Warming up to Global Cooling

I’m not totally sure how exactly to take this editorial — it seems a tad… schizophrenic?… at times. It goes into a bit of detail showing how that sunspots are active in the global warming/cooling cycle the earth has experienced in all of recorded history (from another source, I know they look at ancient Chinese records and old European records, which of course don’t have thermometer readings, but do have observations about things like communion wine freezing in the bottle in a church in January in England — that’s cold!). So, that part I agree with, but then he quotes some researchers — a tad disdainfully, though, I think — that are still trying to keep alive the notion that man is the cause of global warming and/or global cooling. He quotes without totally disagreeing with them, much less attempting to disprove them. While he seems not to agree with him, he doesn’t refute them either, which makes me wonder whether he does agree with them after all. Anyway, there is a lot of evidence to show that sunspots have a lot more to do with the temperature on earth than anything man can do; so until we can start controlling the sun, I think we’re a little outta luck when it comes to trying to control global warming, or global cooling.

Spellcheck, people!!

I am greatly distressed by the high level of spelling and grammar problems that I see on a frequent basis. Even in some online article published by people who should know better — like the Associated Press, who should only hire journalists who can write proficiently, and should definitely have editors that can catch typographical errors should they occur — I have seen some egregious spelling errors. It really ticks me off when people with whom I associate have poor spelling and grammar because I feel like it’s a black eye on the entire association. I’ve seen this in numerous groups, and I don’t know which is worse, people who have slight errors and don’t realize it, or people who have huge errors and realize it but don’t do anything about it. In some ways, the worst are those people who have huge errors and don’t appear to know or even care. It almost always lowers my estimation of a person to see them make such errors. I know that not everyone (and I include myself) can always type with perfection, and I don’t expect them to — an occasional typographical error (leaving off a letter or accidentally typing it twice, or transposing two letters) is only to be expected. But I’m more talking about just plain ignorance. It really gripes me with women who homeschool their children, because they are teaching their children, supposedly, how to do things right, and if they don’t know how to use correct spelling and grammar, how can their children be any better? It gripes me as much with teachers who also don’t know any better, but I don’t get to see them as often, and it doesn’t stand out when public-school kids spell poorly, while it does reflect on home-schooled kids.

What started this rant was an email I received on my local “cheapcycle” group (for those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s an offshoot of the “freecycle” group, where people give away things they no longer have use for, rather than tossing them; cheapcycle is where you sell these items rather than giving them away), containing so many errors it was disgusting. Here is most of the original post:

**All games have everyhing that goes with them and they are in good
conditon***

-I have an older three speed ceilling fan.. It is a good size and not a
cheap o= 20.00

-I have a hope chest that has great markeing of chinesse people and
there life all over it. I do have a pic. It make a great converstion
peace and looks geat as a coffe table or at the end of the bed or where
ever= 25.00

-I also have a Panasonic CD player that is sliver in color the speakers
are detachable so you can put them anywhere and the front of the cd
player folds up where you put the cd into. It also has am fm radio and
a remote with it. Works great and has great sound= 30.00

**If you think pirces are to high just tell me and lets make a deal**

Now let me comment, in order — “everyhing” should be “everything”; “fan..” should be “fan.”; “cheap o” should be “cheap one”; “markeing” should be “marking”; “chinesse” should be “Chinese”; “there life” should be “their life”; “converstion” should be “conversation”; “peace” should be “piece”; “geat” should be “great”; “coffe” should be “coffee”; “where ever” should be “wherever”; “sliver” should be “silver”; there needs to be a comma or two in that sentence as well; “am fm” should be am/fm”; “pirces” should be “prices”; “to high” should be “too high” and “lets” should be “let’s”.

Any single error is not too egregious, but when you put them all together…

Delaying vaccination may reduce risk of asthma

A study was recently released (in April) that showed a much reduced risk of asthma when the first dose of the DTP vaccine was delayed by two months. Now, this was with the older DTP vaccine, not the newer DTaP vaccine. It remains to be seen whether the effect is similar with the current vaccine, but it shows that at least one vaccine has potentially serious side effects. Parents should use caution, then, and not just assume that vaccines have no risk. The study group began with infants and checked them for asthma occurrence by the age of seven. Most “adverse reactions” that are technically blamable on vaccines have a short window of opportunity for their appearance — say a few days or at most a couple of weeks. Developing asthma several years after the initial vaccination does not fit in that window. But it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, nor isn’t a problem.

Love this poem!

This is just too good.

Ode to National Infant Immunization Week:   Stick It

I actually don’t mind green eggs and ham.
It’s vaccines I don’t like, Uncle Sam.

Too many children have paid the price
for harmful and deceptive immunization advice.

There is more to health than preventing infections
with dozens of toxic and dangerous injections.

You purposefully ignore all of the parents’ cries
that autism, asthma and diabetes continue to rise.

Since the word “safe” implies “free from harm”,
I’ll choose what’s injected into my child’s arm.

I do not want them up my nose,
or spliced into my potatoes.

I will not drink them in a glass.
I will not let you stick my @$$.

I do not want them for any reason
not even in your “worst” flu season.

For decades now you’ve been trying to hide,
the dangers of mercury and formaldehyde.

You won’t do the research to try to explain
why vaccines sometime ruin a developing brain.

Yet you tell us to just say no to drugs,
but if we question a shot you act like thugs.

Are injected monkey and fetal cells really healthy?
Or are they part of the scam that makes drug companies wealthy?

When you all lay down tonight to say your prayers,
please include all the vaccine victims listed in VAERs.

By Ana Phylaxis

h/t: Baby Dust Diaries

Freedom of Choice Act

On another blog I read, someone made a comment that people who are against coerced abortions should be for the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). I asked how that would work, knowing that most cases of coersion are from the woman’s boyfriend or parents. She unwillingly walks into the abortion clinic and submits to the abortion, feeling like she has no other choice. There are cases of child molesters who bring in the children they got pregnant and make them undergo abortions so that the pregnancy does not advance and expose them as the perpetrators. So this commenter asked me if I had actually read the text of FOCA. I had not, so I found it as Senate Bill 1173.

(1) The United States was founded on core principles, such as liberty, personal privacy, and equality, which ensure that individuals are free to make their most intimate decisions without governmental interference and discrimination.

Interesting how they leave out one of the “core principles” if not the core principle of life. And, hate to break it to ya, but our government has interfered throughout its history with a person’s life, liberty and personal privacy to protect an innocent person’s life, liberty and personal privacy. For instance, the death penalty is legal; also, it is legal to kill a person who is threatening the life of another person. I do not have the liberty to drink and drive. I do not have the liberty to ingest heroin, though it is done in the privacy of my own home. So this statement is at best a half-truth.

(2) One of the most private and difficult decisions an individual makes is whether to begin, prevent, continue, or terminate a pregnancy. Those reproductive health decisions are best made by women, in consultation with their loved ones and health care providers.

Except that terminating a pregnancy takes a genetically unique human life. Who speaks for him or her, to protect that life?

(3) In 1965, in Griswold v. Connecticut (381 U.S. 479), and in 1973, in Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113) and Doe v. Bolton (410 U.S. 179), the Supreme Court recognized that the right to privacy protected by the Constitution encompasses the right of every woman to weigh the personal, moral, and religious considerations involved in deciding whether to begin, prevent, continue, or terminate a pregnancy.

Yet the South Dakota Task Force on abortion pointed out many problems with that decision, namely that the state of science and medicine has improved so much in that time, that some assumptions the Court made in its decision have been shown to be false.

(4) The Roe v. Wade decision carefully balances the rights of women to make important reproductive decisions with the State’s interest in potential life. Under Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, the right to privacy protects a woman’s decision to choose to terminate her pregnancy prior to fetal viability, with the State permitted to ban abortion after fetal viability except when necessary to protect a woman’s life or health.

But the fetus is alive until the point of abortion. The commenter on that other blog even used the term “to kill the pregnancy”, which is not a correct use of the term, since “pregnancy” is defined as “the state of being pregnant” or “the period from conception to birth.” You can’t “kill” a state of being nor a period. When I wake up, I don’t “kill sleep.” You can, however, kill a living thing, which is exactly what abortion does. “Pregnant” basically means “to be filled with” — such as a “pregnant pause”, and it is in this way that the term came to be applied to being “with child”. Those who fight for abortion claim that it is the woman only who is to be considered, that it is her body and her right to do whatever she wants to with it. This denies the very meaning of the terms of pregnancy, of being “filled with” something. You cannot be pregnant — filled with — yourself; you can only be pregnant — filled with — something else. That something else is not your body; though vitally connected with your body, it is genetically unique.

Also, after a fetus is viable, there is no way that ensuring the baby will be born dead will protect a woman’s life or health. The same methods of terminating a pregnancy are the same after viability, whether to intentionally produce a living child or a dead child. A woman whose life or health is precarious because of a continued pregnancy can be induced or given a C-section and have a living child. Ensuring the baby is dead at birth is an extra step that carries additional risks to the mother.

(5) These decisions have protected the health and lives of women in the United States. Prior to the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, an estimated 1,200,000 women each year were forced to resort to illegal abortions, despite the risk of unsanitary conditions, incompetent treatment, infection, hemorrhage, disfiguration, and death. Before Roe, it is estimated that thousands of women died annually in the United States as a result of illegal abortions.

This is a lie, founded on an assumption, founded on a lie. There is no basis of proof for this — it was a figment of an abortion promoter’s imagination, which he later admitted. Unfortunately, no one in the abortion industry nor an abortion promoter has the guts to promote the truth; and no one in the pro-life movement is believed, because, well, they’re pro-life, so they’d say stuff like that. Even when there is proof of the truth and no proof of the lie, the lie is still believed because it makes a better story for the abortion advocates.

(6) In countries in which abortion remains illegal, the risk of maternal mortality is high. According to the World Health Organization, of the approximately 600,000 pregnancy-related deaths occurring annually around the world, 80,000 are associated with unsafe abortions.

This wording is deliberate verbal sleight of hand. “Legal” does not equate to “safe” — as is proved by Romania’s legal abortions which end half of all pregnancies, and also cause half of all deaths counted as “maternal mortality.” The reasons of maternal mortality in underdeveloped countries are the same as in this country in the early 1900s, including poor nutrition, poor sanitation, no clean water, little or no medical care, etc. Ireland is a “countr[y] in which abortion remains illegal,” yet it has among the lowest, if not the lowest maternal mortality in the world. In countries where conditions are such that pregnancy and birth are dangerous, abortion is also dangerous. Countries that cannot deal with complications such as postpartum hemorrhage (easily treatable in America and other developed countries by a simple, cheap injection) or infection (easily treatable by antibiotics, which are hard to obtain in third world countries), cannot deal with abortion and post-abortion dangers such as hemorrhage, infection, lacerated cervices or uteri, amniotic fluid embolism, shock, sepsis, etc.

(9) Further threatening Roe, the Supreme Court recently upheld the first-ever Federal ban on an abortion procedure, which has no exception to protect a woman’s health…

This is a reference to the extremely grisly and harsh method of partial-birth abortion. This is only performed on a fetus after viability, when, again, if the woman’s physical health requires the pregnancy to end (or in some way being pregnant is causing real mental problems — which is extremely unlikely), the pregnancy can be terminated by the live birth of the child, by induction or C-section. These happen every day in the United States, in every state, and probably nearly every hospital.

(10) Legal and practical barriers to the full range of reproductive services endanger women’s health and lives. Incremental restrictions on the right to choose imposed by Congress and State legislatures have made access to reproductive care extremely difficult, if not impossible, for many women across the country. Currently, 87 percent of the counties in the United States have no abortion provider.

Oh, waah! I’m cryin’ buckets of tears over this. Y’know what? My county doesn’t have a doctor who attends the birth of babies — the only hospital in my county does not have birth facilities. While I choose home births, were I to choose a hospital birth, I’d have to drive a minimum of a half-hour to the nearest hospital. My sisters have driven nearly two hours to go to the hospital of their choices in order to find a care provider they liked and trusted. There are certain areas of states in which there is no obstetrician for nearly two hours in any direction — because of medico-legal problems like malpractice lawsuits and premiums that have driven doctors out of business or at least out of the area. This means that women are forced to drive for hours to go to prenatal appointments (which means probably at least a dozen visits), and then have to drive a couple of hours to the hospital in labor in order to have a legal birth attendant (since many of these states also restrict midwives from attending home births). So, spare me the crocodile tears about there being no abortion mills in every neighborhood.

(15) Federal protection of a woman’s right to choose to prevent or terminate a pregnancy falls within this affirmative power of Congress, in part, because–

(A) many women cross State lines to obtain abortions and many more would be forced to do so absent a constitutional right or Federal protection;

(B) reproductive health clinics are commercial actors that regularly purchase medicine, medical equipment, and other necessary supplies from out-of-State suppliers; and

(C) reproductive health clinics employ doctors, nurses, and other personnel who travel across State lines in order to provide reproductive health services to patients.

Yeah, and my sisters both crossed state lines to give birth in the hospital of their choice, yet it is not a federal matter that midwives are legal in some states but not in others; nor that there are this set of malpractice laws in Mississippi and that set in Tennessee. Hospitals regularly purchase medicine, medical equipment, and other necessary supplies from out-of-State suppliers — big deal! Heck — the little independent pharmacy where I was employed for over five years bought almost all of its medicine, equipment, and other necessary supplies from an out-of-state company, but I sure hope it doesn’t make it a federal matter! Many people, especially those who live close to the State lines, live in one state and work in another, but that doesn’t put them nor their places of employment under Federal jurisdiction — otherwise companies in Memphis or New Orleans or New York City, and elsewhere, will be in for a big shock!

(b) Prohibition of Interference- A government may not–

(1) deny or interfere with a woman’s right to choose–

(A) to bear a child;

(B) to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability; or

(C) to terminate a pregnancy after viability where termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman; or

(2) discriminate against the exercise of the rights set forth in paragraph (1) in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information.

Since one of the things that was under consideration in the blog I referred to previously was that of “coerced abortion”, this is the thing that is particularly of interest. It says “a government may not” — nothing about the boyfriends, husbands, families, or friends of women or adolescents who may force or coerce them into an abortion against their wishes. And these happen all the time. About 60% of all abortions, I believe it has been said, were entered into unwillingly by the woman, and done only at the behest of those around them, or because they felt like they had no other alternative. Even if the number is only 6%, that is still too many coerced abortions. And this bill doesn’t say anything about non-government coersion.

And there is also a big, huge problem with the tiny, little phrase in (2) of “a government may not… discriminate against the exercise of the rights set forthin paragraph (1) in the regulation or provision of… information.” This says to me that this bill would prohibit the government from requiring that honest and factual information be given to women who may have an abortion. Considering also the many, many lies I have heard from abortion advocates on fetal development, as well as stories from women who have had a prior abortion but were given inaccurate or misleading information from the abortion provider, this is absolutely untenable. Women who make the choice to have an abortion because of lies told them are not having an abortion of their own free will, and may even be having a coerced abortion. Women who are told that their fetuses are “a clump of cells” and “mostly just tissue” or “just blood and tissue”, and get an abortion because they think that is factual, when in fact the baby is very well-developed and obviously identifiable as a human, are having abortions under false reasons, and if they were told the truth, would not have an abortion. Why is it that abortion advocates fight tooth and nail against providing women with honest, factual information regarding fetal development, and showing women an ultrasound picture of the baby, and other similar things? It is because when women know these things, they choose not to have an abortion. But these hypocrites still call themselves “pro-choice.”

Hmmm, maybe I was wrong

In my last post, I essentially said that the Obama-Blagojevich connection smelled, but that Obama probably did not meet personally with the Governor to discuss who would take the Senate seat, and almost certainly didn’t offer him any graft in exchange for his appointment of the person of Obama’s choice. I may be wrong.

See what I mean?

A smelly situation just got smellier!

Obama and Blagojevich

Ok, so the evidence is pretty conclusive that Blagojevich was involved in pay-to-play politics — since he is the only person who can appoint a person to the now-vacant Illinois Senate seat, it seems he was offering it to the highest bidder. Of course, since the seat was vacated by President-elect Obama, the question then becomes, was he involved in it in any way?

The thing that intrigues me most of this is the developing story (and the subsequent denials, “misquotes” and altered memories). Before there was any hint of scandal, one of Obama’s staff said that Obama had been in contact with the Governor (or perhaps this was done through liaisons) on who Obama wanted to fill the vacant seat. No biggee — that is in fact understandable, that if you won the Senate seat fair and square (of course, this is Chicago we’re talking about, so I’m using that term loosely!), that you’d want to have some input or suggestion on who should fill the vacancy, to be best able to represent your constituents — the people who originally elected you to the 6-year term. In other words, it is to be expected that Obama or somebody acting for him would get in contact with the Governor or somebody acting for him and suggest a person to fill the seat, maybe even lobby hard for him or her.

But now Obama (and by that I mean him and those associated with him — his staff and underlings who do business in his name) is saying that he had no contact with the Governor’s office about this. Is that believable? Ok, I guess I can buy that. But why did the first person lie? (Oh, no, I forgot — he just “mis-remembered” that Obama spoke with the Governor concerning who to fill the Senate seat. Yeah.) So if what’s-his-name (Axelrod, was it?) was wrong, it sounds like he was posturing — “Oh, yes, Obama can be in two places at once!” sort of thing — of course he wouldn’t let down his constituents by having no input into who would be chosen to represent them. So, it could be spun that Obama didn’t care enough about the citizens of Illinois to even suggest the most suitable replacement. But what if he did?

See, what’s the big deal about whether or not Obama mentioned a name? If you look at the transcript of the taped conversations, it seems obvious that Blagojevich talked to somebody authorized to speak for Obama, who was acting entirely honest and above-board and never offered any money or position or prestige in exchange for the Senate appointment. This also coincides with what Axelrod was quoted as saying on Nov. 23 — that the President-elect was in contact with the Governor about possible replacements. So, why wouldn’t Obama just say, “Well, of course, as the out-going Senator, I spoke with the Governor of the state to suggest a person (or a few people) who I thought would be the best choices for filling the vacancy”? Why not? It’s believable. In fact, it’s more believable than, “No, I cared so little about the state of Illinois or politics in general that I dropped them like a hot potato as soon as I was declared the winner of the Presidential race.”

If Obama hadn’t talked to Blagojevich about a suitable replacement, why wasn’t there a correction from the Obama camp following the Axelrod interview? That’s one interesting thing to consider.

Another is, if Obama did not talk to Blagojevich, why is it in the transcript that Blagojevich got flaming mad when Obama (or his authorized representative) did not offer anything for the seat? Just from what I read, it sounds like Blagojevich and Obama did not talk one-on-one, but rather that the Governor and possibly the President-elect used intermediaries. Otherwise, Blagojevich wouldn’t have asked what Obama offered, and been so mad when he found out that the answer was “nothing.” So I would say that the transcript clears Obama (and his authorized representatives) of any immediate wrong-doing in the scandal, in that he did not offer any sort of bribe in order to get the person he wanted appointed.

So why the denials? Why the obfuscation? And how to account for the transcript if there was no contact between the two parties at all?

Is it possible that while Obama (or an authorized representative) declined to try to bribe Blagojevich, that if it became public that he was approached by Blagojevich with an expectation of graft, and Obama did not report this, that he could be guilty of breaking some law. Which is a suitable explanation for why there is a denial of any contact, when that is almost not logical (unless Obama and Blagojevich were political enemies — which is possible, if Blagojevich wanted to run for the Presidency and was preempted by Obama; or if there was some other “bad blood” between them that we don’t know of — although they each endorsed the other in their most recent political runs), and in fact is contradicted by both the Axelrod interview and the transcript itself.

So, it’s possible that one of Obama’s underlings talked to one of Blagojevich’s underlings, and the President-elect did not speak personally to the Governor. Then, Obama can truthfully say that he did not speak to the Governor about a replacement. But if your authorized representatives talk to each other, it’s still deceptive to say that you didn’t. But why didn’t Obama just say, “Of course I suggested a person whom I think would best represent the people of the state of Illinois to someone in the Governor’s office, but at no time was there any attempt at corruption”? — unless there was?

Can you imagine the fall-out if somewhere on these tapes is Obama talking to one of Blagojevich’s lackeys in which the lackey starts to hint or even press Obama for some sort of ambassadorship for the Governor or his wife, or something of that nature, in exchange for appointing so-and-so to the vacant Senate seat? Yikes! Talk about being tainted!

And that’s the conclusion the denials have led me to — that Obama or an authorized representative did indeed talk to somebody in the Governor’s office about a Senate replacement, and that Obama did not offer any political exchange, and that if such was suggested, that he declined any graft for the Governor. How much Obama knew and how much he was shielded from knowing about a suggestion of graft can only be known by Obama and any intermediaries. But it stinks. Even if Obama did nothing illegal, it still stinks — and if he was aware of the corruption that was being attempted by Gov. Blagojevich and did nothing….

Case in Point

Recently, I blogged about something and mentioned that when Democrats are involved in political scandals, their party affiliation is barely mentioned — sometimes, at most it is Politician’s Name (D-NY). Having lived in the Chicago area for a couple of years, I knew that Rod Blagojevich was of course a Democrat. Yesterday, I saw a bit of TV while getting my tire fixed about him being arrested. I saw such little of it that I wasn’t 100% certain what the corruption was about, but I sure didn’t remember them saying his political party. In reading more about it, I discovered what the corruption was about, but still didn’t remember them saying that he was a Democrat. Maybe I skipped over it. So, today, I decided to look specifically at it.

Here’s one story about it — no “D” or “Democrat” in it at all! But it was so short, maybe there wasn’t room for his political affiliation. (snicker, giggle, snort — yeah right!). So I did a Yahoo! news search of “blagojevich” to see what came up.

Washington Post — it says one time, halfway down the third paragraph, that he is “…the Democratic governor…”, and that’s it.

Another from the Washington Post — it says it twice — once at the start of the fourth paragraph that Blagojevich was “The Democratic governor”; and then towards the end of the article, in a bit of “history”, it says that Blagojevich was elected to Congress after Democrat Dan Rostenkowski was convicted of embezzlement.

The 3rd story, again from the Washington Post, has it part-way down the article that Blagojevich and Obama are “fellow Democrat[s]“. That’s it.

The next story, surprisingly from CNN, was a little refreshing. Not only does it identify him as a Democrat right underneath the headshot of him at the top of the article, but it also said he’s a Democrat in the second sentence. Later references to “Democrat” include other politicians who are trying to figure out this mess.

Fifth, this time a commentary, again from CNN, fails to indentify Blagojevich as a Democrat until almost the end of the article.

Next, again from CNN, it mentions that he’s a Democrat in the first line, but never uses the term in the remainder of the article — and the title of the story is, “Blagojevich made name as a friend of the common man.” Aw, don’t that make you just feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

Seventh seems to be almost a rehash of #4, except it doesn’t identify him as a Democrat under the picture.

Eighth, this time from Yahoo! News, with an AP byline, the term is used one time, at the end of the 4th paragraph.

Ninth, again from Yahoo! News, his political party affiliation is not mentioned, except in passing, at the end of the story, in which they distance Obama and Blagojevich as being merely “fellow Democrats.” Although many politicians are quoted, and are identified as being Democrats, the man at the center of the corruption scandal was not identified as a Democrat.

Finally, #10, again from CNN, the first word is “Democratic”, and it’s never mentioned again.

It’s not in a single headline. Not one. Contrast this to when any Republican gets caught in any sort of scandal — his party affiliation is shouted from the rooftops! I remember when the Larry Craig sex scandal broke, his being a Republican was in just about every headline I saw (and I didn’t read much beyond the headlines). I even remember thinking, because a Democrat was in a scandal not too long before or after that, and I wondered about the political affiliation of that person, because it wasn’t in the headline — but Craig’s was. It was then that I realized that most newspapers go out of their way to announce when Republicans get caught with their pants down (literally or figuratively), and go out of their way to keep from announcing it when Democrats get caught up in scandal.

I gotta do something about this

I know it’s probably normal, but I don’t remember it happening with any of the kids I’ve baby-sat, nor with my nieces and nephews.

My son is just now four years old, and has recently taken to acting out everything he sees while watching videos. I’m pretty particular about what he watches, but I’m going to have to change my criteria, I think. When watching the Dr. Seuss video “The Sneetches”, for example, at one point the Sneetches are going around in a figure 8 pattern going in and out of two different machines (getting stars on and off of their bellies — just go find the YouTube video, or better yet, read the book), and at that point, my son gets up and starts running around in circles for the whole scene. Yesterday, he and my younger son were watching Charlie Brown Christmas while I was in the kitchen, and all of a sudden my younger son started crying like he’d been hurt. Now, I don’t think I’ve ever sat down and watched Charlie Brown Christmas, but I know it’s pretty innocuous, and may even have a good moral to it (and I do know that Linus quotes from the Bible, telling the story of the birth of Christ, which makes it even better), but I’m going to have to contemplate whether I should let the kids watch it again because of what happened. Knowing how my son had been acting out whatever he saw on the screen (previously, he was Tigger “bouncing” Pooh [my poor younger son who is not stuffed with fluff, and who does hurt when he is all of a sudden thrown off balance and banged onto the floor]; or Rabbit climbing on top of Eeyore’s shoulders [also played by my much-maligned younger son, against his very vocal wishes]), I asked him what happened, and he said something about “cracking” my younger son on the head. I can only assume that Lucy whacks Linus or something on the head for being a “blockhead”.

Previously, I never had a problem with them watching things that I might have watched when I was younger, like Charlie Brown, or Bugs Bunny or anything like that. Now, I’m not so sure. I’m scared that he might see Granny’s bulldog grab Sylvester the cat [of course it would be my younger son!] by the throat, and punch him in the face! It’s funny to see Sylvester knocked out of his fur, but would most definitely not be funny to have Seth get a full-fledged smack in the face!

I’ve kinda always poked fun (in my own mind, of course, never out loud) at those people who object to cartoon violence, and would not let their children watch good ol’ Bugs Bunny and what-not. I still don’t think those things are bad in and of themselves. But to protect my younger son, until my older son has more impulse control, or until he realizes that he simply cannot act out everything he sees on the screen, or until he realizes that his brother actually gets hurt when he is hit, kicked, pushed down, slapped, smacked, or otherwise manhandled, I think I’m going to have to join the anti-cartoon violence people. But for different reasons, I think. If I understand correctly, they usually object to it because they think it produces more violent children, and they think that if they can just protect their little perfect angels from ever seeing violence, that they will never be violent. That’s bull, of course — kids don’t have to be taught to be bad — they have to be taught to be good! I don’t have a philosophical reason for keeping my kids from seeing Bugs Bunny — it’s purely practical — I want my younger son not to be a punching bag!

I can only imagine what would happen if I let my kids watch The Three Stooges! Seth would probably be blind from Keith poking him in the eyes, saying, “Why, you…!” Yikes.

Planned Parenthood covers up child abuse, child rape, and coaches kids on crossing states lines to obtain an abortion without parental consent

Reading some of the comments after this was part refreshing and part annoying. Some commenters seemed to suggest that since the woman was merely “posing” as a 13-year-old, and not actually thirteen years of age, that this PP nurse did nothing wrong in what she did — which was to say “I didn’t hear his age” after the girl said the baby’s father was 31, and told the girl that since she was just 13 she would have to report her case to Child Protective Services because it was child abuse and child rape (proving that this nurse was not ignorant of the law, although she more or less showed she had no problem with ignoring the law), and coached her to say that the father was “a boy at school” in the same grade with her, “problem solved.” Then because the girl was underage, and didn’t want to tell her parents (a requirement in Indiana in underage abortions — as it well should be, because this is a medical procedure performed on a minor — we can’t even freakin’ give Tylenol at schools to a minor without parental consent!!), the nurse showed her (but did not tell her) the name of a clinic in Illinois where she could obtain an abortion without parental consent.

It does not matter what the girl or woman’s actual age was. The nurse accepted that she was 13, and without batting an eye told her how to circumvent the law. When police officers set up stings in chat rooms hoping to nab adults who want to have sex with minors (as seen on Dateline with some frequency — one guy was even caught twice!), the police officers are not actually under 18. Probably a great many of them are actually men, instead of teenage girls. But what matters is what the perps think the person’s age is. Same thing here.

This nurse got disciplined, but do you really think it’s an isolated incident?