Back with more topics than I’ve ever squeezed into 10 minutes or less, “Consider This!” is back with a new episode. A friend of mine posted a graphic of Sen. Bernie Sanders with a quote from him extolling the results of Social Security, with the tag, “Social Security has done exactly what it was designed to do.” Well sure, in the short term, big government | Read More »
Rape, incest, or the life of the mother; these are typically the three reasons under which almost everyone would say that an abortion should be permissible. Well, an international symposium on maternal healthcare in Dublin, Ireland last weekend may reduce that number. About 140 medical professionals were at the event, including experts in obstetrics and gynaecology, mental health and molecular biology. They presented new research | Read More »
Way back in 2006, I blogged about how cheap Hollywood liberals thought we were as a country, and then noted a study by Arthur Brooks that showed that, the more conservative and/or religious you were, you gave more than the liberals complaining about how stingy we were. Six years later, the trend has continued. Red states give more money to charity than blue states, according | Read More »
(And by “Obama’s budget”, I mean the one unanimously rejected even by his own party.) What are those “draconian cuts” that Paul Ryan has proposed in his budget? Is he really going to throw Granny off the cliff with his changes to Medicare? The Independent Voter Network has an interactive graph where you can see the spending over the next 9 years with the two | Read More »
That’s the title of an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about the results of a new study on how school vouchers affect their recipients. President Barack Obama last month signed an executive order promising to “improve outcomes and advance educational opportunities for African Americans.” The order instructs federal agencies to “promote, encourage, and undertake efforts” to increase “college access, college persistence and college attainment | Read More »
Something of a brouhaha got started recently around a statement by Chick-fil-a CEO Dan Cathy. The company invests in Christian growth and ministry through its WinShape Foundation (WinShape.com). The name comes from the idea of shaping people to be winners. It began as a college scholarship and expanded to a foster care program, an international ministry, and a conference and retreat center modeled after the | Read More »
[Please click here for part 1, as this just picks up where that left off. Also, another blogger found the article again at a new URL on the same site. I'd searched using their advance search form with no success, but glad that it's back so people can read the whole thing.] The newborn and the fetus are morally equivalent The authors, Alberto Giubilini and | Read More »
Last Friday, I noted in my Friday Link Wrap-up, medical “ethicists” are seriously arguing that post-birth newborns are ‘not persons’ and can ethically be “aborted”. I also posted this article on Facebook, and one of my friends took me to task on it. He said that “sloppy agenda laden journalism” has misinterpreted their intent, and that “the researchers are attempting to provoke debate on the | Read More »
The one charity that has the lowest administrative costs (i.e. more of your donation actually gets to the needy) is being boycotted by the Gay Liberation Network. Why? Because it adheres to its religious beliefs. It stands up for what it believes in. (Ever notice that folks who admire others who “stand up for what they believe in” almost invariably don’t appreciate it when they | Read More »
Whenever I try to give credit to Ronald Reagan for participating in the fall of the Soviet Union, I often hear that its fall was an inevitability, and it just so happened to occur on Reagan’s watch. I have to point out to them that Reagan was the first President to come along with an intent to defeat communism, not just contain it. And then | Read More »
The state of California takes, out of the hands of minors, some decisions that could have negative repercussions, especially on their health, and gives it to their parents. A California law recently went into effect that bans minors, defined as anyone under the age of 18, from using a tanning bed. The prohibition is absolute and there is no provision for parental permission. Lawmakers say | Read More »
I participated in a comment thread to a blog post suggesting that the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street protestors ought to come together and find common ground. It incorporated a Venn diagram of what the two groups think are the source of the problem and the intersection was what they could agree on. Unfortunately, the diagram is just too simplistic. It equates corporate | Read More »
One of God’s top 10. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Contrary to what some think, coveting is not just wanting something. Coveting is wanting something that belongs to someone else. God made it pretty clear about not coveting that which | Read More »
I came across this article yesterday on the Science 2.0 website, with a very honest title; “I confess: I don’t know when human life begins”. Paul Knoepfler, Associate Professor of Cell Biology and Human Anatomy at UC Davis School of Medicine, walks through all the stages of gestation and does, however, come up with his reasons for when life doesn’t begin. Before that, though, he | Read More »
From the diaries by Jeff Citing your values to overturn your values; that’s precisely what a court in the UK has done. They’ve cited the values that the country was founded on — Judeo-Christian ones — to rule against holding to those values. There is no place in British law for Christian beliefs, despite this country’s long history of religious observance and the traditions of | Read More »
If we stay on the same course, budget-wise, in just 5 years the interest on our national debt will approach what we spend to defend the country. This must be dealt with. Yesterday, a White House commission put together by President Obama released a draft proposal to do just that. The leaders of a White House commission laid out a sweeping proposal to cut the | Read More »
I saw the word “Jesus” on the sleeves of the shirts on the Chilean miners as they came up, one by one, in the capsule. (Yeah, we had the streaming video going as I worked from home. What a terrific event.) But no news organization so much as mentioned the other writings on those shirts. Thus the citizen investigative journalist kicks in where the major | Read More »
It has been said that if you wish to remake a culture, you have to disassociate it from it roots, its foundation. Having said that, here is John Adams, 2nd President of the United States and signer of the Declaration of Independence, from 1798: We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . . . | Read More »
I’ve come out in favor of the Electoral College before (see here). Among other things, the EC ensures that Presidents get broad support as opposed to simply the most support, it gives minorities a bigger voice, and it makes vote fraud much more difficult. See here for an FEC paper on the origins of the EC, and it makes for very informative reading, especially on | Read More »
In his (always excellent) column yesterday, James Taranto noted that, earlier this month, President Obama was calling small-government conservatives hypocrites for expecting the government to lead in the Gulf oil spill issue. In an interview with Politico, the president said: “I think it’s fair to say, if six months ago, before this spill had happened, I had gone up to Congress and I had said | Read More »
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