Z-Man, Whittaker Chambers, Principles
1 day ago
11 February 2012
10 February 2012
Democrat Calls Obama’s Contraception Mandate “Bone-headed”
Yeah, about that "mandate" thing...
“At least five Senate Democrats have expressed serious concerns over the new regulation, many of them being of Catholic faith. One Senator, Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) called the decision by the administration and the Health and Human Services “bone-headed.”
West Virginia Senator, Joe Manchin, introduced a bill to the Senate today which calls for blocking the federal mandate.”
09 February 2012
We Are Winning the Debate and Greens Don’t Like It
Lord Lawson says there is no scientific basis for some of the alarmism
LORD LAWSON had barely removed his microphone when the vitriolic attacks began.
The veteran politician had just taken part in a calm debate about the merits of extracting gas from shale. During the discussion on the BBC’s Today programme he stated his firmly held view that there has been no global warming so far this century.
It was the catalyst for an outpouring of venom on message boards and social networking sites. In a selection of the printable insults Lord Lawson was described as “a rabid climate change denier”, “a liar” and “a lone nutcase”. One listener even posted: “Why isn’t he dead yet?”
Former Chancellor Lord Lawson celebrates his 80th birthday in March and might be forgiven for wondering, at his time of life, if he really needs to endure all this. His supporters insist he is turning the tide in the bitter debate over the impact of global warming but such is the might of the green lobby there must have been occasions when he felt like a lone voice.
Climate change is a complex issue and it could be decades before there is a definitive answer as to its impact on the planet and the extent to which pollution caused by man is harmful. At the moment there’s much that we can’t explain but it is certainly an emotive issue that polarises opinion.
However Lord Lawson, an inherently decent man with a compelling argument, finds himself pilloried. Yesterday there was an apparent campaign by green activists to have him banned from the BBC.
In the past he has spoken about attempts to smear his organisation, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a think-tank which challenges many misconceptions about global warming and warns against hasty policy decisions based on exaggerated research.
In this propaganda war in which his opponents seem intent on destroying his reputation there have also been mutterings about the funding of the organisation, although it receives no cash from any oil or energy companies.
Dr Benny Peiser, director of Lord Lawson’s organisation, says: “It does get personal. Some use a bullying strategy rather than engage in proper debate.”
The foundation chooses not to have a Facebook site or Twitter page. “They can encourage personal attacks,” says Peiser, who launched the fight back against global warming alarmists seven years ago.
He claims there’s growing public disillusionment with the narrow agenda being pushed by the green lobby. Polls appear to support that, with one showing more than one in three Britons believe global warming claims are hyped.
Lord Lawson’s organisation is not allied to a political party but he has found himself coming under fire from the Government. Energy Secretary Chris Huhne has called some of the Foundation’s work “misinformed, wrong and perverse”.
Lord Lawson says no one is certain about the impact of global warming on the environment. He says: “There is no scientific basis for some of the alarmism.”
He adds: “While it is scientifically established that increased emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from the use of carbon-based energy such as coal, oil and gas can be expected to warm the planet, it is uncertain how great any such warming would be and how much harm, if any, it would do.”
Many scientists now believe that climate change is much more likely to be part of a cycle of warming and cooling that has happened regularly every 1,500 years for the last million years, without causing major harm.
Lord Lawson fears that economies are being harmed by an obsession with so-called renewable fuels, which are expensive. They might be trendy and appear to have all the right green credentials but they are costing us all a small fortune in hidden taxes and higher fuel bills to fund their introduction.
It’s claimed that by 2020 every family could be paying an additional £300 a year and that energy produced from wind farms is five times more expensive than conventional fuels.
The peer and his growing band of supporters insist that it’s premature to turn our backs on fossil fuels, including shale gas which can be extracted cheaply in large amounts by a process known as fracking.
Yesterday Lord Lawson described this fuel as “exciting”, adding: “There is now the prospect of cheap gas in abundance all over the world.”
Lord Lawson, who was Margaret Thatcher’s Chancellor from 1983 to 1989 and an MP for 28 years, is not the only one to have suffered for his views on climate change. Anyone who dares to challenge the often zealous green lobby is apparently fair game.
Entertainer and mathematician Johnny Ball has been vilified for opposing the commonly held view about global warming.
He says: “For daring to take this contrarian view I’ve lost bookings, had talks cancelled and been the subject of a sinister internet campaign that only came to an end following the intervention of the police.”
Ball shares many of Lord Lawson’s views, saying: “Logic tells me that we will eventually be proved right. The argument that we are going to hell in a handcart because of global warming is failing at every turn. The furore over climate change has been totally overstated. Nothing has happened in the past 20 years but the green lobby is incredibly powerful.”
He has been forced to threaten legal action against one campaigner for his “vitriolic” attacks. Ball, who opposes the creation of huge wind farms, says: “Nigel Lawson deserves immense respect because the supporters of this doom and gloom theory have behaved outrageously.”
Environmental campaigner David Bellamy also claims he has been victimised for taking an alternative position. He has said: “The sad fact is that since I said I didn’t believe human beings caused global warming I’ve not been allowed to make a TV programme. The idiot fringe has accused me of being like a Holocaust denier.”
SO WHAT IS FRACKING AND COULD IT REALLY SOLVE OUR ENERGY CRISIS?
Shale gas could help solve Britain’s energy crisis for the next three centuries.
The technique of extracting natural gas from shallow beds of shale, or fracking, has been known since the early 19th century but breakthroughs in technology now make it more commercially viable.
In the US fracking is already big business and it’s thought that shale gas could provide half the nation’s natural gas production by the end of the decade. Extraction involves the use of drills and wells. China is another world leader but so far despite discoveries of the gas, Europe is lagging behind.
BP claims shale gas could help make the Western hemisphere almost self-sufficient in energy within the next 20 years.
One company exploring the Fylde coast in Lancashire says that it has found 200 trillion cubic feet of gas under the ground, which if recovered could generate 5,600 jobs.
Fracking is controversial because relying on the gas will result in more fossil fuels being burned, higher carbon emissions and a possible move away from renewable energy such as wind and solar.
Shale gas emits larger amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, than conventional gas but still far less than coal. Extraction has also been linked to various earth tremors.
Japan: The Japan Times Printer Friendly Articles Suicides top 30,000 for 14th straight year
2011 appears to be the 14th straight year for the annual suicide count to exceed 30,000, according to tentative statistics recently released by the National Police Agency.
The latest 2011 figure — 30,513 — however, was the lowest number since the annual suicide count topped the 30,000 mark in 1998, declining from 31,690 in 2010. Males accounted for 20,867 of the 2011 suicides, or 68 percent, the data show.
By prefecture, Tokyo had the most suicides, at 3,100, followed by Osaka with 1,899 and Kanagawa with 1,824.
An NPA official said a further statistical breakdown, including ages, occupations and other details of the victims, will be released sometime later this year.
"Although the total number declined, it is still a very serious situation to have over 30,000 people a year committing suicide," Yasuyuki Shimizu, director of the Tokyo-based nonprofit suicide prevention group Lifelink, told The Japan Times Wednesday.
The statistics show declines in annual suicide counts in Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima prefectures, which were devastated in the March 11 disasters. But Shimizu said optimism about the results may be short-lived, because suicides tend to increase in devastated areas after a year or so, as was the case in the wake of the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995.
As reality sets in, people are forced to confront their losses, and some may suffer greatly to the extent that they commit suicide, Shimizu said.
According to a different survey by the Cabinet Office, as of November 49 people in the three prefectures committed suicide for reasons related to the March 11 disaster. Considering past studies, continuous support is crucial, Shimizu stressed.
The data also show that unlike the past three years in which the highest monthly suicide count was marked in March — which is the end of the business year for many corporations — last year saw the level peak in May.
Shimizu, who analyzed the unusual spike in May, said the jump may be related to the media's sensationalized reporting on the May 12 suicide of TV celebrity Miyu Uehara. Daily suicide tallies increased sharply for 10 days starting May 13, Shimizu said.
"Those who committed suicide in this period were mostly women in their 20s and 30s. . . . The media's excessive reporting may have triggered" this phenomenon, Shimizu said.
To prevent suicides, Shimizu said consultations to help people meet multiple needs, including debts and employment, are necessary.
"From our survey, we know that, on average, there are four reasons why people commit suicide," he said. "So by providing consultations to meet such multiple needs, I believe (we can) help people who feel cornered choose a path to live."
The Japan Times: Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012
08 February 2012
Letter from a 12-week old unborn baby
In late January, a friend and supporter of HLI America was asked by pro-life leaders in New York State to write a letter that would accompany a replica of a 10-12 week old baby in the womb. With the goal of encouraging state legislators to recognize the humanity of such tiny human beings, this replica and letter was to be sent to all the members of the New York State Assembly and Senate.
In New York, abortion of an unborn child after the 24th week of pregnancy is defined as homicide, but prior to that the killing of such a child is legal. This beautiful letter is another creative and truthful attempt to encourage our nation’s leaders to recognize that abortion is not a human right, but rather, ends an innocent human life.
That letter, written from the perspective of the 12-week old baby in the womb, is shared with you below:
Dear Member of the NY State Senate or Assembly:
I am not a blob of tissue to be disposed of. When I became a zygote at fertilization, I was already composed of 39,000 genes made up of 3.2 billion base pair sequences. Hard to believe, I know, but it’s scientifically true! These detailed directions for my development have been compared to the amount of information found in two hundred New York City phone books.
After this beginning, I worked actively to prevent any other sperm from fertilizing the same egg, and on my own impetus took a journey down the fallopian tube to implant upon my mother’s uterus.
At 5 weeks, my cerebral cortex was developing, and well before I reached 12 weeks my brain was functioning. I was already responding to stimuli.
So how can you allow me to be tortured? Shouldn’t you be working to protect me from suffering? Why allow me to be torn limb from limb?
At 12 weeks, I am not merely a design for a house yet to be built, I am already “a tiny house that constructs itself larger and more complex through its active self-development towards maturity” (Patrick Lee). If I live and grow to maturity, this growth will not involve a change in my identity or substance, only the development of what’s already there.
I am not a “potential” child, but a real child. Take a good look at the image of me that you received. My mother cannot “choose” to have a child – she already has one! Her only “choice” is whether or not to let me live.
Size has nothing to do with human rights. The sun may be vast in size, but it can’t think or love. It is only matter. It will never be part of an American family and community, nor will it ever serve my country. It will never ponder the mystery of life and the beauty of the night-skies, nor will it ever be able to conceive of the universe or meditate on Scripture.
Small as I am at 12 weeks, I can say that I am more precious than that huge and majestic sun, because I am made in the image of God, the One who created the sun, the night skies and the universe. All those things will pass away, but I am made for eternity.
07 February 2012
What the media can and cannot ask Obama about his job's record
Obama's media has the marching orders.
President Obama will benefit because the media will fail to note that the Obama administration promised that the unemployment rate today would be approximately 5.8 percent – not 8.3 percent — if the $800 billion stimulus package were passed.
He will benefit because interviewers like Lauer will fail to ask the president whether the unemployment rate will be below 5.5 percent — as promised – by Election Day.
He will benefit because commentators will ignore the fact that even if 250,000 jobs were created every month from now to the election, the unemployment rate will still hover near 8 percent.
He will benefit because no reporter will ask the president to explain why the labor participation rate has fallen to an abysmal 63.7 percent, the lowest level in three decades.
He will benefit because the media will continue to ignore the fact that if the the labor force participation rate were the same as when President Obama took office, today’s unemployment rate would be more than 11 percent.
Abortion: It's ok to do it, but it's not ok to show it.
It's almost as if they fear something.
Graphic abortion ads air during Superbowl: ads blocked in Chicago
February 6, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Ads featuring graphic abortion pictures reached thousands of Superbowl viewers on Sunday, even though the ads were blocked from the airwaves in at least one location.Creator Randall Terry is running for president on the Democratic ticket in order to be able to air such ads. Federal regulations require television stations to air political ads from candidates unedited. Two other pro-lifers, Angela Michael and David Lewis are also running for public office in order to run the ads.
Terry’s ads featured several images of children who had lost their lives to abortions, some of them appearing only around 7-8 weeks’ gestation. (The ads can be viewed here.)
The graphic ads, which also ran earlier this year in eight states to coincide with GOP campaign events, were rejected last month by NBC affiliates in Oklahoma, Missouri, Colorado, and Chicago.
After the NBC affiliates refused to air the ads, Terry appealed to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), arguing that the stations’ refusal was “a content-driven exclusion, and is therefore forbidden” under FCC rules.
However, the federal commission ruled Friday that broadcasters were exempt from the requirement to sell airtime to candidates near or during the Super Bowl, the most-watched event on television annually in the U.S.
The head of the FCC’s Media Bureau also ruled that it was reasonable for Chicago’s WMAQ to bar the ads because “Terry did not make a substantial showing that he is a legally qualified candidate entitled to reasonable access to broadcast stations in Illinois.”
Although Terry is running as a Democratic candidate for the White House, the WMAQ’s rationale relied on a statement from the head of the Democratic National Committee addressed to NBC affiliates, which claimed Terry was not a “legally qualified candidate” in some jurisdictions because he did not meet standards for the Democratic nomination in those jurisdictions.
In a statement Saturday reacting to the FCC ruling, Terry said that at least 15 stations in seven states were scheduled to run pro-life Super Bowl ads in pre-game shows, during the Super Bowl, or in News Broadcasts after the game.
Pro-life journalist Jill Stanek reports that Terry would not reveal in exactly which locations the ads were scheduled to appear for fear of further interference from the Democratic party. Attempts to reach Terry today were unsuccessful.
On Saturday Terry pointed out that the FCC’s ruling about his status as a candidate only applied to Illinois: “Because David Lewis, Angela Michael, and I are on the ballot in other states, we are de facto ‘Legally Qualified Candidates,’ which is why the stations are proceeding to run our ads.”
“We say to our political enemies, and to those who promote the murder of babies, that we will continue to run these ads across the country in primary season and in the general election where we are on the ballot. Our intention is to make child killing the number one political issue of the election this year,” he said.
David Lewis, who is running for the House of Representatives against John Boehner in Ohio, successfully aired his ad attacking Boehner and showing graphic images of abortion in Cleveland, Dayton, and Cincinnati. The ad by Angela Michael, also running for the U.S. House, reportedly aired in St. Louis, Missouri.
All three candidates have placed comment boxes on their websites to collect responses to the ads, where viewers posted very positive and very negative responses.
“I have a son that was born at 21 weeks. I treasure the one and only photo I have of him. I despise all of you pro-lifers that choose to use these photos to further push your views on everyone,” wrote one viewer.
Another wrote: “Anonymous called you disgusting and Haywood says you are sick and disgusting. The question for them is, which is the most disgusting, the showing of the picture or the actual process of tearing apart babies and throwing them in a dumpster?”
Candidate Angela Michael appeared to post in her own combox to report that a pregnant college student called her hours after the Super Bowl to say the ad had changed her mind against a scheduled abortion.
06 February 2012
‘I promised God that if he would save my baby, I would leave the homosexual lifestyle’
February 6, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Lisa Miller, an ex-lesbian who made national headlines during her battle to protect her daughter from a custody transfer to her former sex partner, is now telling the story of her struggle through a book by one of her attorneys, Rina Lindevaldsen.
“Only One Mommy: A Woman’s Battle for Her Life, Her Daughter, and Her Freedom” (New Revolution Publishers, 2011), gives readers new insights into Miller’s inspiring odyssey from abused and neglected child, through the horrors of sexual and chemical addictions, to redemption through faith in Jesus Christ.
Miller’s final act of bravery was her decision to enter into hiding with her child, Isabella, to escape her former lesbian partner Janet Jenkins, who was successfully seeking to transfer custody of Miller’s daughter, Isabella, to herself. Although Miller remains in hiding, she speaks to readers through journals and letters left with her attorney, and through Lindevaldsen’s own narrative.
At the root of Miller’s nightmarish childhood were two elements: contraception and divorce. Miller’s early memories are filled with the bitter reminder that her mother, who was using birth control at the time she conceived Miller, had not wanted her.
“Whenever my mother was mad at me, she would pull out the oval peach colored pack of birth control pills that she had saved all those years to show me that only one week was missing, and that was the week she got pregnant,” Miller writes.
At age seven, Miller’s parents divorced, leaving herself and her brother alone with an increasingly mentally ill, distant, and cruel mother. Miller’s isolation and lack of affirmation from her parents led her to seek solace in unhealthy fixations on food, diet pills, and pornography. In order to relieve herself of emotional pain, she began to cut herself, which added to the scars that her body already held from her mother’s beatings
However, Miller was also the recipient of positive influences through friendships with leaders in her church and schoolteachers, who took an interest in her and provided her with adult role models. Her religious education would come back to her in her darkest days, providing a way out of her seemingly impossible situation.
After entering a troubled marriage, and finally making a suicide attempt that left her in intensive care for days, Miller received another major blow. During her recovery in a psychiatric ward in Virginia, a counselor informed her that she was a lesbian and must seek the sexual companionship of other women.
“As part of my treatment, in order to be released, I had to meet with my immediate family, including my husband, and tell them I was a ‘lesbian.’ I complied, and not surprisingly, my marriage ended. Even though I had left behind all of my childhood addictions at that time, sadly, I entered into the addiction of homosexuality,” writes Miller.
Lisa eventually entered into a relationship and a Vermont “civil union” with a recovering alcoholic named Janet Jenkins. During that time she was artificially inseminated, resulting in the birth of her daughter. She recalls that in the misery of her sexually immoral and conflictive relationship with Jenkins, she almost lost Isabella before she was born. It was then that she made a special petition to God, promising him that “if he saved my baby, I would leave the homosexual lifestyle.”
Isabella was born healthy, and although Miller did not keep her promise immediately, she recalled it as her relationship with Jenkins continued to deteriorate. “It was then that God brought to mind the covenant that I had made with him just months earlier. I knew enough from my religious background that one does not make covenants with God and not keep them without suffering negative consequences. When my daughter was 17 months old, I left the homosexual lifestyle and moved with my daughter back to my home state of Virginia, where she had been conceived and born.”
Judicial tyranny and the struggle to save Isabella from her lesbian “other mother”
After Lindevaldsen’s summary of Miller’s victory over homosexual vice and her other addictions, the attorney leads readers through the maze of legal arguments that have been used to justify giving parenthood rights, and ultimately guardianship, of Isabella to Jenkins. In the process she shows that no state is truly safe from the effects of homosexualist legislation in other jurisdictions.
Although Miller was artificially inseminated while in a civil union with Jenkins, Isabella was never adopted by her, and Jenkins’ name does not appear on Isabella’s birth certificate. Moreover, Miller and Jenkins were residents of Virginia when they entered into their Vermont “civil union,” and Virginia’s constitution explicitly denies all recognition to such unions.
In sum, while Jenkins appears to lack all standing to make a claim of “parenthood,” that did not prevent judges in Vermont and Virginia from twisting the law like a pretzel to ensure that Jenkins had access to Isabella.
Miller’s legal nightmare began when a Vermont judge decided to literally create a law where one did not exist. Vermont had no law giving parenthood rights to the spouse of a woman who is artificially inseminated - the spouse had to adopt the child. But despite the fact that civil unions were to be treated like marriages under Vermont law, Vermont Judge Richard Cohen decreed from the bench that Jenkins was Isabella’s “mother.”
Noting that “the court admitted that the legislature still hadn’t answered the question of how a child born by artificial insemination by an anonymous sperm donor would gain the legal status of a child to the spouse who was not biologically related to the child,” Lindevaldsen observes: “To its credit, the court at least admitted what it was doing—creating new law in order to reach its decision.”
However, despite all of the protections inserted into the Virginia constitution against the enforcement of civil union or homosexual “marriage” legislation from other states, prosecutors managed to make use of a federal law that was designed to stop one parent from denying custody to another: the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (FKPA).
Although the law was created to prevent parents from fleeing to another jurisdiction to get a better custody settlement through another set of courts, it was used in Miller’s case to claim that Virginia could not cancel the custody order issued by the Vermont court. Lindevaldsen argues that this is false reasoning because the federal Defense of Marriage Act protects states from the obligation of giving “full faith and credit” to homosexual unions formalized in other states, and even under the FKPA, states don’t have to enforce the decisions of other states’ courts. Nonetheless, the Virginia courts ruled in favor of Jenkins, and agreed to apply the Vermont decision.
Lindevaldsen goes on to discuss the destructive effects of the homosexual lifestyle, and documents the damage to children and teens caused by the movement’s influence in the school system.
The author, who is a an associate dean and professor of law at Liberty University, told LifeSiteNews that Christians need to be aware of the Obama administration’s relentless pursuit of Miller and her daughter, and the implications of their decisions at the voting booth with regard to family issues.
“I think certainly the current administration has obviously made a commitment that this is a high priority for them, that they are going to track down a biological mother and attempt to take this child away from her biological mother and I certainly think that there is some political pressure that could be taken,” Lindevaldsen said.
“I think the word needs to get out. Christians need to know that these things are happening, the idea that a woman apparently had to flee the country to protect her child, shouldn’t be happening in America, and I don’t think enough Christians know about that and don’t realize that the people they vote for in an election year, who they vote for has direct consequences on things like this.”
She added that, in addition to their involvement in the national political process, Christians can work at the state level to ensure that other children are not victimized by ant-family legislation. Lindevaldsen says she has handled dozens of other cases that are similar to Miller’s.
“We need to pass laws at the state level making it very clear that courts do not have the discretion to do this, to declare a child to have two parents, because we need to avoid these situations happening in the future, because they are happening on a regular basis.”
Click “like” if you want to defend true marriage.
05 February 2012
Francis Fukuyama Blames Europeans for the Failed Integration of Muslims
I've been reading Fukuyama's book "The Origins of Political Order" recently and so far it's been very impressive.
But his analysis in a recent blog post (recapitulating a speech he gave last November) of what's gone wrong with European countries and their Muslim immigrants is deeply naive. He starts off with France.
A lot of people pointed to the riots that occurred in the French banlieues back in 2005 as evidence of an Islamist threat existed in France itself. I think that this is a complete misunderstanding of what happened there. ...What was going on in the French banlieues was very different. These were people that did not reject French identity; they in fact believed in the goals that the French society set for them but they were not allowed to achieve them. They could not get jobs; they were barred by racism from access to opportunities that white French people had and that was the source of their unhappiness.
OK, so French racism is to blame for the failure to integrate Muslims in France. What about Germany?
The German case is very different. German national identity evolved very differently from France. Partly due to the fact that the Germans were scattered all over Central and Eastern Europe, the process of German unification required definition of Germanness in ethnic terms. So legally their citizenship law was based on the legal principle of jus sanguinis. You become a citizen not if you are born on German territory, but rather depending on whether you have a German mother. Up until the year 2000, if you were an ethnic German coming from Russia, you could get citizenship far more easily than if you were a 2nd or 3rd generation Turk that had grown up in Germany, spoke perfect German and did not speak Turkish at all. Germans have changed their practice but the cultural meaning of saying I am German is still very different from the cultural meaning of saying I am French. It has a connotation that is more deeply rooted in blood. This means that when Angela Merkel says that multiculturalism has failed in Germany, I think she is only half right. She would be quite wrong to describe that failure one-sidedly as an unwillingness of Muslim immigrants and their children to want to integrate into German society. Part of the failure of integration comes from the side of the German society as well.
OK, so the German inclusion of ancestry as an element in the definition of their national identity (which the multicult would no doubt describe as 'racism') explains the failure of Muslim integration in Germany. What about Holland?
In Holland, national identity has always been defined by the pillarization (verzuilung)of Dutch society, its division into protestant, catholic and socialist pillars. The Dutch are famously tolerant but it’s a strange kind of tolerance. They tolerate people as long as they do things over there but not in my community. In a certain sense, it was a natural thing for Muslims to start arriving in the Netherlands and to create their own pillars, since that’s the way the Dutch themselves were organized. This lead to the emergence so-called “black” schools, in which you have only Muslim students with no opportunities to interact with native Dutch people. I think this has been one of the important obstacles in promoting faster and greater immigrant integration into Dutch society.
Hmm, so Dutch support for community "pillars" is to blame for the failure of Muslim integration there? OK, let's move on to Britain.
The failure of immigrant assimilation has in certain ways been the greatest in Britain – the European country that went for multiculturalism the most whole-heartedly. This was based on a mistaken interpretation of multiculturalism. In Britain there was a belief that pluralism meant you have to respect the autonomy of individual immigrant communities. The government had no role in actively trying to integrate them into a broader British culture. I had a colleague Robert Leiken who wrote a book called Europe’s Angry Muslims, that will be published in the United States very shortly, which gives some fascinating statistics in terms of the number of members of minority groups recruited into extremist organizations. In terms of the number of attempted violent acts by members of this community on a per capita basis he notes that Britain has the highest rate by far – much higher than in France, Holland, or Germany. The reason for that was that the British approach to multiculturalism that simply left radical imams to preach in their local communities without any interference from the authorities and without any effort by the state to actively use the education system to produce people that have allegiance to the British state. Again, the British have changed these policies in the last few years in the light of the subway bombings and other terrorist acts. But there is still a very problematic relationship between that country and its immigrant communities.
OK, so in Britain it's the laissez-faire approach to national identity that's to blame. The government should have intervened to suppress all the crazy preachers and brainwashed the Muslims into feeling British.
There's a pattern to his analysis; and the pattern is that Europeans are always to blame. This is basically just another application of the "European guilt" ideology that dominates our age. He goes through a list of European countries where Muslim immigrants and causing problems and then contrives a reason to blame the Europeans for the failure.
Altough he notes the diversity of the integration approaches that have been tried, there are two significant factors he does not mention. One is that non-Muslim third-world immigrants have not caused anything like the same degree of problems. Another is that the Muslims causing these problems are enormously diverse themselves: Turks in Germany, North Africans in France, Indian sub-continent Muslims in Britain.
The only reasonable conclusion a person who has not absorbed the ideology of European guilt could draw from the set of circumstances described is that the source of the problem lies with the Muslims, not the Europeans; and since the only thing these diverse Muslims have in common is Islam, the problem must lie very specifically in the ideology of Islam itself. Even if you knew nothing about Islam, you could reach that conclusion based on simple logic alone.
What does Fukuyama think about Hindu immigration polices in Europe and elsewhere? Or Shintoist immigration policies? Buddhist or Zoroastrian immigration policies? Of course he's probably never even thought in those terms. There's never been a reason for him to. And that right there points out the source of the problem.
04 February 2012
Texas Megachurch Quits Using NIV Over 'Accuracy Concerns'
I have been saying this for a while now: NIV is a cultural marxist "translation". It is meant to acomodate ideologies which help leftism NOT the Biblical Truth. Finally someone is taking notice.
The leader of a large Baptist church in Texas has announced that his congregation will no longer be using the NIV due to “accuracy concerns.”Yeah we got to have a new translation for the changing times, and such.
Pastor Gregg Matte of Houston’s First Baptist Church recently made the announcement, deciding that the church would use the Holman Christian Standard Bible instead.
“Upon review of the changes made to the NIV, Pastor Gregg believes that it is no longer as accurate in terms of reflecting the meaning of the original biblical texts,” reads the church’s website.
“Members and guests are welcome to use any translation of their choice – during the worship services, in Life Bible Studies, or for personal study of God's Word.”
As the debate over the effectiveness of the translation continues, some Texas pastors have drawn similar conclusions about the latest NIV translation as Matte.
Andrew Werley, lead pastor for Jersey Village Baptist Church, also located in Houston, told CP that he has also felt that the NIV 2011 has “drifted.”
“I believe the TNIV or the NIV 2011 revision has drifted from what I would consider a true literal translation,” said Werley.
“As a communicator of God’s Word I want the bible I use to be as accurate as possible to the literal intent of the authors.”
Werley, whose church prefers the English Standard Version 2001, felt that pastors must “be sensitive to the Bible translation we use and promote.”
“I believe FBC Houston has incredible pastoral leadership and I know their decision was made in the best interest of their city, congregation and convictions,” said Werley.
“As a partner with them in trying to reach our city for Christ, I am happy to stand with them in their conviction to do what they believe is best for their church and their mission.”
The latest translation of the New International Version was released last year by the Committee for Bible Translation. It sparked controversy over allegations of being too gender neutral, with the Southern Baptist Convention in particular voicing opposition.
CBT claimed that it left 95 percent of the NIV (1984) alone in its changes and also revised many of the initial gender neutral phrases in certain verses.
The NIV 2011 also changed the wording of verses pertaining to homosexuality, with the CBT saying that it was done to clarify certain passages regarding the matter.
03 February 2012
The New York Times is Dying
Selling their souls to cultural marxism led them to this.
The New York Times Company reported yesterday that their fourth quarter earnings slid 12.2 percent, as the continued decline in print advertising more than offset revenue gains in circulation and digital advertising.Net income was $58.9 million, or 39 cents a share, compared with $67.1 million, or 44 cents a share, in the year-earlier period.
Total revenue declined 2.8 percent, to $643 million in the quarter
Overall advertising revenue declined 7.1 percent in the fourth quarter, with print being down 7.8 percent and digital 4.9 percent, largely owing to a huge 25.9 percent decline of the company’s About.com web property.
The company continues to be affected, not just by a slow economy in general, but also by the tepid housing market, as real estate classified advertising dropped by 17.3% in the quarter. With no real recovery in sight, it is likely that these numbers will only get worse in the near future, putting even more pressure on the company’s bottom line.
One area where the company saw some growth was in their News Media Group, which includes The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The International Herald Tribune. Digital advertising was actually up by 5.3 percent and circulation revenue by 4.7 percent, driven by the growth of online subscriptions at The Times.
The company is still searching for a replacement for CEO Janet L. Robinson, who resigned from her post in December, but with a less than rosy outlook for the print side of the business, it won’t be easy to find someone who can both save the newspaper and get along with the Sulzberger family at the same time.
02 February 2012
Tying the Knot in the Age of Marriage 2.0
So You Want to Get Married?
You are here because you are thinking about getting married. Perhaps one of your friends did you a favor, and sent you here. If you are going to be the higher-earner spouse in the marriage, then this article is for you.
Taking the Plunge
Before you take the plunge there are a few things about marriage that you need to be aware of. The institution of marriage as we know it is no more. It has undergone drastic changes in the last 50 years. What used to be a life long commitment, unbreakable barring the most severe circumstances, has been relegislated into something entirely new thanks to the lobbying efforts of radical feminists and the divorce industry. In trying to to make divorce “fail-safe” for homemaker / lower-earner spouses, the bad ones included, they have made marriage “unsafe” for virtually everyone else.
Marriage today is a temporary union of two individuals where the exit costs are highly asymmetrical. What does that mean? It means that upon the dissolution of the marriage, one spouse generally makes off like a bandit, while the other is pushed into a life of unending poverty, abridged civil rights, and being two paychecks away from arrears, contempt, and prison.
If someone is made to suffer like that upon the divorce, you probably think that he/she deserved it. Perhaps they were a terrible spouse? Perhaps they cheated? If only this was so. Karma, you see, has nothing to do with it. That was the case during the olden days of “fault-only” divorce when the spouse who was at fault for wrecking the marriage got penalized during the divorce. With those old divorces , if the at-fault party was the higher-earning spouse, they were made to pay alimony and surrender many marital assets over to the wronged party. Similarly, if the at-fault party was the homemaker/lower-earner spouse, then they were made to forfeit any alimony and forced to accept a smaller share of the martial assets. Morality was a big factor in who made out better and who made out worse.
Enter Marriage 2.0
During the second half of the 20th century all of the ground rules governing marriage were changed. The laws were changed to such an extent that that we can no longer call it “marriage” as it was known through the millennia. We have to distinguish this mutated institution with a new name. We will call it Marriage 2.0.
Today all that stuff about the moral carrot and stick is out of the window. Basically the higher-earner spouse is always at-fault (i.e. made to hand over assets and pay alimony), and the lower-earner spouse is always the “innocent one” (i.e. gets most of the assets and a cut of the ex’s future salaries). It doesn’t matter if the lower-earner spouse was the one having an affair or is the one filing the divorce. Therein lies the problem with modern family laws. You can be the best breadwinner spouse in the world, take good care of your family, and stay true to your marriage vows, and you will still get shafted in the divorce. It’s a suckers bet for the good guy (or the good gal).
Here are some things working against you, when you are the primary breadwinner spouse within Marriage 2.0, and your spouse decides to walk out (cash out?) on you:
1. Women Filing Majority of Divorces - 66-75% of all divorces are now filed by wives. Publications like Cosmo love to harp on men for having a “fear of commitment”. Guys must ask themselves, why commit when it’s the other party who can’t live up to the commitment 3/4 of the time?
2. Unilateral Divorce – This is also known as no-fault divorce, with no recourse for the other spouse. There is nothing you can do legally speaking to stop a divorce.
3. Domestic Violence Fraud : Presumed guilty until proven innocent DV laws are now widely used as the “opening chess move” of many divorces. Once the husband is removed from the primary residence he never comes back, and she gets the primary residence in the asset split. Also known as the Federal VAWA Legislation, this new unconstitutional law has been fraudalently misused by divorcing spouses ever since it came out. There are no equivalent laws to protect men in abusive situations.
4. Decriminalization of Adultery - Adultery is no longer a crime. However the failure to pay alimony to an adulterous spouse is. Go figure.
5. Losing Custody of Children - Custody of the children is most often awarded to the lower-earner spouse in family courts. Basically this amounts to: Goodbye Daddy, hello ATM. When you read of cases like this October 2009 case where a little boy’s mother was arrested for prostitution and his stable/employed dad was still denied custody, you quickly understand how this loaded dice always rolls.
6. Nonenforcement of Visitation Rights – States enforce payment obligations by non-custodial parents with an iron fist, however they don’t lift a finger to enforce the other side of the bargain, which is the visitation rights of non-custodial parents. If you are going to police one parent’s obligation to pay, why not police the other parent’s obligation to allow regular meaningful access to one’s children?
7. Children as Cashcows - The National Organization for Women (NOW) has been lobbying against Shared Parenting bills in many states. Why would NOW do that? What is more equal than shared parenting? The reason is that NOW’s brand of feminism is no longer about equality, but about a zero-sum game for resources. Children are cash-cows, and NOW will be damned if they allow Shared Parenting to stop the cash-flow.
8. No-Fault Alimony – In many states, fault is no longer a factor in awarding alimony. So there are plenty of cases of “spouse-A cheats, but spouse-B pays”. In what other area of contract law does the party breaking the contract gets paid, and the innocent party gets punished? Only in Marriage 2.0!
9. One Sided Alimony: Ok so the ex-wife got used to a certain standard of living, so we will make the ex-husband pay alimony. Fine. But how about the things the ex-husband got used to? Do men have a right to be “accustomed” to stuff too? If not, why not? Shouldn’t there be some sort of reciprocal reverse-alimony payment by the ex-wife in the form of weekly cleaning, a hot meal 7 nights a week, and “romantic companionship” services for the ex-husband? How come one spouse is obligated to provide something that the other was used to during the marriage, and the other isn’t obligated to provide anything? (see the Chris Rock clip below)
10. Lifetime Alimony – Contrary to common belief, Alimony isn’t on its way out. There was a period in the 1970′s when no-fault laws were first enacted when a few states put limitations on how/when it could be awarded. However since then there have been a concerted effort by powers that be such as the influential American Law Institute (ALI) for bringing alimony back in a big way. Here is a New York Times article covering the release of a landmark 2002 ALI report which recommended broadening and deepening alimony awards across all 50 states. Right on queue there are now reports of alimony horror stories coming out from many states where the breadwinner ex-spouses are ordered to pay lifetime alimony even after medium term marriages as short as 8 years.
11. Zombie Divorces: This Wall Street Journal article has a good example of a zombie divorce. These are divorces that come back from the grave, like flesh eating zombies, sometimes decades after the original divorce judgement. Paul Taylor featured in the WSJ story had his ex-wife take him back to court in 2009, 27 years after the original 1982 divorce when both parties had agreed to waive all past/present/future alimony. The court reversed that 1982 divorce judgement and awarded lifetime alimony to the ex-wife. They had been divorced for longer than they had been married when this 2009 judgement reversal was rendered. It was ordered that this new alimony be deducted out of Paul Taylor’s pension and paid monthly to a woman he hadn’t even seen in three decades. Mr Taylor is now in bankruptcy and can look forward to spending his golden years working as a Greeter in Wal-Mart. Is there a zombie attack in your future?
12. Paternity Fraud - If you didn’t catch right away that your kids aren’t really your kids but instead were “sired” by some guy that your wife was having an affair with, you are out of luck in most states. What’s worse if your cheating wife divorces you, you can bring the DNA tests to court, and you will still be forced to pay 18-23 years of child support for these kids who are some other guy’s spawn. Read this case of the Toronto man forced to pay child-support for twins that even the court acknowledged are not his. In no other area of the law do we punish the victim for the conduct of two other people
Even more shocking is this New York Times article about a Pennsylvania man ordered to keep paying child support after his adulterous wife divorced him, and married the very guy she had the affair and conceived the child with. Today the bio-father, the ex-wife, and their bio-child live together under a single roof as a biologically intact family and guess who is still paying them monthly child support? Yes, the cuckold ex-husband still has to pay every month or go to jail. You can’t make this stuff up. Even cuckold porn doesn’t get this vile.
Conclusion
Marriage 2.0 is a very unequal contract where the legal power balance both within the marriage and after the divorce is heavily biased against the primary breadwinner. Given that this is today’s legal reality why would you want to sign such a one sided contract? There are simply no benefits in marriage for the primary breadwinner under these Marriage 2.0 rules. None whatsoever. Ask yourself now: “What is in it for me?”. If the above hasn’t yet convinced you to avoid this mutated institution that has become a a giant legal trap, then you owe it to yourself to keep learning more about the risks of saying “I do”.
A great place to start learning more is the Don’t Marry Blog. Also be sure to check out this colorful piece explaining why Marriage = Fraud.
Spain’s new government to eliminate homosexualist indoctrination course
February 1, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Spain’s new government, swept into power in November after seven years of socialist rule, has announced the elimination of a controversial program to indoctrinate students with homosexualist and socialist ideology.
The government’s new Minister of Education, Culture, and Sports, Jose Ignacio Wert, says frankly that the civics course, which was imposed on all public and private schools, “became a course that was charged with indoctrination.”
“Education for Citizenship has been accompanied, since its birth, by controversy and created a serious division in society and in the educational world because it went beyond what should belong to a true ‘civic formation’ in accordance with the directories and guides formulated by the Council of Europe,” Wert also stated.
“Education for Citizenship and Human Rights,” also known in Spain as EpC, provoked a massive protest by Spanish citizens who said that their right to educate their children according to their own values was being violated by the government.
Course materials suggested that teachers have students make a “critical evaluation of the social and sexual division of labor and racist, xenophobic, sexist, and homophobic social prejudices” and said that teachers should strive to “revise the student’s attitude towards homosexuality.”
In one manifestation of the course, students were told that “sex is for enjoyment as much as we can or want,” and “so and let others do whatever they wish,” according to Forum Libertas, a Spanish Catholic news source.
Despite resistance from large numbers of families, the Spanish Socialist Worker’s Party refused to back down, and even attempted to impose the program on Spaniards living abroad.
Wert, a member of the now-ruling Popular Party, says that EpC will be replaced by a program that is limited to teaching the text of Spain’s constitution, rights and responsibilities, and “pluralism, liberty, democracy, and knowledge of European institutions” in the words of Europa Press.
The suppression of EpC was hailed by numerous pro-family organizations, including Forum for the Family (Foro de la Familia), Make Yourself Heard (HazteOir), the Family Policy Institute (Instituto de Politica Familiar), and Professionals for Ethics (Profesionales por la Etica).
Jaime Urcelay, president of Professionals for Ethics, called the news “a joy that compensates many years of effort and struggle for freedom against an educational indoctrination imposed by the government in power.”
“There have been many years of objections (55 thousand objections presented) of suffering and judicial processes (around 3,000 in Spain and 400 Spaniards in Strasbourg suing),” he added.
Professionals for Ethics reports that Jose Ignacio Wert was receiving a 1,000 messages a day urging him to fulfill the campaign promise of the People’s Party to eliminate EpC, prior to the announcement.
Regarding the new civics program to be announced, Urcelay said that it would be “welcome” if “it does not intend to insinuate itself into the values of students and mold their consciences and thinking against the values of their parents.”
01 February 2012
Gender Liberation: The Harmful Effects of Raising Children 'Gender Neutral'
The use of children is sickening. The use of children as political tools is even worse. Can't liberals just let children be children?
Numerous stories have emerged recently about parents who have chosen to raise their children as "gender neutral." The parents have received widespread criticism with many questioning whether they have a political motive and are just using their children to enforce their own agendas.Lorraine Candy, editor-in-chief of Elle magazine's U.K. edition, recently commented on the topic warning that using a child to make political statements is harmful to the child.
Beck Laxton and Kieran Cooper kept the gender of their son Sasha a secret to the public for the first five years of his life. "I wanted to avoid all the stereotyping," said the mother Laxton to U.K.-based Cambridge News. "Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes?"
Sasha's gender-neutral story is similar to that of a Canadian couple, Kathy Witterick and David Stocker, who also decided to keep the gender of their baby a secret. The couples explained that they hoped their actions would make the world "a more progressive place."
However, Candy did not agree with Laxton and Cooper's decision to keep their son Sasha gender neutral. "He has been hailed as an experiment in breaking stereotypes, but who would want to expose their child to possible derision for the sake of their political beliefs?" she asks.
Candy, whose son spent the first five years of his life picking dresses over football, has firsthand experience. "His favorite game was wearing his elder sisters' sequin party dresses while running his imaginary boutique 'Slinx' or greeting customers in his hairdressing salon 'Slapchicks'," Candy said, talking about her son Henry.
Candy told the Daily Mail, "You may assume, from all this, that I'd be in favor of what has been termed 'gender neutral parenting' - raising a child as neither boy nor girl, but giving it free rein to express itself in whatever way he or she chooses."
However, she said that is not the case: "I know, from my own experience, that some children do not conform to the conventional behavior expected of their gender anyway. But I know also that there came a time when I had to put a stop to my boy's 'girlish' instincts. I knew it was my duty as a parent to make it stop - for reasons I will come to later."
Candy sought the help of parenting books to answer some of her questions. Referring to her reading she said, "Apparently, all children need to 'belong'; they crave positive recognition as they develop between the ages of three and seven. They seek the approval of their peer group to make them feel secure so they can develop with confidence."
Henry's peer group at the time was his two older sisters.
On Henry's fifth birthday, after he had begun school, Candy and her husband decided that it was time to put the dresses away. One day they packed away the tutus and said, "From now on, you need to wear boys' clothes and sleep in boys' pajamas."
Candy explained her decision: "Some may see my decision as pandering to convention. But I didn't make this decision because I was scared of what the future holds for a boy happy in his feminine skin or because I believe cross-dressing is wrong. Remember, I work in fashion."
Affirming her belief she said, "Allowing my son to continue down his feminine path would only incur ridicule and hurt."
And now, according to Candy her son is just fine.
The increased support for gender liberation has some questioning why people would even consider keeping their children genderless, most accepting that gender is a fact and not a decision.
According to Peter Sprigg, Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at the Family Research Council, "A person cannot choose whether they are male or female, that is something that is intrinsic in their body at birth."
A user on the Yahoo blog agreed. Juliet wrote, "You can't make a child "gender neutral." There is no such thing! Genders aren't stereotypes! They're basic FACT."
If gender is decided by nature, then what is the point behind families raising gender-neutral children? Many Yahoo users pushed the opinion that parents like Laxton were not liberating their children but rather imposing political ideology on them.
Beth Laxton, Sasha's mother has said in a Cambridge News interview that Sasha is not allowed to wear "overtly masculine clothes" which includes "no skulls, camouflage or combats." She has also banned him from playing with Barbie dolls because Laxton has said "she's horrible" although she has surrounded him with other approved dolls.
Laxton persists in dressing him in pink and frequently adorning him in flowery tops. His school uniform consists of ruffles that give the impression that the shirt has been made for a girl.
Commenting on what she would do if her son were teased for wearing a "girly" uniform, Laxton said, "I don't think I'd do it if I thought it was going to make him unhappy, but at the moment he's not really bothered either way."
Users on a Yahoo blog readily questioned Laxton's intentions. "Poor kid. So they dress him in a girl's swimsuit but won't let him wear distinctly masculine clothes? How can they say they are allowing him free choice?" Ethan wrote.
Brandon questioned the parents' motives. "I'm fine with letting little kids play around with whatever they want, if a little boy wants to dress up in Mom's clothes once in a while or a little girl wants to play with Nerf guns, more power to em," he said. "But these two aren't giving the kid freedom, they're forcing their own roles on him. Why does he have to wear a girl's blouse as part of his uniform, did he ask for it? Or did he ask for the pink swimsuit?"
Director of One Million Moms, Monica Cole agrees that children may like to dress up and try out different roles as they are growing, but doubts their thought process. "They're just playing and they don't know what they're thinking," Cole said. By trying to put their behavior in some sort of context, "parents will make them think they are a different person inside."
"Suggesting that a child should choose their own gender is very harmful to their childhood and it develops a very harmful lifestyle," Cole added.
Candy also described the attempts to use children to push political agendas as burdensome. "It's a huge responsibility for children as young as five to be expected to change this (gender) thinking," she said.
"But perhaps the most important point is that many of these attempts to unburden children from the constraints of gender are misguided. Dressing up is what pre-schoolers do. You may think your toddler is striking a blow for feminism or his future right to wear women's clothing in public but he's not - he's just playing a game.."
