Planned Parenthood is a Misnomer

One of the saddest things I’ve read this month.

The 2005-2006 Planned Parenthood Annual Report shows that the organization performed a record 264,943 abortions in 2005 yet did not record a single adoption referral.

If we as a nation don’t protect innocent life, what does that say about us?

Here’s how you might respond.

The Highest Step

In 1960, Joseph Kittinger rode a helium balloon into space… and jumped off.

Work Goes On, Help Needed in Afghanistan

I don’t usually post entire emails but the world is sorely in need of more positive news. So here is an email that came from The Spirit of America Team regarding their work in Afghanistan. Good stuff!

“GOOD DEEDS” NEEDED IN KANDAHAR AREA OF AFGHANISTAN
SGM James McDowell serves as the Operations Sergeant Major for the 1-508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division. Currently based out of Kandahar, they are the Theater Reserve, going out to hot spots throughout Southern Afghanistan fighting the Taliban. Here are some excerpts from SGM McDowell’s emails:

“The Taliban’s biggest ally is that the local people are destitute, and hungry for any good deed. We could use some good deeds on our side, with your help. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. We could use however much of these supplies as you can provide.”

With the support of Spirit of America, he would like to provide basic farming tools; shovels, hoes, rakes and picks to help the Afghan farmers and their families.
SGM McDowell writes.

“They are coveted so greatly that farmers literally have slug-fests fighting with each other over hoes, shovels, picks, rakes, etc. If you sent several hundred, it would not be too much.”

He also needs school supplies, soccer balls, stuffed animals, any type of clothes; shoes, socks, gloves, especially for women and children.

“As for quantities of everything, I have about 15 platoons on the ground. Each one of these 25-30 man elements has several Hummers that can carry some amount of boxes of each of these items. So, if you can provide maybe a few hundred of each item to start with: i.e. school back packs, balls, and beanies, that will spread out nicely.

We seem to hit several villages varying from 12 to 50 families each along our way every day when hunting bad guys. We also have a local program right at our home base in Kandahar that provides items to the locals around base, and there are thousands of destitute families just within a few miles. What I am saying is, I can use as much as you can send. It is going to be a long summer. We will be fighting Taliban all over Afghanistan, and spreading whatever you send. I doubt you could ever send too much.”

In closing, SGM McDowell writes: “I am very pleased that you are helping. You may never know what the impact of your actions means over here. I have been just about everywhere in 26 years in the Army; Egypt, Palestine, Nepal, Thailand, etc, but I have never seen desperation like this.

Thank you for your professionalism and great kindness.

May God bless you all.

J.S. MACK McDOWELL
OPERATIONS SERGEANT MAJOR, 1-508th PIR

Planned Parenthood Is Interested About One Thing… Money

Planned Parenthood may claim to care about “woman’s rights” but their actions say otherwise.

A story out of Mason, Ohio paints a horrifying picture of just how far Planned Parenthood may be willing to go to attract young abortion clients. In what prosecutors are calling “one of the worst cases of child abuse” in Warren County, a local man has been sentenced to five years in prison–one for each year he molested and raped his own daughter. The abuse could have been prevented, or at the very least, cut short, the girl’s attorney says, had Planned Parenthood intervened when the young girl reported her dad at the clinic where she was forced to undergo an abortion. Rather than help the hurting child, lawyer Brian Hurley alleges, Planned Parenthood preyed on the girl’s vulnerability and refused to intervene as the law requires. Instead, clinic workers performed the procedure and sent her back with a supply of birth control where her tormentor continued sexually assaulting her for another year and a half.

In 2006, the girl was so terrified that her dad would also abuse her sister that she shared her story with a high school official, who, unlike Planned Parenthood, contacted police. Tragically, her situation may not be an isolated one; many others are made possible by the government’s funding of Planned Parenthood. Similar allegations have been raised in Indiana and Kansas. In the Sunflower State, former state attorney general Phill Kline has obtained abortion clinic records that appear to show a long trail of criminal neglect. Hurley thinks stonewalling on such cases will not work, “If we ever do get a look at all the records, it will …show… [Planned Parenthood] set up a system to prevent reporting abuse. Some people roll their eyes when you bring up abortion. Nobody rolls their eyes about abuse.” Planned Parenthood officials in Ohio deny they have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about statutory rape. But read on.

Pretty twisted, huh?

The Keye Affect Explained

Words are fine. Pictures far better. But video beats them all. Great stuff. [via kottke]

More Men Taking Wife’s Last Name

Just read about this story—More men taking wives’ last names— on USAToday. No where in the article does it tell us why Mike Buday wants to use his wife’s last name. Kinda poor journalism, but that’s not my point in posting.

This is just one more way that some liberal organizations *cough* *ACLU* *cough* are working to do away with our American traditions. Is “tradition” a dirty word? It’s almost like they’re thinking, “Let’s see, what do we normally do here? Great. Let’s do the opposite.”

To be fair, if my last name was Crumpacker, maybe I’d take my wife’s last name too. [via kottke]

Oprah’s Leadership Academy

I’m as guilty as the next person. Why is it that we are quick to criticize but slow to compliment?

In the past, I’ve had my fill of the Hollywood elites who talk the talk, but rarely walk the walk. But today, I am happy to write about something truly wonderful that Oprah is doing in South Africa. She calls it the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy, but I call it charity—the best kind of charity.

Just watch these videos of the girls and how tough their lives have been. If you’re not touched, then you might want to have a spiritual checkup.

Amillia Taylor Born After Just 21 Weeks

World’s Most Premature Baby Amillia Goes Home After Early Birth

Amillia Taylor is fighting for her life and the odds are against her. She was born at just 21 weeks into the pregnancy four months ago at Miami’s Baptist Children’s Hospital. With no baby born before 23 weeks surviving at length, Amillia has gone home to be cared for under the watchful eye of her parents.

And here we thought our little 5 lb. 5 oz. Barret was small.

“We can deal with lungs and things like that but, of course, the brain is the most important,” Dr. Paul Fassbach told AP. “But her prognosis is excellent.”

I’m rooting for you Amillia!

So why is this important? Because the typical baby is born after 37-40 weeks in the womb. So Amillia is proving that what some “counselors” might be telling expectant mother about the baby being a “formless mass of tissue” is so completely wrong that it should be a crime. Life begins at conception.

Let’s hope the U.S. Supreme Court justices will remember this when they pass down their judgement on partial-birth abortion this spring.

Snake Eater Circumvents the Bureaucracy

From the Opinion Journal comes this fine piece by Daniel Henninger. What I ask is when doesn’t private enterprise beat the crap out of any government program?

This is a story of can-do in a no-can-do world, a story of how a Marine officer in Iraq, a small network-design company in California, a nonprofit troop-support group, a blogger and other undeterrable folk designed a handheld insurgent-identification device, built it, shipped it and deployed it in Anbar province. They did this in 30 days, from Dec. 15 to Jan. 15. Compared to standard operating procedure for Iraq, this is a nanosecond.

We have the technology, let’s use it! Big thanks go out to Jim Hake and all the donors who contributed to this just cause.

Straight From the Soldiers Mouth, aka Reporting As It Should Be

Great stuff! Congrats to Richard Engle of NBC for having the stones to report. Spread the word bloggers! [via Brutally Honest]

The Glory of Winter

I don’t know Bruce Webster but that didn’t stop him from send me an email. While 99.999% of all unsolicted emails cause me to curse and moan, this one was welcome. To be honest, I tweaked his color settings a bit towards the blue spectrum and lightened it up. You can head over to Bruce’s site to see the originals.

Seeing blankets of perfect powder like that always brings home the fondest memories of my ski trips.

Saddam Hangs

I knew it was a good day and just didn’t know why.

Astonishing pictures of Saddam’s last moments were beamed around the world by Arab television. The grainy footage showed masked hangmen putting the noose around Saddam’s neck, but did not show Saddam’s actual moment of death. [link]

Now he can have that conversation with God we were talking about.

Stem Cells, Journalistic Integrity and the Chasing After of Riches

While adult stem cells have actually been used for 72 cures and treatments, embryonic cells have account for a whopping 0. That doesn’t stop those with dollar signs in their eyes, who have jettisoned their ethics to pursue this highly controversial path of medicine. Here’s one such example reported by the FRC.

Nearly a year after printing one of the most fraudulent studies in modern history, the journal Science is being pressured to implement a new publishing policy–mainly enforcing that the articles it accepts are true. Last January, Dr. Hwang Woo-Suk of South Korea submitted papers claiming that his research team had created new stem cell lines from cloned embryos and used very few eggs to do so.

It was later discovered that the feat was a fake. Not only had Dr. Hwang coerced young female researchers into donating their eggs, but the supposed “new stem cell lines” were a hoax and failed to correspond with the photographs he submitted. An independent committee investigated the case at Science’s behest and has now recommended that the journal tighten its guidelines to ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself. The panel advised that “high-risk” papers be singled out for further scrutiny, along with the credibility of the authors. The journal’s editor-in-chief, Donald Kennedy, ran an editorial response to the committee’s findings in today’s edition of Science.

While many think the panel’s approach is a commonsense solution, Kennedy says he is not certain which recommendations will be adopted or when. “We are still in the early states of developing our response to this,” he told reporters. Kennedy notes that the journal will be seeking input from the scientific community. But why would a field, grounded in stringent laws and procedures, regard accuracy as a subject for debate? Considering the heated political climate for things as controversial as stem cells and cloning, the least researchers could do is create some semblance of accountability and corroboration, lest policymakers make misguided decisions that affect millions of people.

As Kennedy himself writes, “The environment has changed for science.” Increasingly, studies are motivated not by ethics but self-interest. As the world continues to seek ethical cures and to improve the health and well-being of many, cutting-edge research should be judged by strict standards–not political agendas.

What’s In a Name?

The Net’s all abuzz over Michael Richards comedy club tirade then subsequent apology on Letterman. While it’s certainly true that this kind of behavior is “uncalled for”, angry and purposefully mean-spirited, I don’t believe it is the bane of our existence like so many make it out to be.

Putting someone down by calling them a name is an attempt to make that other person feel worse about themselves, in the hope that the name-caller gets to feel better about their own person. If, for example, someone was to call me an “obese cow” while I’m actually not in the least bit overweight, how should I react to that? Even if they call me something that’s fitting, is it in my best interest to respond? Is that the optimum course of action?

Calling people derogatory names is a cheap, childish act but so many times people see it as a license. A license to be offended, to draw sympathy, to respond in anger themselves; an opportunity to escalate the conflict. It seems to me, that so many adult trials, when correlated to their schoolyard equivalence reveal some obvious behavior choices. What ever happened to:

Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me.

The Little Big Things

In our world, where we live with the constant threat of terrorist attacks, unborn babies being destroyed for the sake of convenience and a growing moral decay, it’s good to know we can still take joy in building a 3,300 lb. rubber band ball.