income from government programs, according to an analysis by Gary Shilling, an economist in Springfield, N.J. That's up from 49.4 percent in 2000 and far above the 28.3 percent of Americans in 1950. If the trend continues, the percentage could rise within ten years to pass 55 percent, where it stood in 1980 on the eve of President's Reagan's move to scale back the size of government.

It also explains why it's so hard to fight the encroachment of socialism today: most people are already benefiting from it and don't want to give up their gravy train.

How far we've fallen from the independent, responsible people who founded a great nation and a great state!

Should Christians be Involved in Politics?

Good advice on the subject from Madeline Crabb at Renew America:

Charles Finney once said that the Church must take right ground in politics, and that God will bless or curse America according to the course Christians take in politics. Finney asserted, "Politics are a part of a religion in such a country as this, and Christians must do their duty to the country as part of their duty to God."

Christians are instructed to carry their principles, their salt and light, into the whole world, which includes the world of politics. If Christians aren't engaged in this arena, then the ungodly will be. If Christians don't speak up to be heard, then the ungodly will.

If Christian principles don't affect public policy and lawmaking, then ungodly principles will. It is a simple fact that godly principles will become a part of public policy, and yes, politics, only if godly people are involved in these areas.

More Misbehavior Before the Enemy

In today's Rapid City Journal, Sam Hurst provides more of what has emboldened our enemies and undermined stability in Iraq:

The influence of Iran is rising in the east. We have made heroes out of Islamic terrorists in a land where they were once hated. Our Army is exhausted, and our wounded poorly attended. We have wasted half a trillion dollars.

The president’s refusal to pursue a bi-partisan end to the war has brought us to the brink of a constitutional crisis between the executive and legislative branches.

But the best John Thune can do is fan the flames of blame. It is short-sighted.

Shame on you, Sen. Thune. You want a fight with Democrats, you better come with something more than cheap political rhetoric. This has been George Bush’s War. Now it’s your war, and “I didn’t know” is no longer an excuse.

"[H]eroes out of Islamic terrorists in a land where they were once hated"? What planet has Hurst been living on? Saddam was funding terrorism and providing haven for terrorist training camps before we invaded. The only reason terrorists weren't blowing up people in Iraq back then is because they considered it friendly territory.

And because Senator Thune supports the president's efforts to fight terrorists, Hurst chooses political pot shots over presenting a united front before our enemies. Thune picked no fight; national Democrats picked a fight with our own military efforts.

If we had stood together in requiring Saddam to meet his obligations, we might not have needed to invade in the first place. But, as they always do, liberals chose to side with evil, and Saddam was emboldened. Liberals again chose to nit-pick, bicker, back-bite and undermine our military efforts after the invasion, and terrorists have been emboldened.

President Bush deserves some blame for underestimating the terrorist activity that came after the invasion. But I think he underestimated the enemy because he overestimated the ability of our country to unite and put the national good ahead of scoring political points.

You can lay the current problems in Iraq squarely at the feet of liberals here and abroad who have undermined our national efforts from Day One until now. You have misbehaved before the enemy, and it has encouraged him.