Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely "Shut Down"

Pro-Life Fridays Radio Monologue - October 4, 2013

Obamacare and the Shut Down.  One of my media friends calls it a "#Shutnado," but really it has been more like the government passing gas this week.  At best not impressive.  At worst, offensive, and it stinks up a room.  All nonessential federal services were supposed to be shut down until the House Republicans agree to fully funding The Unaffordable Lack-of-Care and Patient Victimization Act as part of the Continuing Resolution to raise the government debt ceiling.  Where--what part of any of this sounds right to you?  I mean, if this is not a kind of political Greek Hell, I don't even know.  Even Russia's President, Vladimir Putin, is being considered for a Nobel Peace Prize for talking down our Nobel Peace Prize President from his warmongering stance against Syria!  I'm starting to think that those fluoridated water conspiracy theorists have something--that decades of drinking fluoridated water has lowered our IQs enough so that we think this craziness is just normal life, but we're really living in Greek Hell.  Maybe.  Just maybe.

But never fear, essential services are still being provided.  And by "essential," I mean--the Obama Administration means--essential, like guards and barricades at national parks and open-air memorials, White House executive chefs, Michelle Obama's remaining personal assistants (plural), and HHS programs meant for sterilizing American Indians who are part of the Navajo Nation. Yes, that's right.  CNS news reports that the Department of Health and Human Services has grants totalling $450,000 to "provide birth control--including "long acting" contraceptives and "sterilization"--in the Navajo Nation’s tribal lands."

Article:  "HHS Promoting 'Long-Acting Contraception, Sterilization, in Dwindling Navajo Nation"

$450,000--big deal, you say.  Well, if you aren't bothered by even $1 of your money being spent on the continuing and slow demise of not just one but several ethnic groups, maybe you'll appreciate that the shut down is shutting down NIH funding for cancer research and clinical drug trials, but the Shut Down is giving $455 million (yes, that's a thousand times more than for sterilizing Navajo Americans) to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.  If you think those on the Left are at all tearful and would work to mitigate this, just ask Harry Reid.  Oh right, someone did ask leading him to blurt out his famous "Why would I want to do that?" line.  I swear, that is the most honest thing ever to come out of Harry Reid's mouth.  Yes, population control and narrative control--all very necessary and essential under the Obortion Administration.  So sorry for children suffering from cancer.  Ladies and gentlemen, if you haven't realized it by now, this is the Emperor's fully armed and operational battle station.

This is not a shut down; it's a form of extortion.  But we've been here before.  Last time.  When the President threatened that seniors would not get their Social Security checks if Congress didn't approve of the last debt ceiling hike (erhm and Sequestration)!  This President has used people--used them as human shields--as a way of extorting our politicians into getting what he wants "100%," and he's still doing it.  I hear people, conservative Americans even, dismiss pro-life issues such as we talk about on this show as being irrelevant to the economics and policies that are really important to America.

Please, I'm begging you to wake up and realize that we are swimming in those issues everyday when we talk about economics and policy.  There is no separating what has been intertwined in public policy.  Pres. Obama was willing to use our senior citizens on Social Security as pawns in his political schemes then.  Now, his administration is halting research for cancer patients in favor of funding government media mouthpieces and moving  forward with funding for birth control and sterilization for already diminishing peoples.  And for what--to bankroll a health care system that is designed NOT to make sure everyone can get Congressional-style coverage (that claim was a joke from the beginning), but to be able to select out who the elites think is worthy of receiving care, just like they do in Canada and Europe.  In Belgium, they limit access to certain kinds of life-saving drugs and medical treatments but fully fund assisted suicide--don't think Obamacare won't do the same.  Instead of funding life-saving measures, Obamacare instead will fund abortion.  Isn't it nice to know that Grandma, who might not be able to get an operation to save her life, can get subsidized $9/month birth control pills and all the abortions she wants?  Fabulous.

And I'm going to keep saying it until it sinks in.  If what is considered "just a social issue" is not worth the time to seriously discuss, then why did a liberal like Democrat Wendy Davis spend 11 hours filibustering on the Texas Senate floor?  Why did she wear a freaking catheter--those things are painful as childbirth, I tell you.  So talking about it makes you uncomfortable--does it make you want to insert a catheter into your urinary tract to avoid it?...because Wendy Davis wore one for 11 hours so that she could shut down a bill about limiting abortion.  Don't tell me this is a sideline issue, because it sure isn't one for the Left. Obamacare proves it--the Shut Down proves it.  All conservatives need to come to grips with this fact.  It would be a relief to talk about abortion as a social issue one day--the day we stop making it legal, so then I can say "At least it's not legal."  But that day hasn't come.

"Shut Down" Like a Woman Scorned

Pro-Life Fridays Radio Monologue - October 11, 2013

Aaand the Selective Shut Down continues. If you're like me, you're almost at the point of sick of hearing about it, except that something new happens everyday that is supposedly shutdown-related.  Truth be told, the Shut Down is a little farce--I don't mean the Shut Down itself is a farce, but a lot of what is being done in the name of shutting down the government is a farce.

Example:  you know the joke that was floating around about the government covering Mt. Rushmore with a giant sheet?  Yes, we all knew it is a joke the moment we heard it--apparently, though, Snopes.com thought it was such a thing that they published one of their debunks on it.  Ha!  Well, it is almost literally true.  Twitchy reports that police in the vicinity of Mt. Rushmore have put up cones on the road at points where Mt. Rushmore can be seen while driving.  The cones are placed there so that people cannot pull over and look at the monument.  Seriously!  The government is shut down, so as much money as it takes to shut down what normally requires little to no money whatsoever to experience is being spent to keep people from even seeing what is visible to everyone.  A mountain, for crying out loud.

But that's not all.  Yesterday, a story came out all over the place that an international tourist group was detained by armed park rangers at Yellowstone National Park, who--who--let me just read the story.

Article:  "Gestapo Tactics Meet Senior Citizens at Yellowstone"

Honestly, by the end of reading this story, I thought this was a hoax--that is how absurd this story sounds.  "No recreating!"?!?  Don't take photos of passing wildlife or go to the bathroom?  And they have guns on them to make sure you do what they say?  As absurd as it is, it is also very disconcerting.

But I've got one more.  In the name of "Shut Down," a jogger was fined $100 for jogging at Valley Forge National Historical Park.  Since when does "Shut Down" mean you can't go jogging in a public place?  Oh, and one more, one more:  private businesses that happen to be situated on federal property have been ordered inaccessible, and people living in their private homes that happen to be located on federal property have been kicked to the curb until further notice.

Folks, a government shutdown does not mean that federally public properties are to be made inaccessible...at the point of a gun.  We are in a shutdown, which means federal employees aren't working their jobs (certain federal employees), and buildings are closed, offices are closed, NOT open air parks blockaded like a passage out of North Korea and people's lives and businesses taken down by armed personnel. That is not a shutdown.  Meanwhile, the government is funding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, opening the Washington Mall to a rally for illegal immigration, and purchasing mechanical bulls.  What shutdown?

For the last few days, I've been searching for the right word to describe this 'so not a shut down' brouhaha.  People have been saying that this is a temper tantrum from President Obama--yes, I think that's partly the case. People have said it is petty, spiteful...yes, I'll agree, but that still doesn't hit the nail on the head for me.  And then I got it.  Late at night, when all strokes of genius take place.  What is the word?  "Catty."  I know you're underwhelmed, but bear with me please.  This is the kind of thing many wives do (and all wives want to do) when they discover their husbands cheating on them.   This is about punishment and emotional retribution.  It is a catty reaction to not getting your way, and there is no shadow of doubt in my mind that how this "Shut Down" has been conducted was conceived in the mind of a woman. So as much as President Obama has to take the responsibility for screwing the American public like this, holding tourists hostage was not his idea -- at least not his alone.

On our doorstep--sex selective abortion is creeping into greater prominence in the Western world, and people are going to see the rubber meet the road.  In Australia, a doctor by the name of Mark Hobart is coming under fire from the Medical Board of Victoria for refusing to refer a couple to an abortionist when they expressed that they wanted to abort their baby girl.  According to the Australian Herald Sun News,

Under Victorian law, he was obliged to refer the patient to a doctor he knew would terminate the pregnancy.
But Dr Hobart doesn't know any doctor who would agree to abort a healthy baby for sex selection reasons.
"The general response from my colleagues is disbelief and revulsion," he said.
In any case, a referral is not necessary for an abortion. Hobart's patient independently procured the abortion a few days later. Neither she nor her husband made any complaint.

So the Medical Board is making an issue out of something that, legally, is not an issue.  I don't know how any government can compel doctors to refer people to others who will do something completely unethical. I mean, what if, in the name of being oneself, a doctor...here, I have a real example--a man wanted a dentist to remove all his teeth for no medically necessary purpose.  Now imagine if the law orders this doctor to refer this man to someone who would do that.  That's not only unethical, it's ridiculous.  The man can find some other dentist who would do it--you can find anyone to do anything under the right circumstances.  I mean, he could even find someone to do a "back alley teeth extraction" for him, if you know what I mean.

Safer If They Called the AFA "Jihadis"

There's a rebuttal out there to the accusation of being paranoid, and that it is not paranoia if somebody's really out to get you.  Effective as a "Strike two!" call in a baseball game is the newest reveal that the US Army is naming the American Family Association a domestic hate group akin to the KKK and the Westboro Baptist Church.  And to make sure Army personnel didn't misunderstand, the briefing at which this became an issue included a presentation slide putting Fred Phelps' photo (complete with him holding up a poster that says "No Special Law for F***") on a slide labeled American Family Association.  The rationale?  The AFA is strongly pro-traditional marriage and opposed to the recognition of same-sex unions as marriage.

Apparently, that position is all it takes to be labeled by the Army.

Ahem. When did the US Army get First Amendment rights?  I know for certain that individuals in the military have limited free speech rights on the condition of their service, so I would think that logically, our entire military has to curb its freedom to express an opinion that opposition to same-sex marriage is hate.  Speaking of free speech, it is an opinion that exceeds the purview of the military, because marriage is, as many conservative groups have argued, is just a social issue.  Hate is a social issue.  Violence and the threat to harm is not, and clearly the AFA is not an organization that engages or endorses any type of violence whatsoever.

This is a "Strike two!" occasion because, as Todd Starnes pointed out, this briefing by the Army is itself a dangerous hate move not unlike how the Family Research Council was also labeled by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a potential target for a truly hateful fascist to attack, which then happened.  In fact, Army officers have come to see themselves as idealogues and the mechanism of the Army as a force for activism.

One officer said the two Christian ministries did not “share our Army Values.”
“When we see behaviors that are inconsistent with Army Values – don’t just walk by – do the right thing and address the concern before it becomes a problem,” the officer wrote in an email to his subordinates.

The US Army has values?  And it is incumbent upon the American public to conform to those "Army Values?"  Call me hog-tied to the text (or paranoid!), but I'm certain that whatever Army Values exist are supposed to be reflective of the US Constitution which in no way acknowledges that one must campaign to "address concerns" of average American citizens that are "inconsistent with (so-called) Army Values."

So if the Army is going to fling open that door, then I'm not paranoid, and it's safe again to trod out Hitler references to things I find smack of fascism.  I ask that our government root out the Nazi dictator who compiled this briefing and jack him/her up for conspiracy to deprive the people of the AFA of their First Amendment rights and for putting them in potential physical harm.

Warning:  unlike baseball, there is no limit to the number of strikes anyone can make against Christian groups.

Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia...Don't Fall In Love.

And then it happened. 

Here's the story:  Married Couple Found to Be Twins Separated at Birth -- New Adoption Regulation Called For.

"In an incredibly rare twist of fate, a married couple in the UK have had their marriage annulled after discovering that they were in fact twins separated at birth. The pair apparently had no idea they were related, though felt an “inevitable attraction” that brought them together."

... 

“And if you don’t know you are biologically related to someone, you may become attracted to them and tragedies like this may occur.”

According to adoption officials in the UK, one of the biggest problems is the way in which human beings are naturally and instinctively drawn towards those they are similar to and share traits with. The west has a generally severe attitude toward incest which is considered abhorrent by most, but once the family tie is removed from the equation the attraction felt between related individuals can be completely overwhelming.

The fact that this particular case represents an extraordinary twist of fate is therefore considered irrelevant – adopted children must for their own wellbeing [sic] be made aware of their family trees.

Uh, YEAH.  Now, I can't fault the poor man for not having force powers to "sense" his own sister, but I can criticize this pomo idea that people don't have histories that need to be taken into account for.  If for nothing else than to prevent marrying your own twin sister, men and women of adoption need to know at the very least who their siblings are.

Yes, what happened to this brother and sister is exceedingly rare and not to be feared as a sign of an impending epidemic of accidental marriages to one's siblings.  Unless...

...in-vitro fertilization with anonymous sperm donation artificially increases the chances of these kinds of things happening.  Oh yes, it could happen again.  As my friend and president of the Center For Bioethics and Culture Network, Jennifer Lahl, has pointed out, how long until we see accidental romances (and/or marriages if not caught in time) with men and women born from sperm donation?  In her documentary "Anonymous Father's Day" you know this must be a pressing question especially among the single adults who were born from sperm donors.  It is not unusual for the same sperm donor to be the father of several dozen biological half-siblings.  All this to say that all this reproductive tech is, like, toadally awesome...until someone marries his sister.

Ah, so this story reminds me of a movie and a theme song America might have heard of once upon a time a galaxy far, far away.

"Join us, we know your sister;

Looks like you kissed her.

Don't fall in love."

Adult SCR - 80+++. ESCR - 000

US News &World Report just reported yet another potential success using adult-donated stem cells in research.  Adult stem cells have been induced with antigens to multiply and become neural-like cells, which researchers confirmed resemble mature brain cells.

From the story,

"The cells proliferated, but also started becoming long and thin and attaching to the bottom of the dish," which is reminiscent of behavior of neural cells, Jia Xie, a research associate on Lerner's team, said in a released statement. Further tests confirmed that they were neural progenitor cells, which are very similar to mature brain cells.

Good news on the ethical front.  As more and more successes are seen on the side of ASCR, the need and desire for ESCR becomes fainter and more irrelevant.  Of course, the scientific cannibalism of fetuses for their parts has never been ethically acceptable for those of us with problems with murder or that sort of thing.  With each ASCR success, perhaps scientists and politicians will decide not to give any more public funding to the legacy of Dr. Moreau.  But I'm not holding my breath yet.